Professional Documents
Culture Documents
FEATURE
SECTION
Resilient
buildings
Violent weather and devastating earthquakes
have turned attention to the challenge of
making our buildings more resilient. Is it too
much to expect buildings to protect life and
be reusable shortly after a crisis?
In this section
FEATURE
SECTION
Resilient buildings
What is resilience?
Resilience was the 2013 buzzword, and 2014 will see a continued focus
on how to make individuals, communities, buildings and infrastructure
more resilient. But what does resilience mean?
BY PROFESSOR SUZANNE WILKINSON, DR SEOSAMH COSTELLO AND MAS0UD SAJOUDI, THE UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND
Robustness
Robustness is a key feature of resilience and
Related features
or disturbances.
Redundancy
ability to:
under pressure.
Resourcefulness
building fail.
disruptive events.
Rapidity
Resilient buildings
FEATURE
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Built to last
The global weather forecast is daunting, and earthquakes are a regular
event. With insurance costs already climbing, we badly need buildings
that can stand up to the forces of nature.
BY NICK HELM, FREELANCE WRITER, TENPOINT COMMUNICATIONS, WELLINGTON
of nature.
FEATURE
SECTION
Resilient buildings
consider.
disruption.
Standing up to gales
Designing in resilience
tricity grid.
or more.
cohesiveness.
Hazard assessment
same way.
A broader picture
infrastructure.
FEATURE
SECTION
Resilient buildings
Resilient
building design
The Canterbury earthquakes have firmly placed building resilience in
the spotlight. As an industry, we did not perform as well as the public
expected how can we do better in the future?
BY ROGER SHELTON, BRANZ SENIOR STRUCTURAL ENGINEER
achieved.
Reduce complexity
Resilient buildings
FEATURE
SECTION
to service.
loading standard.
consequences.
simpler structure.
weathertightness problems.
resilience.
Reduce weight
The desirability of reducing weight is pretty
FEATURE
SECTION
Resilient buildings
aw a re o f t h e i m p o r t a n c e o f ro b u s t
connections.
more important.
community at present.
Resilient buildings
FEATURE
SECTION
Your buildings
resilience
Organisations need to understand what resilience means for the
buildings they inhabit or own. Here are some of the issues for an
organisation to consider as it works through the challenges ahead.
BY DR ERICA SEVILLE, RESILIENT ORGANISATIONS NEW ZEALAND, DAVID BRUNSDON, KESTREL GROUP,
AND JOHN HARE, HOLMES CONSULTING GROUP
SINCE THE CHRISTCHURCH earthquakes,
Steps to understanding
for buildings.
it occupies or is it a tenant?
geographically spread?
FEATURE
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Resilient buildings
expectations.
The time when a lease is signed is essentially the only opportunity to sort out these
enough.
occur overnight.
demolish-and-replace job?
Setting priorities
sensible objective.
Think creatively
is repaired.
Resilient buildings
FEATURE
SECTION
related hazards.
continuity objectives.
Building Act.
be investigated.
and earthquakes.
engineering calculations.
For more
Visit www.resorgs.org.nz/Resources/
Establish your
organisations timecritical and accessdependent operations.
Consider how you
would run a limited
operation if denied
access for a day/week/
month.
Have an engineering
and services review
of your building
undertaken to see
how well it is likely to
meet your performance
requirements.
Consider the
surrounding
environment
neighbouring
buildings, key access
routes, reliability of
infrastructure services
for different hazard
events.
Continue to integrate
resilience planning
into your business,
proactively evaluating
and responding to
changes as they
emerge.
Key actions for an organisation to assess their buildings resilience, and integrate this with business continuity management.
Note that the engineering stages (shaded) are only part of the comprehensive consideration of resilience.
FEATURE
SECTION
Resilient buildings
Resilience costs
As the focus turns to improving resilience, BRANZ has assessed the costs
of some common measures to make houses more resilient.
BY IAN PAGE, BRANZ MANAGER ECONOMICS
Wind resilience
Seismic resilience
increase resilience.
Table 1
COMPONENT
MITIGATION MEASURE
COST ($)
Wind
Truss roof
1,400
Rafters
2,200
Chimney
8,000
Pile foundations
8,000
23,000
30,000
Moisture
Internal moisture
1,500
Deterioration
7,000
Earthquake
Flooding
Note: Based on the costs for a typical house, approximately 150 m2, weatherboard with sheet metal roof.
Resilient buildings
FEATURE
SECTION
Flooding resilence
Functionality concerns
service connections.
Resilience to moisture
functionality.
Angela Liu (see page 56) discusses this
piles.
At the same time, installers need to ensure
water will not pond under the house.
measures.
www.branz.co.nz.
For more
FEATURE
SECTION
Resilient buildings
Is it worth it?
A current BRANZ research project is studying the economic benefit
of designing buildings for increased resilience under seismic loading
throughout their entire life cycle.
BY ANGELA LIU, BRANZ SENIOR STRUCTURAL ENGINEER, GRAEME BEATTIE, BRANZ PRINCIPAL STRUCTURAL ENGINEER,
AND IAN PAGE, BRANZ MANAGER ECONOMICS
buildings did not collapse, presenting a life safety issue. They were
extensively damaged, however, and in many cases needed to be
demolished and rebuilt, causing significant and lengthy disruption
to business activities and normal daily living.
Damage was well beyond peoples expectations and resulted in a
considerable cost to the country.
It was not until the Canterbury earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 that
One lesson from the earthquakes was that there is a significant gap
between the performance criteria in the New Zealand Building Code and
levels, and the determination of the seismic design level for a certain
Resilient buildings
FEATURE
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Seismic technology
showcase
repaired.
FEATURE
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Resilient buildings
d a m a ge i n a 1 0 0 % B u i l d i n g C o d e
earthquake.
building.
requirements.
Steel fuse rods installed in between steel-braced frames with lead extrusion dampers at base Kilmore Street Medical Centre.
STIC-developed technology.
FEATURE
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Resilient buildings
FEATURE
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Resilient buildings
Five drivers
Buildings with insufficient seismic strength are key contributors to deaths
and building losses. Better information is needed for owners and potential
buyers on a propertys seismic risk, a research programme finds.
BY TEMITOPE EGBELAKIN AND PROFESSOR SUZANNE WILKINSON, UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND
ensue.
retrofit decisions.
encourage retrofitting:
tion assessment.
decisions.
2. Sharing information
seismic retrofits.
Resilient buildings
FEATURE
SECTION
be made.
implemented.
prone buildings.
3. Mandatory disclosure
performance standards.
business transactions.
measures.
FEATURE
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Resilient buildings
Hazardous
work
BRANZ is working with an Australian organisation on a building
resilience project. Its outcome will be a rating tool that ranks building
materials resilience on a scale of 15.
BY MARK JONES, BRANZ BUILDING PERFORMANCE MANAGER
insurance industry.
FEATURE
SECTION
Resilient buildings
Cyclone
4%
Tornado
2%
Uncategorised
2%
Hail
18%
Inundation
and storms
58%
Storm/high wind
35%
Earthquake
20%
Cyclone
13%
Flood
37%
Figure 1: Insurance losses from natural hazards in New Zealand 19682012.
(Excludes the Canterbury earthquakes.)
Bushfire
11%
Figure 2: Insurance losses from natural disasters in Australia 19672013.
weather hazards.
buildingresilience.org.au.
of house maintenance.
For more
specific hazard.