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Robert Reitherman
Consortium of Universities for Research in Earthquake Engineering
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Books on seismic architecture are few, while books on seismic engineering are many.
That ratio does not reflect the relative importance of the two subjects, but rather the generally
low level of interest in seismic design among architects as compared to engineers. As Mentor
Llunji, a structural engineer in Montenego, points out, “It is necessary to pay more attention
to the conceptual design phase and better inform architects about seismic problems and basic
principles of seismic design, as well as work for better and closer collaboration between
structural engineers and architects” (p. 17). Similar to the way the past literature has
dealt with architectural aspects of seismic design, the book treats two basic roles of the
architect: (1) having the lead role in determining a building’s configuration and (2) being
responsible for the design of many of the nonstructural components in a building. Llunji
gives the most attention to the first of these topics, which is the one covered in this review.
In its first 200 pages, the book deals with earthquake effects on structures and seismic
force–resisting systems in a non-quantitative manner accessible to architects, while some
examples of Eurocode (EC 8), International Building Code, New Zealand, and Japanese
engineering provisions are provided as examples. The last half of the book deals with the
author’s prime interest, “to introduce architectural opportunities for earthquake-resistant build-
ings, treating seismic design as a central architectural issue” (p. 13). Those latter chapters are on
Architectural/Structural Configuration and Its Influence on Seismic Response, Contemporary
Architecture in Seismic Regions, Seismic Response of Non-Structural Elements, Seismic
Retrofit and Rehabilitation of Existing Buildings, and a concluding chapter on Seismic
Architecture. These chapters are extensively provided with simple, elegantly rendered engi-
neering diagrams and perspective sketches of building seismic response, as well as numerous
photographs of buildings. The figures total 520, but because many of these include two or three
images, the effective total number of illustrations is well over 1,000. Architecture being a visual
medium, the abundance of good photographs of current architecture sets this book apart from
others in the field. Two appendices provide the architect with short explanations of prevalent
seismic engineering analysis: capacity design, equivalent static lateral force method, nonlinear
static analysis, modal response spectrum, response history, and performance-based design.
There is no index.
Seismic Architecture can be recommended to architects and architectural faculty or
students, its primary audience, and it could also be useful to structural engineers who
may find its many illustrations and examples helpful in discussing seismic issues with
their architectural collaborators.
The key configuration issue identified by Llunji is irregularity. The 1988 Uniform
Building Code first introduced specific provisions to define irregularities with geometric
a)
Consultant, retired Executive Director, CUREE, 155 Great Circle Drive, Mill Valley, CA 94941
803
Earthquake Spectra, Volume 33, No. 2, pages 803–806, May 2017; © 2017, Earthquake Engineering Research Institute
804 R. REITHERMAN
Botsai, E., 1977. The architect’s role in seismic design, Summer Seismic Institute for
Architectural Faculty, American Institute of Architects, Washington, D.C., 7–14.
Degenkolb, H., 1977, Seismic design: structural concepts, Summer Seismic Institute for
Architectural Faculty, American Institute of Architects, Washington, D.C., 65–124.
Botsai, E., Goldberg, A., Fisher, J., Lagorio, H., and Wosser, T., 1975. Architects and Earth-
quakes, American Institute of Architects, Washington, D.C., 94 pp.
REFERENCES
Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER), 2017. National Information Service for
Earthquake Engineering (NISEE), University of California, Berkeley, available at https://nisee.
berkeley.edu/elibrary/ (last accessed 18 March 2017).
Reitherman, R. 1989. Significant revisions in model seismic code, Architecture, October 1989,
106–110.
(Received 19 March 2017; accepted 26 March 2017)