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

Professor, Architectural Engineering
Associate Professor in Architecture, Architecture

Urban Systems News

Featured Stories

Symposium to focus on forging new partnerships in climate research, solutions

| psu.edu

The Penn State Climate Consortium will host a two-day symposium on May 14-15, 2024, to build partnerships in climate research and solutions.

Mentions: Erica Smithwick

Urgent need for climate solutions spurs Penn State to launch Climate Consortium

| psu.edu

Penn State has established a consortium focused on meeting the mounting challenges related to climate change. Penn State's Climate Consortium is a collective of internal and external partners committed to identifying, creating and implementing research-based solutions to address the mounting challenges related to climate change. 

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