National Institute of Building Sciences

Data-Driven Success: How Being a Data-Centric Organization Maximizes the Value of Digital Technologies
2025-08-19 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Virtual Event
Is your organization getting the most out of the digital technologies it deploys and data generated on your projects? This session will share the latest findings of a study conducted by NIBS and Dodge Construction Network, that examines how nearly 200 owners in the US construction industry are deploying digital technologies on their projects and the value generated by their use. The session will also look at the degree to which these owners have transformed their policies and practices to make their organization more data-centric, which allows them to significantly increase the project benefits that these technologies provide and their ability to leverage project data throughout their organization, from capital planning to design and construction to asset management and operations.
For owners, this session provides a roadmap for getting more out of their digital technology investments and the kinds of data-centric policies and practices they need to consider. For architects, engineers and contractors, the session also offers great examples of how to transform their own organizations to become more data-centric, but more importantly, it reveals how to build a competitive advantage through a better understanding of their clients’ digital and data needs, and how to stay relevant as the industry continues down the path of digital transformation.
Join Roger Grant, VP of Building Technology with NIBS, and Dr. Donna Laquidara-Carr, Industry Insights Research Director at Dodge Construction Network, as they discuss the top findings and recommendations from the study and what they mean to everyone engaged in planning, design, construction and operations of buildings and civil infrastructure in this digital age.

BEC Greater-Detroit Symposium
2025-08-11 08:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | VisTaTech Center, 18600 Haggerty Road, Livonia, MI, 48152, United States
The Building Enclosure Council of Greater Detroit is proud to celebrate their Symposium with you again. For each Symposium, the BEC-GD symposium presents a distinguished panel of speakers to discuss the current and upcoming trends in building enclosure performance and evaluation.
The event includes a continental breakfast, lunch, and snacks. As in previous years, there will be Continuing Education Credits and a raffle for prizes for attendees who visit all of the vendors and obtain a signature from each.

Harnessing the Power of Cool Exterior Walls to Enhance Heat Resilience
2025-08-05 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York) | Virtual Event
Extreme heat causes more deaths in the United States than any other natural disaster.
Discussions around the role of buildings in heat mitigation and resilience often focus on air-conditioning, and while A/C can be lifesaving, it also increases peak cooling demand, greenhouse gas emissions, and waste heat released back into the environment. Further, regions with historically cooler climates and low percentages of air-conditioned homes are now experiencing longer, more frequent, and more intense heat waves, leaving residents without A/C at risk of heat illness and death.
Incorporating passive cooling strategies in new construction and building retrofits is critically important to improve heat resilience in buildings without access to A/C and to reduce A/C demand in conditioned spaces.
Like cool roofs, which are required for most buildings in California and for commercial buildings in several other U.S. cities and states, cool exterior walls efficiently reflect solar radiation back into the atmosphere instead of transferring it as heat into buildings. For a single building, this helps reduce solar heat gain, indoor temperatures, and A/C use, while increasing resilience to extreme heat, particularly in buildings with little insulation or that do not have or are unable to operate A/C. On a larger scale, this helps raise the community’s albedo, lower outdoor temperatures, mitigate heat impacts, reduce peak cooling demand, and decrease greenhouse gas emissions.
This presentation will describe the impacts of cool exterior walls on buildings and communities and the radiative properties of solar reflectance and thermal emittance, which determine the coolness of a wall surface. It also will provide examples of potential HVAC energy cost savings resulting from cool exterior wall use in different U.S. climates and equip attendees with the ability to estimate building-specific savings using a publicly available tool developed by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Additionally, the presentation will summarize wall radiative property provisions in codes, standards, and programs, including the 2024 International Energy Conservation Code, ASHRAE Standard 90.1, and LEED v4.1, and provide a tutorial for how to find and interpret independently verified radiative property data for exterior wall materials.

Learning Objectives

Explain how cool exterior walls can reduce a building’s solar heat gain and lower temperatures of buildings and surrounding communities.
Describe the surface radiative properties solar reflectance and thermal emittance, which influence the coolness of building exteriors.
Estimate building-specific cool exterior wall HVAC energy cost savings using Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Cool Surface Savings Explorer and local electricity cost data.
Compare the radiative properties of exterior wall materials and understand which materials will meet project requirements using a third-party database of rated products.

Coastal Resilience Planning and Adaptation for Waterfront Facilities
2025-07-31 14:00 - 15:00 (America/New_York) | Virtual Event
In 2023 and 2024 a two-part workshop on Resilience of Naval Waterfront Facilities in a Changing Climate was held, co-sponsored by the Naval Facilities Engineering and Expeditionary Warfare Center (NAVFAV-EXWC) and the Coasts, Oceans, Ports, and Rivers Institute (COPRI) of ASCE. Part I of the workshop focused on developing non-stationary extreme wind speeds, sea level rise, and flooding loads on waterfront facilities, while Part II of the workshop exclusively involved life-cycle assessment, performance-based resilience planning and adaptation design to help protect public safety and to enrich the life quality in coastal communities including military installations. Resilience-based decision-making ensures community stakeholders have quantifiable information to select the most effective and efficient mitigations and/or adaptation strategies. Such quantification requires community-level models of physical infrastructure such as buildings, roadways, and water/power networks to be fully coupled with social and economic models by using computational tools and platforms, such as the Interdependent Networked Community Resilience Modeling Environment (IN-CORE). The impact of coastal multi-hazards is assessed in terms of infrastructure damage and service loss (e.g., disruption of goods flow through port and intermodal transportation). The potential to leverage robust community modeling, often referred to as digital twins, to assess the coupling between short- and long-term impacts is also highlighted.
This webinar intends to present the lessons learned from the workshop, based on the group discussions of over one hundred coastal resilience leaders and professionals from government agencies, industry, and academia. A discussion will focus on implementation of innovative methodologies and techniques on updating the structural design loads on waterfront facilities for non-stationary extreme wind speeds, sea level rise, and flooding hazards; developing performance-based and site-specific resilience planning and adaptation for coastal operation continuity; and promoting computational tools and platforms, such as IN-CORE.

Learning Objectives

Review available datasets and tools on establishing the relationship between extreme events and performance of coastal structures and infrastructure systems;
Establish the basic concept of extreme event effects (e.g. winds, floods, and tsunamis) on structural design codes and standards;
Inform best practices of life-cycle adaptation and a risk-based decision-making process to decision-makers for coastal resilience planning strategies; and
Promote interdependent community and infrastructure system models that are available for use in engineering practices (e.g., IN-CORE) and the training necessary for civil engineers and government planners who may use these models.

Aligning Resilience Goals in the Built Environment: How Risk Management Processes & Standards Incentivize Resilience
2025-07-22 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York) | Virtual Event
Given the increasing frequency and severity of natural hazards and the dire predictions of climate scientists, it is imperative to redouble efforts to mitigate climate change and adapt to reduce the catastrophic risks of a worsening climate and sea level rise. Likewise, it is important to proactively address natural hazards caused by geological processes, such as earthquakes.
However, there always are competing priorities within capital and operational budgets for buildings and infrastructure, making it challenging to appropriately allocate funding to mitigate potential future risks. For investors, lenders, insurers, and property managers, it is increasingly important to assess climate and natural hazard risks and vulnerabilities, and to prioritize, plan, and implement resilience measures to guard against future losses.
This interactive panel session will introduce the emerging practice of climate and natural hazard risk assessment. We will learn about some of the tools and methods currently being used to assess and mitigate vulnerabilities, while improving the resilience and performance of new and existing buildings.
Panelists will explore how the standards and information gathered during commercial real estate (CRE) finance and development can drive resilience investment. This will include an introduction to the new ASTM E3429 Standard Guide for Property Resilience Assessment and its application in CRE transactions, as well as a guide for resilience-focused capital improvement planning. Panelists also will share an overview of new resilience requirements included in frameworks and new voluntary standards, such as the USGBC’s LEED version 5 rating system, the application of U.S. Resiliency Council (USRC), and the FORTIFIED program standards by IBHS, all currently being used in CRE finance and development.

Learning Objectives

Assess how hazards are impacting buildings and infrastructure
Understand how regulatory and industry trends are affecting commercial real estate
Review the primary risk management processes and standards for hazards
Consider how these processes and standards can be used to reduce risks and create value in commercial real estate

Part 2: Electronic Leak Detection: Lessons Learned from ELD Testing and Continuous Monitoring
2025-07-17 01:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York) | Virtual Event
In this session, we will cover the lessons learned from multiple case studies regarding electronic leak detection (ELD) quality control testing as part of new construction, forensic testing in existing buildings with active leaks, and continuous moisture monitoring for conventional roofing.
Participants will learn about the principles outlined in the ASTM Standard Guide D7877 and ASTM Standard Practice D8231 and will be able to identify common causes for moisture intrusion.

Learning Objectives

Understand the science, capabilities and limitations of ELD, as outlined in ASTM Guide D7877 & ASTM Practice D8231.
Recognize common causes of failures found in numerous types of roofing and waterproofing membranes.
Identify potential future design and construction failures based on analyzed data from real-time construction monitoring.
Distinguish different applications for ELD testing and continuous moisture monitoring for risk mitigation and loss control.

Part 1: Electronic Leak Detection for Roofing, Waterproofing, and the Building Envelope
2025-07-16 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York) | Virtual Event
This one-hour course will cover electronic leak detection (ELD) testing methods used for quality assurance of roofing and waterproofing membranes.
Participants will learn about the principles outlined in the ASTM Standard Guide D7877 and ASTM Standard Practice D8231 and will be able to identify which assemblies are compatible with electronic testing and active monitoring.

Learning Objectives

Recognize the differences between the four electronic testing methods for roofing and waterproofing membranes.
Understand the capabilities and limitations of electronic leak detection (ELD) as outlined in ASTM Guide D7877 & ASTM Practice D8231.
Identify potential future design and construction failures based on analyzed data from real time construction monitoring.
Distinguish different applications for fully monitored embedded leak detection systems and how they function.

2025 BOMA International Conference & Expo
2025-06-28 - 2025-07-01 | Boston Convention Center, 415 Summer St, Boston, MA, 02210, United States
The BOMA International Conference & Expo is known as the ultimate destination for property professionals—and not just because of the top-quality educational programming and the business solutions found at the Expo. This is your opportunity to step outside your day-to-day and celebrate your industry, discover how best-in-class properties are navigating changes in the market, see the latest trends come to life … and you can even win prizes! Take a look at what’s happening this year, then get ready for an unforgettable trip to Philadelphia.

Implementation of BIM/Digital Twins at MTA NY
2025-06-26 12:00 - 13:00 UTC
This presentation will provide a case study on how the Metropolitan Transportation Authority – NY (henceforth MTA) approaches and implements BIM and Digital Twins, including valuable insights, lessons learned, and best practices. It will also examine the software stack on which MTA has standardized for BIM and Digital Twins, and describe data management practices employed for these technologies.
MTA owns and/or operates significant transportation assets in the NYC Metropolitan Area, including a subway and bus network within the city itself, commuter railroads out to the suburbs, and several vehicular bridges & tunnels. MTA has been implementing BIM on select capital projects for the last 15 years. Over the past few years MTA has started combining other digital data, such as point clouds, reality models, and photogrammetry with the BIM models, thus creating Digital Twins. Since 2022, BIM has been required on a greater portion of capital projects, thus accelerating the rate of implementation. Although MTA’s assets are primarily horizontal, early BIM projects focused on discrete, vertical facilities, such as passenger stations, fan plants, bus depots, and signal buildings. However, over the past few years MTA has also been modeling horizontal (civil) assets that are receiving capital work, such as tracks, bridges, and subsurface utilities. Session Description- This presentation will provide a case study on how the Metropolitan Transportation Authority – NY (henceforth MTA) approaches and implements BIM and Digital Twins, including valuable insights, lessons learned, and best practices.

Learning Objectives

Learn about MTA’S- BIM Directive & Evaluation Criteria, BIM Statistics.
Learn about MTA- Data integration and Standard Libraries.
Learn about- MTA’S Digital Twin Platform.
Learn what Digital Twin Implementation challenges MTA has faced, and related Lessons Learned.

Congressional Briefing: Retrofitting for Resilience
2025-06-26 10:30 - 11:30 (America/New_York) | Rayburn Congressional Office Building, Room 2167, Rayburn Congressional Office Building, Room 2167
Extreme weather events, including hurricanes, wildfires, and severe storms, have caused devastating financial and human losses across the U.S., with cumulative disaster costs reaching nearly $3 trillion since 1980. In 2024 alone, 27 major disasters resulted in damage exceeding $1 billion each, underscoring the urgent need for resilience measures to protect lives, property, and local economies.
The 2025 Moving Forward report Retrofitting for Resilience outlines the urgent need for proactive investment in disaster mitigation strategies. It highlights that every $1 spent on resilience can yield up to $13 in savings from avoided losses, according to the 2019 National Institute of Building Sciences Mitigation Saves Study. It also urges policymakers, industry leaders, and communities to take immediate action to support the retrofitting of buildings and infrastructure for enhanced resilience in the face of increasingly frequent and severe natural disasters.
Join us for a Congressional briefing on the findings of the new report, which outlines how strategic investments in disaster mitigation can save lives, protect property, and strengthen local economies. This timely discussion will highlight:

Evidence-based strategies for retrofitting buildings and infrastructure

Policy recommendations to support resilient communities nationwide

S. 1323: The Facilitating Increased Resilience, Environmental Weatherization and Lowered Liability (FIREWALL) Act

Keep scrolling for a video of the briefing.

SBSE Quarterly Seminar Series - Summer Solstice 2025
2025-06-20 10:00 - 12:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Virtual Event
The Society of Building Science Educators is thrilled to invite you to our second quarterly seminar series! The featured panel of experts— John Straube and Keith Simon—will share their insights on building enclosures in building science education. Join the discussion on Friday, June 20, 2025, at 10:00 AM Pacific (PDT) to celebrate the solstice and gain valuable knowledge from our distinguished guests. We can’t wait to connect with you.

A New Resource to Understanding Advanced Lighting Controls
2025-06-11 14:00 - 14:45 (America/New_York) | Virtual Event
Did you know that advanced lighting controls could result in an average of nearly 70% lighting energy savings? Unfortunately, there is an industry-wide knowledge gap about how to utilize advanced controls to capitalize on energy savings and ensure buildings run at peak performance. To address this gap, Slipstream was awarded a grant by the Department of Defense (DoD) Environmental Security Technology Certification Program (ESTCP) to develop a comprehensive training resource on advanced lighting controls.
This webinar will briefly describe the project and will show how to access the free training. Additionally, the webinar will go over some lighting controls basics to get you thinking about saving energy in your building.

Singularity Unveiled: Exploring the Future of Spatial Computing and Digital Twins
2025-06-10 13:00 - 14:00 UTC
Dive into the transformative world of Singularity, where artificial intelligence, spatial computing, and digital twins converge to redefine how we design, interact with, and understand the built environment.
This session explores the groundbreaking technologies driving this evolution, including real-time data integration, immersive visualization, and predictive modeling, powered by AI.
Discover how spatial computing is reshaping human-machine interaction, creating opportunities for unprecedented collaboration and precision. Learn how digital twins -virtual replicas of physical assets – enable architects, engineers, and stakeholders to simulate, monitor, and optimize structures throughout their lifecycle.
Through practical examples and future-focused insights, this presentation will illuminate how these technologies can enhance your business, streamline workflows, and elevate your creative and strategic potential. Whether you’re an innovator, designer, or decision-maker, you’ll leave with actionable takeaways to harness the Singularity’s promise in shaping the future of the built environment and beyond.

Groundbreaking Women in Construction
2025-06-08 - 2025-06-10 | Town and Country Resort, 500 Hotel Cir N, San Diego, 92108, United States
Groundbreaking Women in Construction is heading to San Diego from June 8-10, 2025, after a successful expansion to New York City! This is your chance to be part of the construction industryʼs most influential talent management conference—where leadership skills are sharpened, connections are forged, and inspiration is ignited.

Bioclimatic Skin for Future Environment
2025-06-05 13:00 - 13:55 (America/New_York) | Virtual Event
While building physics largely are based on Newtonian principles, physics outside of the built environment have been moving toward quantum mechanics.
This presentation will start to see environmental factors through the lens of quantum mechanics. It also will include future bioclimatic elements and how the above may inform facade design.

Learning Objectives

Learn how quantum mechanic thinking can impact architecture design
Understand how future climates can impact our facades
Reveal the limitations in current facade testing
Learn the bioclimatic factors that transfer from outdoors to indoors through the facade

AIA Conference 2025
2025-06-04 - 2025-06-07 | Boston Convention Center, 415 Summer St, Boston, MA, 02210, United States
Connect with the AEC industry.

Hindsight 20/20 - 20 Years of Leak Detection
2025-05-28 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Virtual Event
As architects and planners seek to maximize the use of all available space, the next generation of low-slope roofs are not only waterproof coverings, but platforms for assets such as solar panels, green roofs, water storage, and amenity spaces. With so much value tied up in our roofs, their resilience is more important than ever. This resilience is measured not in the immediate ability of the roof to withstand the elements, but in its performance over years and decades. As owners and property managers come and go, long-term roof maintenance can become a forgotten issue and defects that have been present since construction can lead to water intrusion that degrades the roof and greatly reduces its lifespan. In response, automated leak detection systems have emerged as a technology adding value for both quality assurance during the construction process, and as an early warning system alerting building owners to developing issues within their roof. Used properly, these systems extend the lifespan of the roof which in turn minimizes disruption to the assets on or below the roof, as well as increasing the quality of life of occupants using the building.
Automated leak detection systems continuously monitor the roof membrane environment, transmitting data which is used to provide a report on the health of the waterproof membrane. Stakeholders gain access to critical information as the roof system is completed – identifying damage caused during construction and verifying repairs prior to commissioning the building. During the operational life of the structure, automated leak detection systems employ sophisticated algorithms, enabling predictive leak detection, location, and assistance with preventive maintenance strategies – significantly reducing the cost of repairs.
This presentation explores the utilization of automated leak detection systems in low slope roofing, with a particular focus on Vancouver, BC lower mainland area. Drawing on experience installing and operating leak detections systems across North America, we highlight several areas in which construction practices inevitably leave defects in the waterproof membrane. Our case studies range from the very common occurrences of construction material being accidentally embedded in the layers of the roof, to chemical burns from adhesives, and risks unique to green-roof infrastructure. In explaining how these defects allow moisture to ingress into the roof environment, we will elaborate on what kind of issues can occur, with reference to real-world instances where substantial maintenance was required just months into the operational life of the roof. Finally, we demonstrate how automated roof leak detection can be used to mitigate the risk of membrane defects going unnoticed by actively monitoring the roof and guiding repairs when necessary. Case studies of both conventional and inverted roof assemblies will demonstrate how automated leak detection systems have protected the inherent value of the roof, and added value of their own over the life of the structure.
Speakers
JASON TEETAERT
CO-FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, SMT RESEARCH
Jason Teetaert is co-founder and president of SMT Research, a structure monitoring company based in Vancouver BC. Teetaert graduated from the University of Manitoba with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering and has over 20 years experience in the construction industry; developing numerous turnkey solutions for building envelope monitoring with a strong focus on moisture. He holds patents in the areas of moisture detection, and patents pending in roof monitoring and low powered hybrid wireless/wired networks. Teetaert leads the design of moisture detection systems in residential, educational, and institutional projects related to sustainable buildings and investigations.
CAITLIN HAY, AA MACS
TECHNICAL ENGAGEMENT MANAGER, SMT RESEARCH
Caitlin Hay is a dedicated Technical Engagement Manager at SMT – Structure Monitoring Technology, a leading firm specializing in advanced solutions for leak detection and structural health monitoring for commercial, research and mass timber buildings. At SMT, Hay has played a pivotal role in shaping and executing strategic communication and education initiatives that aid in the company’s commitment to innovation and quality assurance in construction. As a speaker, Hay offers valuable insights into building roof leak detection through data-driven storytelling.
Hay has leveraged her expertise to enhance sensor and leak detection technology awareness on a global scale. Her work involves creating impactful communication strategies that support the industry goal of advancing infrastructure quality assurance, resilience and sustainability.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Identify risks to the waterproof membrane during construction.
Plan quality assurance for roof installations.
Analyse patterns in monitoring data.
Apply automated roof leak detection to long term maintenance planning.

Building Innovation 2025
2025-05-19 08:00 - 2025-05-21 17:00 UTC
Building Innovation attendees come to explore challenges, possibilities, the latest tools, groundbreaking strategies, and more.

Optimizing Asset Definition and Structure for Enabling Digital Twins
2025-05-13 13:00 - 13:55, 2025-04-28 08:00 - 17:00 UTC | Virtual Event
This session will explore the importance of well-defined Asset Registries and precise Asset Definitions in the development and implementation of digital twins. It will introduce new concepts, methodologies, and standards for structuring and managing asset information to support the integration of enterprise systems.
By enhancing these definitions and registries, organizations can optimize asset data usage, align with ISO 55000 principles, and ultimately improve overall asset management and performance.

Learning Objectives

Understand the critical role of Asset Registries and Asset Definitions in enabling digital twins.
Learn new methodologies and standards for structuring and managing asset information.
Explore how to integrate enterprise systems to support scalable digital twin solutions.
Discover ways to leverage digital twins to enhance asset management and align with ISO 55000 principles.

Enhancing Sustainability and Energy Conservation Through Digital Twin Technology
2025-05-11 13:00 - 14:00 UTC
In the evolving landscape of building management, transitioning from traditional systems of record to systems of insight has become crucial for sustained operational effectiveness and resilience.
This session explores the innovative application of digital twin technology from the owner’s and operator’s perspectives, underscoring its pivotal role in advancing sustainability and energy conservation within building operations.
Digital twins serve as a sophisticated tool that integrates four main data streams — hard assets, asset cutsheets, dynamic operational data, and institutional knowledge — into a unified middleware dashboard. Digital twins are 3D representations of the real-world asset and are the pathway for continued sustainability.
This integration not only simplifies the management of building data but also enhances the decision-making processes, allowing for more accurate virtual inspections and proactive maintenance strategies. By replicating physical assets in a virtual environment, digital twins enable operators to perform detailed analyses and simulations, which helps in pinpointing inefficiencies and predicting future performance under various scenarios.
This presentation will delve into the methodologies for transforming a building information model (BIM) into a navigable, asset-level digital twin. It will outline the process of data aggregation, labeling, and algorithm application, which are crucial for enhancing operational and energy efficiencies tailored to specific assets. The outcome is a streamlined, intuitive interface that not only promotes sustainability but also supports the building’s long-term viability and compliance with evolving environmental standards.

Learning Objectives

Understand the Role of Digital Twin Technology: Gain insights into how digital twins transform traditional building management systems into advanced, sustainable solutions by integrating hard assets, dynamic operational data, and institutional knowledge.
Explore Data Integration Techniques: Learn the methodologies for converting Building Information Models (BIM) into digital twins, focusing on data aggregation, labeling, and algorithm application for enhanced energy efficiency.
Enhance Decision-Making Processes: Discover how digital twins improve decision-making through detailed analyses, virtual inspections, and predictive maintenance strategies, ultimately contributing to energy conservation.
Optimize Asset Performance and Energy Use: Learn how owners and operators can utilize digital twins to optimize asset performance, reduce energy consumption, and achieve long-term sustainability goals.

Addressing Workforce Shortages: How Can the Construction Industry Attract More Workers?
2025-05-08 13:00 - 14:00 UTC
Only 7% of U.S. students and jobseekers actively seek work in the construction industry, according to a new study conducted by Dodge Construction Network.
Despite this, the study also reveals there are several opportunities to increase that share. Join Donna Laquidara-Carr, Industry Insights Research Director with Dodge, as she discusses key findings from the study of over 250 people working in construction and more than 1,100 students, jobseekers, and people employed in other industries in the U.S.
The study provides actionable information about how to attract more workers to the industry, including:

What those working in construction find most satisfying in their careers
What the next generation of workers are looking for and how the industry can make itself more appealing to them
What keeps the largest share of people from considering work in construction (and it probably isn’t what you think)
How the construction industry needs to communicate with the next generation of workers

Addressing Workforce Shortages: How Can the Construction Industry Attract More Workers?
2025-05-08 01:00 - 14:00 UTC | Virtual Event

FEMA/BSSC 2020 NEHRP Provisions Design Examples Webinar Series
2025-04-30 08:00 - 17:00 UTC
The 2020 NEHRP Recommended Seismic Provisions for New Buildings and Other Structures (FEMA P-2082) marks the tenth edition of this technical resource document since its first publication in 1985. As with prior editions, this FEMA document is a national seismic code resource for design professionals and the U.S. standards and code-development organizations. Most of the recommended code changes in Part 1 of the NEHRP Provisions are adopted by ASCE/SEI 7-22, Minimum Design Loads and Associated Criteria for Buildings and Other Structures, which is to be adopted by reference by the 2024 International Building Code.
The 2020 NEHRP Recommended Provisions: Design Examples are developed by BSSC for FEMA to illustrate and explain some of the new changes of the 2020 NEHRP Provisions, ASCE/SEI 7-22, and the material design standards referenced therein in design applications. The Design Examples are developed primarily for design practitioners; however, college students learning about earthquake engineering and engineers studying for their licensing exam or designing in regions of moderate and high seismicity will find this document’s explanation of earthquake engineering, the 2020 Provisions, and ASCE/SEI 7-22 seismic provisions helpful.
The webinar series is organized by the eight chapters in the 2020 NEHRP Recommended Provisions: Design Examples, and serves as part of the FEMA NEHRP/BSSC outreach and education effort.
Registration for the webinar series is free (space is limited). CEUs (for AIA and ICC) and certificates of attendance for PDHs and will be provided to those who attend the live webinars.

Infrastructure 2022 Webinar Series
2025-04-29 08:00 - 17:00 UTC
There has been a lot of movement, talk, and news coverage about infrastructure.
This year, we’re digging deep with a new Infrastructure Webinar Series – a quarterly event centered around key infrastructure topics. These include:

Transportation infrastructure
Goods and supply chain challenges
Lifelines and access to high-speed networks
Preparedness and mitigating the climate crisis

The National Institute of Building Sciences continues its mission to provide an open forum for discussion among the various facets of the building sector.
Last year, despite lingering challenges with COVID and in-person meetings, NIBS found a solution and launched the year-long virtual Resilience 2021 series. Our subject matter experts looked at everything from natural disaster mitigation and the pandemic’s impact on technology in the built environment to building information modeling.
Join us for Infrastructure 2022.

Cognitive Digital Twins: A Roadmap for Evolving Operations and Maintenance in the Age of AI
2025-04-24 12:00 - 13:00 UTC
In this session, TwinKnowledge will discuss a new type of digital twin that has emerged with AI, cognitive digital twins (CDTs), and their implications for the AECO industry.
Cognitive digital twins enable O&M workflows that are supported end-to-end by AI. They are built on top of existing digital twins; they use AI to make sense of digital twin data, generate insights such as anomaly detection and predictive maintenance for better decision-making/planning, and combine information from scattered O&M documents to generate response plans for maintenance activities.
TwinKnowledge will discuss what CDTs are, why they are so valuable for O&M, how they build on top of current digital twin systems, and a general roadmap for where to start in evolving existing digital twin systems into cognitive digital twins.

Learning Objectives

What Is a cognitive digital twin (CDT)?
Why CDTs are so valuable for O&M
How CDTs work within current digital twin systems
Where any company can start with integrating CDT capabilities

Cognitive Digital Twins: A Roadmap for Evolving Operations and Maintenance in the Age of AI
2025-04-24 12:00 - 13:00 UTC | Virtual Event

Home Hardening in the WUI: An Analysis of Recent Fire Testing
2025-04-21 08:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Virtual Event
As an increasing number of homes are built in the wildland-urban interface (WUI), it is important to understand how residential construction performs when exposed to wildland fires. WUI zones are the areas where wildland – forests, chaparral, grassland, etc., meet or mix with human development. Home hardening is a term used to describe purposeful actions taken to help protect buildings in WUI zones. Home hardening provisions within WUI codes rely on a combination of prescriptive requirements and performance requirements based on standardized tests.
In the past several years, the American Wood Council (AWC), Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS) and the Fire Safety Research Institute (FSRI), a part of UL Research Institutes, have independently conducted multiple series of both standardized and non-standardized fire tests to quantify typical WUI fire exposures and characterize the performance of various building envelope components and assemblies under those exposures. The fire tests have been multi-faceted with individual approaches to allow for wider industry understanding of performance. FSRI’s and IBHS’s fire tests have investigated the general performance of the entire building envelope, while AWC’s tests have focused specifically on hardening measures for exterior walls, projections, and intersections between these surfaces.
Learning Objectives

Develop awareness of the different types of fire exposure hazards within the WUI.
Recognize the importance of defensible space and how it affects fire exposure hazards.
Learn about recent fire research, fire tests and results.
Understand how these fire tests have shed light on effective home hardening measures.

Using Urban Building Stock Digital Twins to Streamline Building Retrofit Planning for Urban Energy Efficiency and Resilience
2025-04-09 13:00 - 14:00 UTC
Rapid retrofitting of America’s existing building stock is of urgent national interest to improve energy efficiency and resilience. But how can cities plan for this significant transition with limited funding, data, resources, and time?
This session introduces a practical and scalable Urban Building stock digital twin for energy modeling developed by the Environmental Systems Lab at Cornell University. Designed to operate on widely available data, the model delivers robust, city-scale building physics models for predicting building energy use and thermal response in power outages. The digital twin platform analyzes existing energy consumption patterns. It predicts future energy consumption trends, allowing users to evaluate the impact of electrification, building retrofits, and extreme weather events on energy demand and emissions. It also enables cost and incentive modeling, helping cities and utilities assess financial feasibility and prioritize retrofit strategies. The session features a real-world case study from Ithaca, NY, the first U.S. city to commit to 100% building decarbonization and community-wide carbon neutrality. Within the session, we will provide pointers on how to scale this work to other communities.

Learning Objectives

Identify key public data required to build city-scale energy simulation models and recognize how these models can be improved using city-specific or private datasets.
Understand how Urban Building Energy Modeling (UBEM) serves as an effective tool to analyze existing energy consumption patterns and predict future energy trends.
Explore how UBEMs could inform energy policy, guide decarbonization planning, and prioritize retrofit interventions by providing detailed and accurate information about building retrofit potential, upgrade costs, and incentives eligibility.
Learn from real-world UBEM applications based on a case study from Ithaca, NY, the first U.S. city to commit to full building decarbonization.
