Next-Generation Structural Systems and Materials for Resilient Built Environments

Growing urban density, aging infrastructure, and climate-driven extremes are intensifying demands on structural safety and continuity of function. Modern assets must withstand not only isolated hazards but also multi-hazard scenarios (e.g., earthquake–fire, impact–progressive collapse, wind–debris) while maintaining durability and lifecycle resilience under corrosion, fatigue, and environmental exposure. These requirements are driving rapid progress in next-generation structural systems and advanced construction materials, including high-performance cementitious composites, hybrid steel–concrete solutions, and engineered reinforcement systems. At the system level, structural robustness and performance-based design are increasingly used to manage uncertainty and target measurable performance objectives beyond collapse prevention. Meanwhile, modular and prefabricated construction is transforming delivery and repair strategies, making connection design and composite action central to resilient implementation.

This Research Topic aims to bridge innovation in composite structures and materials, modern delivery methods, and resilience-based evaluation into actionable knowledge for practice. Despite advances in advanced construction materials and next-generation structural systems, their resilience benefits can be difficult to quantify consistently across scales and across time, particularly when multi-hazard performance interacts with durability and lifecycle resilience. Key challenges include (i) ensuring structural robustness under uncertainty and cascading damage, (ii) developing reliable models and test protocols that capture material–system interactions in composite construction, and (iii) translating research outcomes into performance-based design methodologies and design guidance. Recent progress in modular systems, innovative connections, and high-performance composites offers opportunities to create structures that are damage-tolerant, repairable, and rapidly recoverable. This Topic seeks contributions that develop, validate, and synthesize these advances into design-oriented frameworks and scalable solutions for resilient built environments.

This Research Topic solicits contributions on next-generation structural systems and composite structures and materials that enable resilience under extreme actions and long-term deterioration. Topics include:

(1) advanced construction materials and structural composites, including constitutive behavior, failure mechanisms, and design models;

(2) multi-hazard performance and robustness against progressive collapse and cascading damage;

(3) durability and lifecycle resilience, including corrosion/fatigue effects and resilience-informed maintenance strategies;

(4) modular and prefabricated construction, with emphasis on connection design, composite action, and rapid repair/replaceability; and

(5) performance-based design methods, risk and uncertainty treatment, and validation through experiments and high-fidelity simulations.

We welcome Original Research, Review, and Methods manuscripts; high-quality Case Studies and Perspectives are encouraged when they provide clear technical insights and implications for design and practice.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Systematic Review

Keywords: Next-generation structural systems; Advanced construction materials; Multi-hazard performance; Durability and lifecycle resilience; Structural robustness; Modular and prefabricated construction; Performance-based design; Composite structures and materials

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.