Seismic Regulations Versus Modern Architectural and Urban Configurations

Abstract eng:
Every time an earthquake affects a contemporary city, numerous lessons arise regarding the performance of modern buildings. Due to the devastating effects produced in modern cities by earthquakes, since the beginning of the 20th century earthquake engineering researchers all around the world obtained fast advances in the development of analytical knowledge on seismic building performance. However, lessons included in post-earthquake reconnaissance reports regarding the influence of architectural features on building seismic performance, seem just to be academic exercises. These lessons barely reach either architectural and city planning practice, or the decisions that city officials and politicians take that affect the vulnerability and resilience of cities in seismic zones. In general they aren’t taken in consideration by architects, urban planners, politicians and city officials, and not even by many structural engineers, who continue including in the design of urban zoning regulations (UZR) the same modern building configurations categorized in seismic codes as “irregular”. In the majority of contemporary cities, UZR encourage or in some cases enforce configurations long recognized by earthquake engineering as seismically vulnerable. It is not surprising that when an earthquake affects a contemporary city, buildings worst hit are precisely those with modern architectural configurations that are common all around the world. This paper presents a brief summary of a study on the origin and development of UZR during 20th Century and on the evolution of them in opposite direction with the development of seismic design and regulations.

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