Equitable Communities and the Built Environment

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Designing for Life

Through a better understanding of the built environment – our cities, homes, and infrastructure – and its relationship to equity and justice, we can develop and implement better design choices and policies that can support a sustainable future and foster inclusive communities.

Sustainable Development

The United Nations projects that nearly 70% of the world’s populations will live in cities by 2050. Across the globe, the trend toward urbanization is driving resource needs and impacts with water, food, and energy while disparately impacting low income/minority populations.  

To that end, determining and implementing sustainable, healthy, and affordable solutions for urban areas is essential and urgent.

Moreover, it will require extensive interdisciplinary collaboration to adequately meet the needs of infrastructure, planning, finance, energy, engineering, transportation, utilities, and more.

Penn State has a strong history of innovative built environment solutions, and researchers continue to focus on creating equitable communities.


Working together and across disciplines, researchers from Penn State and beyond are are redefining the future of cities and the built environment through investigations of living materials, adaptive architecture, and dynamic infrastructure.

Equitable Communities and the Built Environment Research

 

Featured IEE Researchers

Professor, Architectural Engineering
Professor, School of Engineering Design and Innovation

Equitable Communities and the Built Environment News

Featured Stories

The mystery of the missing ocean plastic

| by Raymond Najjar

Millions of tons of plastic enter the ocean every year, yet we can find only a fraction of it. New research uncovers where this missing pollution may actually be hiding.

Water, AI researcher honored with IEE 'Person of the Year' award

Chaopeng Shen, a leading innovator in blending artificial intelligence (AI) with water and Earth systems research, has been named the Institute of Energy and the Environment Person of the Year for 2025.