On Monday 15th and Tuesday 16th May 2023, Dr Andrea Lucherini, senior researcher at the Department for Research of Fire-Safe Sustainable Built Environment (FRISSBE), and Dr Boris Azinović, a researcher at the Department of Structures – Section for Timber Structures, attended the 1st Conference and Working Group Meeting of the COST Action CA20139 “Holistic design of taller timber buildings – HELEN” in Lisbon, Portugal.

The HELEN COST Action key objectives are:

Coordinate, compare and bring together results of related research with the aim of defining optimized holistic approaches to improve the performance of taller timber buildings and widen their use across the EU and rest of the world.

Identify and address regulatory, governance, financial and legal drivers and barriers for a wider implementation and use of taller timber buildings.

Suggest new design approaches, processes and technologies that can build and improve upon existing best practices and ensure optimal holistic design of taller timber buildings.

The action is organized in 4 interdisciplinary working groups to achieve the defined goals in the field of multi-storey timber building design fields:

Working Group 1: Design for adaption, reuse and repair
Working Group 2: Deformations and vibrations
Working Group 3: Accidental load situations
Working Group 4: Sustainability and durability

Both Andrea and Boris are part of the Working Group 3 focused on accidental actions, where Andrea is an expert in fire safety engineering, while Boris in earthquake engineering.

The 2-days event offered keynote talks, interesting presentations, focused meetings and inspiring discussions, attracting more than 100 world-leading experts, researchers and practitioners.

The recently-published state-of-the-art report was also discussed and disseminated during the event.