About the session
The growing world population, the ongoing urbanization, the ever increasing size, height and complexity of large scale built infrastructures lead to higher risks with respect to natural and manmade threats. In case of a real incident, the number of casualties and injured people and the amount of damage is larger, unless the resilience of the urban complexes and infrastructure is increased. Resilience (or its hyponym elasticity) is the ability to endure an incident with limited or no consequences and to recover after the incident. Therefore, the ELASSTIC-project aims at improving the security and resilience of large scale complex infrastructures in order to safeguard the infrastructure and its occupants during its entire life-cycle. The ELASSTIC-project is a research project, co-funded by the 7th Framework Program of the European Commission. Besides the analogue with resilience, ELASSTIC is also the acronym for Enhanced Large scale Architecture with Safety and Security Technologies and special Information Capabilities. In the project, different types of stakeholders, such as architects, engineers, and scientists, work together to develop concepts and tools for including safety, security and resilience into the design of a multifunctional resilient large scale urban complex. Considering resilience at the planning and early design phase is considered the most efficient and successful approach. The features and the applicability of the concepts and tools will be evaluated and demonstrated through a showcase design, the so-called ELASSTIC complex. The paper will give an overview of the project, including the ELASSTIC complex and the key features that contribute to the resilience. The conference will deliver discussion and thought provoking presentations on many of the serious critical infrastructure protection, management and security issues and challenges facing the industry.
