The first year of activities of the “Observatory Claudio Ceccoli”, on the defects of the building structures

A research centre entitled “Observatory Claudio Ceccoli” focused on Forensic Engineer has been established on January 2012 within the Department of Civil, Environmental and Materials Engineering (DICAM) of the Faculty of Engineering, University of Bologna. It represents one of the few Italian research centres which is entirely devoted in Forensic Engineer-related issues. The activities of the centre involve the interaction of several “actors” such as the academia, practical engineers, architects, construction companies, lawyers, insurances. The main scientific objective of the centre is to promote research on the building defects through a systematic study of real cases as available from the Court of Bologna. The main practical objective is the development of a web-based database collecting all the juridical cases available from the Court of Bologna involving defects on building structures. The present paper illustrates the aims of the centre and presents some results from the first year of activities.