Buildings Webinar | Resilience-Driven Approaches for Structural Investigation and Repair, 18 December 2025

Message from the Chair:

Structural engineering is facing new pressures caused by ageing assets, climate-induced hazards, changing construction practices, and the rapid introduction of digital tools. These pressures create challenges, yet they also present research opportunities to improve the reliability and service life of buildings and infrastructure. Resilience-oriented thinking provides a helpful unifying thread. It encourages us to examine not only how structures behave under loads or deterioration but also how investigation, decision making, and intervention strategies can be organized to produce safer and more adaptable systems.

During this session—which precedes the XXII International Conference on Building Pathology and Construction Repair (CINPAR 2026) that will be held at the Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon, from 15 to 17 July 2026—we will consider how inspection routines, defect identification, material assessment, and performance modelling can be integrated into a more responsive framework for structural evaluation. We will examine how emerging sensing technologies, data-driven approaches, and simulation methods can improve the accuracy and timeliness of diagnosis. We will also consider the connection between investigation outcomes and the planning of rehabilitation works, including the assessment of load paths, repair options, and long-term performance.

Special attention will be given to the influence of natural hazards and environmental exposure. These factors continue to shape the way we appraise risk, select materials, and choose intervention strategies. The same applies to built heritage, where resilience must account for conservation principles as well as engineering requirements. In all these areas, current research is offering new insights, and some of these insights will be shared at this session.

As the Chair of this webinar, I hope it will encourage critical reflection on current methods and stimulate the discussion of alternative approaches that could improve the quality and reliability of our practice. You are invited to question assumptions, propose new lines of investigation, and share evidence from your own work. Perspectives from different subfields, whether focused on infrastructure, material behaviour, monitoring strategies, or management and standards, are all essential to this conversation.

I look forward to the exchange of ideas and to the progress that this session’s collective reflection can generate.

Date: 18 December 2025
Time: 4:00 p.m. CET | 10:00 a.m. EST | 11:00 p.m. CST (Asia)
Webinar ID: 833 2685 5219

Register now for free!

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email with information on how to join the webinar. Registrations with academic institutional email addresses will be prioritized.

Unable to attend? Please register anyway, as the session will be recorded, and we will let you know when the recording is available for viewing.

Webinar Chair and Speakers:

• Prof. Tiago Miguel Ferreira, Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), University of Lisbon, Portugal;
• Prof. Humberto Varum, Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Portugal;
• Prof. Ilaria Venanzi, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Perugia, Italy;
• Prof. Gibson Rocha Meira, Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Paraíba, Rua Deputado Balduíno Minervino de Carvalho, Brazil.

For more information about this webinar, please visit the following link: https://sciforum.net/event/Buildings-10.

If you have any questions about this webinar, please contact buildings@mdpi.com.

Buildings Webinar Secretariat