SimAUD Grand Challenge:
A Decade of Action

SimAUD 2020 Conference Proceedings: Symposium on Simulation for Architecture and Urban Design

Azam Khan

April 2020
2 Pages

Zoonosis, passing disease from animals to humans, may be the central topic of this decade due to the unprecedented global impact of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. With land-use change identified as the primary driver of emerging infectious disease (EID) events, we have the opportunity within the SimAUD community to study and positively impact urban expansion, deforestation, and pandemic preparedness through design. The first decade of the Symposium on Simulation for Architecture and Urban Design has built a strong community. In the second decade we can leverage our community to be greater than the sum of its parts. We can focus our sustainability science efforts around the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals which include land-use change, good health and well-being, clean energy, sustainable cities and communities, and more. As a high-impact empirical target, our own campuses and institutions each support tens of thousands of people, all impacted by the pandemic, and consume large amounts of water, food, energy, and materials.

We propose to the community a SimAUD Grand Challenge to adopt a mission-based research agenda to demonstrate leadership, working together with each of your institutions, to plan, design policies, and implement a net-zero campus transformation by 2030 that also minimizes encroachment and increases resilience to vector-borne and zoonotic diseases. This would result in examples of successful science-policy interface efforts that can inspire regional and national groups to raise their understanding and expectations for progress on the global United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.