Experts chosen for ICC, ANCR buildings resilience benchmarks project

A distinguished group of specialists has been chosen to help develop the nation’s first community-wide resilience benchmarks related to buildings.

The group consists of subject matter experts who will assist the International Code Council and the Alliance for National & Community Resilience (ANCR) in the effort. The American Institute of Architects and the American Wood Council will support the project.

The Resilient Buildings Committee includes architects, code officials, government experts, and industry professionals from the New York City Department of Buildings, Dow Chemical Company, National Institute of Building Sciences and other organizations. Openings on the water and energy infrastructure committees and sponsorship opportunities are still available.

“We are excited to have a diverse group of experts participating in the creation of the ANCR benchmark system,” said ANCR’s Chairman Maj. General Warren C. Edwards USA (Ret.). “Once complete, this system will provide communities a transparent, practical and commonsense self-assessment to quickly and easily gauge their cross-sector resilience efforts. The devastating storms and fires in California, Florida, Puerto Rico, Texas and the U.S. Virgin Islands over the past year illustrate the importance of this groundbreaking program.”

New York City has two very large buildings dedicated to answering the 911 calls of its five boroughs. With more than 11 million emergency calls annually, it makes perfect sense. The second of these buildings, the Public Safety Answering Center II (PSAC II) is located on a nine-acre parcel of land in the Bronx. It’s an imposing 450,000 square-foot structure—a 240-foot-wide by 240-foot-tall cube. The gleaming aluminum cube risesthe equivalent of 24 stories from behind a grassy berm, projecting the unlikely impression that it might actually be floating. Like most visually striking structures, the building has drawn as much scorn as it has admiration.