Strengthening the Disaster Resilience of the Academic Biomedical Research Community Protecting the Nation's Investment (2017) / Chapter Skim
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8 A Resilient Built Environment for the Research Enterprise
8 A Resilient Built Environment for the Research Enterprise
Pages 267-294
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From page 267... ...
The academic research buildings and supporting infrastructure systems would remain operational; the experiments, research-related assets, and research animals would not be affected; and only a few hours or days would be needed to clean up the mess and get back to normal. Unfortunately, as illustrated in Chapter 2, this is not the case.
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From page 268... ...
. Today, building code requirements still represent the minimum design requirements that are needed to support emergency response and the life and safety of human occupants, but they do not include requirements that support the continued operation of the research enterprise or the safety and well-being of research animals following severe natural disasters.
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From page 269... ...
. Research facilities, such as vivaria, that are intended to fully function during and following a natural disaster require space, equipment, and infrastructure support systems that will likely need to be designed beyond the minimum building code requirements, be constructed with adequate independent building inspection to meet the design requirements, and be maintained by trained and credentialed professional facilities operations staff (see Chapter 7 for more details)
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From page 270... ...
Commenting from the property and asset protection perspective of the risk management industry, one recent risk management industry publication cited the strong relationship among institutional strategic planning, developing building-performance rating systems to compare capital investments with business continuity risks, and creating resilience management tools (Reis et al., 2016)
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From page 271... ...
By the end of the 20th century, comprehensive national model standards and building codes adopted by jurisdictions and the design and construction industry generally focused on maintaining operations under normal conditions and ensuring human safety in the event of a disaster. In the event of a disaster, essential facilities were required to be designed to maintain their operations during and following a disaster, and facilities that handled or stored hazardous materials were required to be designed to maintain containment (VA, 2016)
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From page 272... ...
. The DRM also followed the national model building codes and standards and only requires research facilities to be designed and constructed to the same fire and life safety standards as commercial office buildings.
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From page 273... ...
This standard was the first of its kind, has been updated regularly as new under tanding has emerged, and in 1995 was substantially modified s to align with national standards, at which point it was retitled H-18-08. Today, these provisions categorize VA buildings into three sets -- critical facilities, essen ial facilities, and ancillary facilities -- for purposes of setting t the seismic design criteria (VA, 2016)
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From page 274... ...
HOLISTIC RESILIENCE PLANNING FOR THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT Academic research institutions can improve the resilience of the built environment that supports their research enterprise by building new facilities and retrofitting existing facilities to the performance levels required to
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From page 275... ...
It provides a set of performance goals based on a common risk assessment. The NIST Planning Guide outlines a broad-based, six-step process that can be applied to any jurisdiction, large or small, public or private, with national, state, regional, or local boundaries (NIST, 2015)
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276 PROTECTING THE NATION'S INVESTMENT FIGURE 8-1 NIST Planning Guide steps.
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From page 277... ...
With this information, short-, mid-, and long-term capital improvement plans with features similar to those in the DRM requirements can be developed and implemented over time to improve the response and recovery process. Application of the NIST Planning Guide The following application of the NIST Planning Guide illustrates how it can be used for resilience planning related to academic research facilities for hurricanes.
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From page 278... ...
Table 8-2 specifies the recommended hazard levels for each event from the NIST Planning Guide based on the current national building code requirements. For this example application, the example matrices in Tables 8-4 and 8-5 are based on the 700-year "design" level hurricane and the 1,700-year "extreme" level hurricane.
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From page 279... ...
The NIST Planning Guide uses the size of the affected area and level of disruption to describe the impact for planning purposes. Table 8-3 defines the categories used to describe the size of the affected area and
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From page 280... ...
Anticipated Minor All required response and recovery assistance is handled disruption within the normal operating procedures of the affected level community agencies, departments, and local businesses with little to no disruption to the normal flow of living. Critical facilities and emergency housing are functional and community infrastructure systems are functional with local minor damage.
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From page 281... ...
. Finally, the NIST Planning Guide requires identification of the anticipated performance of the building clusters and supporting infrastructure systems (NIST, 2015)
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2 Desired usability restoration times: Minimal As needed under emergency conditions including shelter-in-place and protect research material, etc. Functional As needed to permit usual operations without student instruction.
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From page 283... ...
2 Desired usability restoration times: Minimal As needed under emergency conditions including shelter-in-place and protect research material, etc. Functional As needed to permit usual operations without student instruction.
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From page 284... ...
• Negotiating accelerated recovery times as needed with external utility system providers. For this application, construction-related actions may include • Establishing and implementing site and building performance-based design criteria for all renovation projects and new construction, including privatized housing and buildings, that meet established performance goals using design professionals that are knowledge able about performance-based design for disasters and experienced with academic research facilities.
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From page 285... ...
. This case was selected because it is the only known and referenced application of the NIST Planning Guide at an academic research institution.
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From page 286... ...
Established Performance Goals The NIST Planning Guide defines performance goals generally as "metrics or specific objectives that define successful performance. For the built environment, performance goals include objectives related to desirable features, such as occupant protection or time for repairs and return to
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Assessing Current Conditions The UW program is intended to provide the university community with an ongoing evaluation of the buildings and supporting infrastructure using current evaluation technology and to determine the anticipated performance (Jenny et al., 2013)
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From page 288... ...
The first program will address the exceptionally high-risk buildings; the second program will develop and implement a low-cost, highly effective nonstructural retrofit program; the third program will address the structural retrofit needed to achieve the appropriate performance; and the fourth program will implement a lifeline improvement program (Jenny et al., 2013)
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From page 289... ...
Options that should be considered for mitigation should include adding redundancies, developing contingency plans for temporary services, removing the impediments to res toration in areas where repairs are expected, and, where neces sary, retrofitting existing facilities and systems. CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS The built environment plays a vital role in supporting the academic research institution through researchers' use of research laboratories, core research facilities, research animal facilities, research support areas and o ffices, and information technology and other infrastructure support sys
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From page 290... ...
The research enterprise remains unnecessarily vulnerable. The support needed requires that design and construction criteria go beyond the minimum national building codes and standard prescriptive recommendations and that appropriate performance goals be established by each academic research institution.
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From page 291... ...
Possible actions could include, but are not limited to • Aligning the resilience plan and performance-based standards with the Department of Veterans Affairs Standard H-18-80 and the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Commu nity Resilience Planning Guide for Buildings and Infrastructure Systems. • Ensuring that disaster-resistant construction is an explicit design requirement for all new research buildings.
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From page 292... ...
2015. 2015 International Building Code (IBC)
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From page 293... ...
2016. Seismic design requirements.
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