Building for future: Interdisciplinary team of UVA researchers address the complex challenges of housing in the U.S.

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Amid an increasing nationwide housing shortage, an interdisciplinary team of researchers at UVA are looking at much more than just a deficiency in the quantity of homes. Their work, an initiative called Building Efficient, Durable, Resilient, Optimizable Communities and Knowledge (BEDROCK), examines the complexities of housing through technical, spatial, and social lenses especially taking into consideration how long a building may last.

The team began with a question at the core of the housing crisis in the U.S.: 

How do financial, regulatory, and policy frameworks influence the decisions that ultimately shape the lifespan of a building?

To answer this question, the team is collecting and analyzing data at both the building and city scales across several Virginia jurisdictions, including Fairfax and Arlington in Northern Virginia as well as Charlottesville, in collaboration with a regional affordable housing developer and national research partners. The research considers wide-reaching factors including zoning, building codes, financing structures, and tax policies — and how together these influence the quality, affordability, durability, and longevity, or lack thereof, of housing. 

After receiving initial seed funding from the University’s Environmental Institute through its Climate Collaborative program, BEDROCK recently received a grant from Arnold Ventures of $767,571 for the overall research, of which $584,390 went to UVA researchers, allowing the team to expand and deepen their research. 

Professor of Architecture Jeana Ripple shared, “While the initial focus is on Virginia, our goal is to develop methods and generate findings that can be applied across a much broader range of housing markets. Ultimately, the project is grounded in the belief that addressing the housing crisis requires not only building more housing, but also creating housing that can endure, adapt, and serve the needs of future generations.”

In addition to Ripple, the research team includes Professor Andrew Hayashi (UVA Law), Professor Andres Clarens (UVA Engineering), Postdoctoral researcher Laura Buckley (UVA Environmental Institute), and Professor Moira O’Neill (University of California, College of the Law, San Francisco). Together, the team brings unique ways of framing the research questions to help build a more complete and accurate understanding of what enables housing to remain affordable and viable over time. 

Ripple said, “These questions benefit from multiple perspectives and methodologies. As an architect, I focus on the relationships between building codes, material and design choices, spatial adaptability, and long-term performance.” Engineering expertise provides an expanded understanding of embodied carbon, lifecycle impacts, and opportunities to simulate the integration of various factors, while colleagues in economics and law bring perspectives to the project on market incentives, financial constraints, and regulatory frameworks that shape housing outcomes. 

"Housing is one of the most powerful determinants of health, in part because it defines how people are exposed to environmental hazards like extreme heat, flooding, and poor air quality,” said Buckley, who is an environmental health researcher bringing health benefit analysis expertise to the team. “This project is an opportunity to better understand how decisions about how housing is built are actually made, which is foundational to any effort to build housing that is healthier, more durable, and better suited to the people living in it."

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The project also includes a collaboration with True Ground, one of the largest non-profit affordable housing developers in Northern Virginia, and Terner Labs, based at the University of California, Berkeley, who have developed a policy simulation platform that models how different housing policies influence future housing development within specific jurisdictions. The project’s community partners contribute invaluable expertise in local contexts, resident needs, and the practical realities that create both opportunities and constraints.

Together, the team is working to identify where housing growth is most likely to occur, and at what scale, under different policy scenarios. By evaluating the material, carbon and lifecycle implications of various development pathways, they are making connections between housing policy decisions and their long-term environmental and building performance outcomes.

“Housing development is shaped by a complex set of interacting factors, and at a moment when the housing crisis demands rapid action, unintended consequences can easily emerge and persist for decades. Policy decisions and compromises made in U.S. cities at the turn of the twentieth century continue to influence urban form, public health, economic opportunity, employment, energy use, and neighborhood vitality more than a century later,” said Ripple.

“By producing rigorous and accessible research that links early design, material, and policy decisions to long-term social, spatial, and environmental outcomes, this project can provide decision-makers with better tools to shape an adaptable and resilient built environment. That is the opportunity this team and our partners are working together to realize.”

Arnold Ventures Foundation Grant 
Project Title: Building Efficient, Durable, Resilient, Optimizable Communities and Knowledge (BEDROCK)
Award: $584,390

Project Team

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