The Pennsylvania Housing Research Center (PHRC), housed in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University, is pleased to announce the 8th biennial 2026 Residential Building Design & Construction Conference (RBDCC). This conference series provides a forum for researchers, design professionals, product manufacturers, builders, developers, and other stakeholders to discuss opportunities and challenges to advance the quality of residential buildings by sharing new developments and innovations in the field. The event focuses on discussions related to recent research and innovative developments in the area of home building, with emphasis on state-of-the-art technologies, materials, methods, code developments, emerging materials, components, systems for residential construction, and new approaches in the field. This technical conference will encompass various types of residential buildings, such as single-family dwellings, multi-family buildings, mid-rise and high-rise residential building towers, factory-built and modular housing, dormitories, and hotels/motels. Furthermore, the conference has a special interest in high performance homes, different methods of construction, use of new and emerging materials and systems, sustainability, building science, and healthy homes.

This conference invites submissions addressing, though not exclusively, the following areas: building technologies materials and methods, high performance and sustainable building, social components of housing and building science.