Functional Recovery: What it Means to Design for Community Resilience

The Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) is the leading non-profit membership organization that connects multidisciplinary professionals dedicated to advancing earthquake resilience in the United States and globally. Explore the many benefits of an EERI membership at eeri.org/join.
EERI is pleased to announce that David Bonowitz (M.EERI,1994), a leading structural engineer practicing in San Francisco, is the recipient of the 2020 Distinguished Lecture Award. David will deliver the Distinguished Lecture, “Functional Recovery: What it Means to Design for Community Resilience,” in this webinar.
David’s lecture will focus on the emerging concept of functional recovery as a basis for earthquake-resistant design. Designing buildings and infrastructure for limited downtime - or an acceptably quick functional recovery - is not new, but it is receiving new attention through state and federal legislation, and showing new feasibility through research and technology. Most intriguing is the recognition that designing for functional recovery is a necessary tool for achieving community-wide earthquake resilience. And if progress is to be measured at the community level, functional recovery will also be a matter of public policy. The lecture will look at the roles EERI members can play in shaping this thinking into design practice with four sets of questions: definitional, technical, policy, and implementation.
The Distinguished Lecture Award recognizes EERI members who have made outstanding contributions to earthquake risk reduction. The award encourages communications and dialogue on important and timely topics. Stay tuned for more information on how EERI Student and Regional Chapters can request a local lecture.