SP3 News
Official Public Announcement of the Formation of the Resilient Design Coalition
Announcing Launch of the Resilient Design Coalition!
We are excited to announce the launch of the Resilient Design Coalition, to advance resilient design in structural engineering, with an immediate focus on further developing building code provisions for resilient seismic design. This will support both the 2026 BSSC NEHRP Provisions and ASCE 7-28.
Technical Background
The Building Seismic Safety Council (BSSC) has made significant progress through its 25 member Functional Recovery Task Committee (FRTC) and associated working groups, involving approximately ~80-100 total participants [overview]. Through extensive collaborative effort, this team has produced a complete working voluntary appendix for the 2026 NEHRP Provisions, which provides a full framework for resilient design provisions, but only includes initial resilient design requirements for a subset of structural systems.
Time-Sensitive Opportunity
The BSSC Provisions Update Committee (PUC) is currently balloting these initial resilient design provisions as a voluntary appendix, creating a unique one-year window of opportunity to further expand the provisions. During this critical period, we have the chance to expand the scope of covered structural systems, and expand the draft provisions into a comprehensive set of provisions, which is ready for code implementation and use in resilient design. The Resilient Design Coalition was formed in specific response to this time-sensitive opportunity, with the goal of bringing this firmly all across the finish line in this code cycle.
The Role of the Resilient Design Coalition
To make the most of this opportunity, the Resilient Design Coalition will do the technical studies needed to underpin further developments of the resilient design provisions, and then develop code change proposals, which will supplement and refine the functional recovery appendix already being balloted at the PUC. The vision is that the current voluntary appendix would continue to be balloted and approved as-is (to establish the starting point), and the work of the Coalition would create proposals for many amendments/improvements throughout the remainder of this code cycle.
The BSSC PUC leadership has expressly supported the creation of this funded Resilient Design Coalition, and has stated that they are open to reviewing and voting on proposals from the Coalition (with the specific request that the pre-qualification methodology be submitted for review/voting in January 2025).
While the Resilient Design Coalition will function independently of the BSSC PUC FRTC and ASCE7, all code change proposals it develops will be vetted and balloted in the same manner as with any other code change proposals.
The specific technical work of the Coalition is planned to include: (a) creating a repeatable and approved pre-qualification standard for creating resilient design requirements, (b) pre-qualifying as many additional structural systems as possible, (c) running testbed cases to vet the draft provisions, (d) refining current draft provisions to remove conservatisms, (e) further vetting of underlying methods and comparisons to earthquake experience data, and (f) anything else needed to further the success of building code provisions for resilient design for functional recovery.
Funding and Management
To date, the Coalition is being funded through a grant from the Charles Pankow Foundation, and by several organizations supporting the emergence of resilient design in the structural engineering industry (AISC, Clark Pacific, Taylor Devices, and CoreBrace); we are also in discussion with several other funders who may join the Coalition in the near-future. The Coalition is being managed by Haselton Baker Risk Group (as defacto convener), but with all Pankow Foundation funds being managed publicly through the research office at CSU Chico. To take the work as far as possible in this code cycle, the work is being done at below-commercial rates and HB-Risk is providing management with no overhead.