Illinois Institute of Technology's Associate Teaching Professor Edoarda Corradi Dell’Acqua and Professor Jamshid Mohammadi have secured funding from the Illinois State Library/Secretary of State Open Educational Resources (OER) Grant. This grant will support their project to create an open textbook on building facade maintenance.
The project arises from the need for better methods in evaluating and maintaining building facades, highlighted by incidents like the Surfside condo collapse in March 2024. The textbook aims to address this gap, particularly for medium to high-rise buildings.
Mohammadi notes, “A lot of professionals who are involved in building facade inspection climb up scaffolds and do visual inspections, but we noticed that they really don’t have much in terms of directions.” He explains that while some municipal requirements exist, they often lack detailed technical analysis. "The idea of this course and this textbook is to put a more scientific tune to the process.”
Over the next few years, Mohammadi and Corradi Dell’Acqua plan to develop the textbook, integrate it into their course, and release it under a Creative Commons license. This will make it accessible not only to students at Illinois Tech but also to industry professionals, legislators, and regulators worldwide.
Corradi Dell’Acqua adds that the resource will be adaptable over time: “For example, an engineer who works with glass facades could add materials related to that expertise.” She hopes this will spur further resources and research in facade maintenance.
Corradi Dell’Acqua brings her experience from another OER project involving technical drawing with virtual and augmented reality resources. She plans to incorporate similar illustrations and resources into this project for areas difficult to inspect directly.
“Facades are always becoming more complex systems,” says Corradi Dell’Acqua. “There is not much reliable information on building facade inspection so we hope this resource can be helpful to different audiences.”
The collaboration includes Paul V. Galvin Library staff members Stephanie Fletcher and Charles Uth as well as subject matter experts Soliman Khudeira and Bora Jang.