Advancing Seismic Resilient Housing at 18th WCEE in Milan 

Build Change recently returned from Milan, where we participated in the 18th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering (WCEE), the premier global earthquake engineering conference, which takes place every four years. WCEE 2024 was hosted by the International Association for Earthquake Engineering (IAEE) and Associazione Nazionale Italiana di Ingenieria Sismica (ANIDIS).  This year’s Build Change delegation included Lizzie Blaisdell Collins, Anna Pavan, Liva Shrestha, Oluwaseun Okusanya, Stefano Pompei, and Sofia Andrade Pardo. The team spoke at technical sessions and engaged with key engineering and advocacy partners to promote seismic-resilient housing. We also convened sessions of multiple presenters and hosted a reception with the theme United for Global Impact with Build Change.

 

Since our debut at the 13th WCEE in 2004 in Vancouver, where our Founder and CEO Dr. Elizabeth Hausler presented her Fulbright thesis that led to the founding of Build Change, we have consistently participated in each subsequent conference. Over the years, we have shared critical experience and practical solutions to reduce the seismic vulnerability of housing and schools exposed to earthquakes and multiple hazards.

This year, Build Change co-hosted a special technical session with the Colombian Seismic Engineering Association (AIS) on the development and application of the AIS-410-23 document. This session provided a pathway to address informal and vulnerable housing, showcasing our work to engineers from various countries.

We also hosted a special session in celebration of our 20th Year of Impact. During this event, we reflected on two decades of impactful engineering dedicated to disaster-resilient housing and explored new approaches to scale up our impact in the future. Additionally, we presented at a special session on confined masonry, sharing specific technical solutions we have implemented globally to convert existing informal houses into more resilient confined masonry structures.

Throughout the conference, we highlighted the exceptional work being done to enhance seismic resilience in informal housing, driving transformative change on a global scale. This was made possible by the unwavering support of our key partners and supporters from around the world, who joined their voices to ours, sharing their experiences and insights. Together, we are not only celebrating our past achievements but also paving the way for a future where every home is disaster-resilient.

AIS 410-23: A New Policy for Seismic Resilience of Informally Built Houses

Colombia’s population is one of the most urbanized in Latin America, with over 77% of people now living in cities. Specific socioeconomic conditions have led to a prevalent presence of informal housing, characterized by substandard quality and inadequate structural systems. Over the past three decades, neighborhoods of informal origin have rapidly expanded in size and density, with more than 50% of their growth occurring in urban areas. Colombia’s mountainous and volcanic landscape exposes its residents to various hazards, with earthquakes posing the greatest threat to housing. The high vulnerability of informal housing significantly increases the risk of loss of lives and financial resources.

In response to this urgent issue, Colombian stakeholders across the value chain—including public institutions, universities, professional organizations, and risk management agencies—have collaboratively sought sustainable and scalable engineered solutions. Their efforts include new investigations, the development of methodologies to strengthen these constructions, and direct field applications. This culminated in the publication of the AIS 410-23: Evaluation and Reduction of Seismic Vulnerability in Masonry Houses document, developed under the leadership of the Colombian Association for Earthquake Engineering (AIS).

The document presents an alternative engineering method to reduce the vulnerability of existing informal masonry houses up to three stories, offering prescriptive solutions feasible in this specific context. It also includes guidelines for a progressive approach to vulnerability reduction, essential in scenarios with limited resources. The standard has been adopted by the Colombian government through Decrees 1401 and 1580 of September 2023.

Presenters and representatives from the audience at the special session dedicated to the AIS 410-23 document at the WCEE in Milan.

Our presentation (available in our Resource Library) of the Colombian experience at the WCEE through the work of its key actors provided a model that can be expanded to other contexts and geographies, where reducing seismic vulnerability in housing is crucial to achieving effective risk mitigation.

“Vulnerable masonry houses contribute more than 70% to the average annual losses of all building classes in the three main cities (Bogotá, Medellin, Cali). So it is important to pay attention to these building Types.” Ana Beatriz Acevedo, professor at EAFIT University. 

Resilience Through Progressive Retrofitting: a Smarter Risk Management

At Build Change, we enhance home safety incrementally, aligning with homeowners’ and housing programs’ needs and budgets. This approach ensures houses are constructed to a higher standard, reducing their vulnerability to various hazards such as earthquakes, windstorms, and flooding.

Embracing the philosophy of progressive vulnerability mitigation, the AIS 410-23 document addresses the realities and challenges of implementing large-scale solutions. The engineer responsible for the design is the ultimate decision-maker, prioritizing actions based on project-specific needs. The document emphasizes that the primary goal is the reduction of vulnerabilities compared to the current state of the house and provides general guidelines to support this process, highlighting the most critical aspects to ensure effective risk management.

“Smarter risk management is about prioritizing the easiest solutions with the highest impact that can start taking place immediately.” The Build Change Guide to Resilient Housing: An Essential Handbook for Governments and Practitioners. Denver, CO: Build Change, 2021.

United for Global Impact with Build Change

As we approach 2030, Build Change’s vision that “Every Home Is Disaster Resilient” is more relevant than ever. The need for multi-hazard resilience is increasing, as hazards become stronger and more frequent every year. At least 240 climate-related disasters and nearly 1,800 earthquakes of 5.0 magnitude or greater were reported in 2023 – resulting in a death toll of 12,000 and 64,000 respectively. According to UN Habitat, by 2030, more than 40% of the world’s population–over 3 billion people–will be in need of adequate housing, mostly in the global South. Despite these numbers, housing often falls between the cracks when developing policies and programming or channeling resources.

Working with nearly 200 partners across 26 countries for the last 20 years, Build Change has implemented programs worldwide to prevent housing loss due to earthquakes and other events. Including both mitigation and disaster response, as well as reconstruction and rehabilitation, these programs were implemented in partnership with public institutions and private stakeholders to apply innovative technical and strategic approaches adapted to different local contexts, integrating heavily and building on local building practices, research, and industry knowledge.

Build Change celebrated its impact with its key partners and more presenters working around the world. Both those who have contributed to the critical knowledge base and those that are advancing best practices into the future for improving the seismic resilience of housing shared their experience and insights during the technical session titled “Improving seismic resilience in housing: reflecting on 20 years past and strategies for the future”. Cases from Colombia, Dominica, India, Turkey, Nepal, the Philippines, the U.S.A, and more were included, highlighting paths from research to practice, efforts in awareness-raising and capacity building, and the key role of local perspectives and priorities.

During this year’s WCEE, Build Change also hosted a side event where we invited new and existing partners to join us to discuss disaster-resilient housing and network with top global professionals – creating a platform for a wide spectrum of voices to collaborate on a path forward for earthquake- and disaster-resilient housing.

 

Watch our presentations at the 18th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering on this playlist on our YouTube channel.