For over 50 years, construction of URM buildings had been prohibited in New Zealand and many other seismically-active countries. At the time, techniques for constructing these buildings were not taught in university structural engineering courses.
In conjunction with large earthquakes that occurred in New Zealand over the last decade, the research on seismic assessment and retrofit of URM buildings has subsequently led to:
- The authoring of a national methodology for URM detailed seismic assessment
- Multiple training courses nationwide to upskill the professional engineering community
- Evidence being presented at the Canterbury Earthquakes Royal Commission
- Contributions to the development of emergency legislation for URM façade securing
The Institution of Structural Engineers aims to discover new influential projects of any scale to celebrate the successful application of research into practice. The Research into Practice Essay Competition is open for entries until 27 September 2019.
Enter the competition.