New Challenges in Seismic Design - Earthquake Engineering for Structural Design - page 21

are intended to prepare code provisions in order to protect the public from life
losses and buildings structural collapse.
A complete building design requires the combined effort of professionals in
several different disciplines (Fig. 1.7). First of all, the architect and the structural
engineer, who are directly involved in the building design. The design process
starts from the decision of the owner (who obtains the financial support from a
lender) to build a construction, based on a socio-economic study of feasibility.
Once the decision to build is made, the next step consists of making an
architectural pre-design of the building, considering all economical and functional
aspects. A multi-disciplinary team can be involved in this project, for collaborating
with the architect as coordinator of this team. Since the beginning, the architect
should be especially mindful of the restrictions imposed by the facilities and the
equipments required for the building functions, and in addition, as a principal
restriction, the need to have a structure creating spaces for operations and
supporting in a safe and economical way the different actions (first of them in
importance being the seismic ones) (De Buen, 1996). Not only the structural
engineer, but the architect as well, should be familiar with the structural
requirements in seismic areas, in order to conceive a good building configuration.
So, as a new recent discipline, Earthquake Architecture (Arnold, 1996, Charleson
and Taylor, 2000, 2004, Giuliani, 1992, 2000, Giuliani et al, 1996) is born, with the
scope to describe a degree of architectural expression related to the structural
aspects in connection with the earthquake actions. This topic is involved with
regional, urban and building seismic design problems.
The structural engineer becomes the key player to satisfy the requirements of
the architectural conceptions. The main objective of an engineer involved in the
design process of a specific seismic-resistant building, is to produce a structure
which satisfies the functional requirements both aesthetically and economically
and which can safely perform its intended use under all potential loads and
environmental actions. He or she must be in contact with the builder, the material
and equipment suppliers and building officials. But the main co-workers are the
geotechical engineer and the seismologist , who have the responsibility to
determine the characteristics of site environment given by the earthquake source,
propagation path and local soil conditions. The complex activity to design the
fondation and the superstructure, in the conditions required by the architectural and
site demands, is framed in the field of a new topic called Seismic Design. The main
purpose of this topic is the effort to put all the aspects of this very complex
problem in a practical format to be correctly implemented in the modern codes.
An important aspect is the establishment of strategies for seismic design as a
function of the earthquake type being based on:
-

Specific methodologies for active zones, especially for important
urbanized areas where the near-field earthquakes can produce important
damage.