The Built Environment (BE), defined as a network of buildings, infrastructures and open spaces (connecting spaces, square, green area), is usually characterized by a high complexity level due to its interactions with natural elements and human presences. It is also subject to different risks that can lead to critical disaster conditions. This can undermine the hosted community’s safety, both in short and long periods.

Emergency events, usually referred as SUdden-Onset Disasters (SUOD) (e.g. natural as earthquake; man-made as terrorist acts) are catastrophic because of their immediate consequences on BE, with human, social, economic, cultural losses for the community (and its identity) [1]. But our cities and inhabitants are also subject to SLow-Onset Disasters (SLOD) mainly induced by anthropic factors [1]: i.e. the combination of strong and prolonged summer heat waves with poor air quality greatly compounds negative effects and can pose major (and invisible) risks to human health with poor life quality and high social costs.

Effects of such disasters on BE increase if considering: its poor design in respect to effective users’ requests and possible risks effects; incomplete regulations/guidelines for design practices by considering such aspects, especially for outdoor BE; inappropriate infrastructures in respect to current lifestyle; inappropriate users’ behavior. Finally, population growth is also bringing pressure for settlement in cities, by introducing possible risk-increasing factors such as crowding conditions, which also play a key role in particular mass-events or tourist hubs.

This way, BE S2ECURe main target is to increase safety and risk perception of people that live and interact in BE through BE itself, in case of different SUOD/SLOD, by a novel resilience metric through
which assessing the BE itself and designing technical solutions/strategies to make it safer. According to the so-called 3R approach, the resilience metric will imply [2]:

• Resourcefulness: preparing users’ (citizens’/practitioners’) emergency response

• Robustness: maintaining critical functions during the disaster crisis through interventions on BE and management systems

• defining solutions for quick and efficient BE Recovery

...but using an innovative cross-hazards and user-centered approach [3–5], and adding Redundancy to resilience criteria (from a 3R to a 4R approach).

BE S2ECURe will be also targeted to:

• produce and test the holistic approach to define BE resilience indicators by considering users’ behaviors and a multi-hazard approach also aimed at developing multi-disasters resilience maps (innovation);

• develop tools to: evaluate/design technical solutions/strategies for increasing BE resilience- based on a multi-hazard/behavior-oriented approach (minimizing their impact on heritage) within BIM, VR and AR environments (innovation);

• increase risk awareness and preparedness at different levels: users/community (activate right actions), professionals (building scale emergency planning), public administration practitioners (large scale emergency planning (dissemination).