The Resilient Design Coalition was founded to advance resilient design in the structural engineering community, with an immediate focus on further developing building code provisions for resilient seismic design for functional recovery, in support of both the 2026 BSSC NEHRP Provisions and the ASCE 7-28 Standard. Additional context and background is provided at the bottom of this page.

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Support for the Resilient Design Coalition work is provided by partial matching funds from the Charles Pankow Foundation and support from a broad cross-section of structural system supporters within our industry.

• Charles Pankow Foundation (co-funding for many structural systems)
• American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) (SpeedCore and Steel SCBF)
• Clark Pacific (precast hybrid moment frame)
• Concrete Masonry and Hardscapes Association (masonry rigid-wall flexible-diaphragm, general masonry)
• CoreBrace (steel buckling-restrained braced frames)
• Taylor Devices Incorporated (Special Steel Damped Moment Frame)

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 and planning report]. Through extensive collaborative effort, this team has produced a complete working voluntary appendix proposed for the 2026 NEHRP Provisions, which provides a full framework for resilient design for functional recovery, 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, making the currently proposed provisions more comprehensive for code implementation and usable in resilient design. The Resilient Design Coalition was formed in specific response to this time-sensitive opportunity.

The Role of the 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.

For the work and role of the Resilient Design Coalition, the vision is that the current voluntary appendix would continue to be balloted and approved as currently proposed in order to complete the substantial work of the FRTC. The work of the Coalition would then supplement this work of the FRTC, by creating proposals for further amendments/improvements throughout the remainder of this code cycle.

The BSSC PUC leadership has expressly supported the creation of this funded Resilient Design Coalition, with the direction that it the Coalition operate separately from the FRTC, and has stated that they are open to reviewing and voting on proposals from the Coalition.

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) further development of a pre-qualification procedure for creating resilient design requirements for structural systems, (b) pre-qualifying additional structural systems, (c) running testbed cases to further vet the currently proposed provisions, (d) potentially refining the currently proposed provisions to remove conservatisms, (e) further vetting of underlying methods and comparisons to past earthquake observations, 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 (as listed above); 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). To take this work as far as possible in this code cycle, HB-Risk is providing management of this effort with no overhead.