Urban Systems

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Building with Life in Mind

With cities growing and more people moving to urban areas, the need to find and implement sustainable, healthy, and affordable solutions are essential and urgent. Penn State researchers collaborate across disciplines to identify and implement solutions on a global scale.

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 urban solutions, and researchers continue to focus on the needs of cities and how to move them ahead to meet the global demand.


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.

Urban Systems Research

 

Featured IEE Researchers

Associate Professor, Ecosystem Science and Management
Associate Professor in Architecture, Architecture

Urban Systems News

Featured Stories

2024 Climate Solutions Symposium registration open

| psu.edu

Registration is open for the 2024 Climate Solutions Symposium, which is designed to bring people together to stimulate projects and partnerships where Penn State’s interdisciplinary research strengths can inform and transform climate solutions.

Connecting researchers and legislators can lead to policies that reflect scientific evidence

| theconversation.com

Researchers want real-world impact. Lawmakers want programs that work. The public wants to benefit from taxpayer-funded research. Building a bridge from academia to legislatures is key to all three. This article was originally written for The Conversation by Taylor Scott, associate research professor of human development and family studies.

Mentions: Max Crowley

Low Carbon Building Program

Accelerating emission reductions through building renovations targeting energy efficiency, energy burdens, health, and expanded workforce for diverse communities.

Emissions from buildings reached the highest ever recorded levels in 2019. The current renovation rates of 1% annually could lock-in most existing buildings in a high carbon emissions future. Barriers include lack of awareness, affordability, and inadequate supply of skilled workforce. These barriers hit low-income households the hardest, particularly those with seniors and people with disabilities.

Learn more about the Low Carbon Building Program