There were several topics to choose for this essay, but architectural earthquake-resistant design was best fitted for my Gaming/Animation degree for a few reasons. The first reason is I have had the privilege to take several art history classes that focused on architecture throughout the world. Secondly, I am learning how to use 3d modeling programs such as, Maya and Cinema 4d. To become successful with those programs, I have to learn about the interior as well as the exterior to make the models look real. Lastly, learning about earthquakes and architecture was intriguing because I am from Kansas City and I have not experienced an earthquake. The only prior knowledge I had of the behavior of architectures during an earthquake is what I have seen in pictures. Even then those pictures left me with a few questions like, why certain buildings reacted differently during an earthquake or what information the victims of the earthquake knew about the building or house. There are many factors that affect the damages to a building during and after an earthquake, such as the ground beneath the building (fault line, landfills, bedrock) …show more content…
“The damage to structures can depend on the material that the structure is made of, the type of earthquake wave (motion) that is affecting the structure, and the ground on which the structure is built. Wood structures respond to earthquakes differently than brick... because wood can bend” (South Carolina Earthquake Education Preparedness Program 1). Wood’s elastic property allows it to bend under large amounts of pressure. Despite wood being very flammable, it is the most popularly used material in construction, in the US. Instead of breaking just like a brick, wood will slightly bend which helps it to compensate for the amount of pressure and tension on it. Also, it is cheaper and lighter than
In 1910 a series of fifty-two earthquakes struck Arizona between September 10th-23rd and it caused much of the Flagstaff residents to flee the area as even strong households cracked and chimneys crumbled. The fifty-two earthquakes were all light-shock earthquakes with magnitudes between 4.0-4.2 that came right after another. If only one earthquake occurred in that timespan then it is likely that only objects would be knocked from shelves but no damage would be done to infrastructure, but the earthquakes happened right after another causing significant slight
Skyscrapers are amazing! Architectural defeats. Wonders of the world. How are they able to withstand even the strongest of winds and earthquakes?
Primary impacts are the result of the ground shaking causing buildings to collaspe. This than results in the secondary impacts which are usually tsunamis, fires, landslides and other catastrophic events. Tsunamis, a huge wave of water, are one of the worse things human life can face after an earthquake as they are known to destroy absolutely everything in there path. Landslides, another huge destruction, is often known to be worse than the earthquake itself. These can cause whole cities to be completely destroyed as in Alaska, Turnagain Heights. Fires also cause a huge path of destruction. Broken gas lines set gas free making one little spark cause an inferno. An example of this would be the great earthquake of 1906 in San Fransisco which caused 90% fire damage among everything
The physical damage done to San Francisco due to the earthquake was extensive. The earthquake caused gas lines to rupture and chimneys to collapse which resulted in perhaps the greatest devastation from the earthquake, the fires. About fifty fires broke out around the city that in combination with the earthquake caused the destruction of about 28,000 buildings (The Great San Francisco Earthquake: One of America's Worst Urban Disasters. 2005). The fires continued to burn for four days because the water mains had burst; therefore, the hydrants had no water. Desperation sunk in and the fire department and military, having no water to stop the fires, used dynamite to create firebreaks. This ultimately backfired and led to the fires expanding. When the fires stopped, the city was left in ruins with 80% of it being destroyed (Dean. Pg 506).
Before the San Francisco earthquake, not much was understood about earthquakes like how and where they occurred, or the destruction that could occur and the theory of plate tectonics was over a half-century away. Now scientists can answer the following questions: where a strong quake will likely happen, how probable it is, how intense it will be, how will the infrastructure fare, where to avoid building critical structures, and how do we design and build earthquake resistant structures. Scientists that flourished after this earthquake were Lawson, Reid and Gilbert but the most significant discovery is credited to Henry Fielding Reid, Professor of Geology at John Hopkins University. Most of the building structures that were destroyed or damaged were made out of wood. About 24,500 buildings out of the 28,000 buildings were built with wood structures and the other 3,500 buildings structures were made out of brick. With almost 90 percent of the structures being wood, fires and gas caused most of the
Find two regular red bricks, or any color will do. Place them on the table side-by-side touching each other. Now push them together with a little bit of force and slide one past the other while applying the force. You will find that they do not slide past each other very easily while applying a force to push them together. As you manage to force the bricks past each other, you may notice by feeling and hearing a vibration and a jerking type of movement. You have simulated an earthquake . Now set a small toy , a rubber eraser, a coin or other item on each of the bricks and do the experiment again. You can see that the objects bounce, fall and move about as the bricks slide past each other. Taadaa! You have created an earthquake in the toy world! Now place one of the bricks one on top of the other. Put some toys on top of the upper brick and slide the top brick across the bottom brick. This is called a 'thrust' fault when one piece of crust slides over top of the other. This is much more like what happened during the Sylmar earthquake. Are the toys O.K.? Unfortunately, this is what happens in the real world too.
Matsui, S. (1919). Economic aspects of the Japanese situation in California. Diss. University of California at Berkeley.
What have they learned since the quake quite allot. The fault moved in a fashion that geologists of
As someone with a passion for writing, my final project will be an extended expository essay about the history of homebuilding from ancient to modern times. It will discuss the different types of dwellings throughout recorded human history from the perspective of how art and culture influences building design. This will fulfill my own curiosity to understand the different influences on homebuilding and design over the years and how people have dealt with these changes.
Rapid growth period has experienced various changes in Japanese society. From urbanization to educational improvement, from women’s workplace to environmental degradation, from family structure to technological products Japanese have both enjoyed and suffered during the rapid growth period starting within mid- 1950s and continuing until 1970s. One of the social mobility was migration from rural areas to urban which concluded with over-population of urban areas and oppositely starting point of de- population of rural areas. The outcomes of this development were increasing pollution in cities, decreasing agricultural production because of migration of farmers to cities, unavoidable congestion phenomena such as traffic jams, and a shortage of urban infrastructure. (Welfare and Capitalism, in Post-war Japan) Those were products of post-war rapid growth in Japan. Places like Tokyo had been suffered these factors. However, industrialization intensified around cities and caused to emerge air and water pollution which directly affected people who lived in those regions. As a final, many disasters occurred during those times which pushed the government to take measures in order to halt pollution as a consequence of rapid industrialization. (I do not prefer to give statistical data in order not to get drowned with numbers) On the other hand, over- population of cities emerged new things in the cities like suburban regions (slums) and commuter rail lines. Additionally, this de- population of rural areas during post- war economic recovery would lead to emerge campaign in 1980s and 1990 such as ‘village revival’ and ‘hom...
In the early morning hours on January 17th, 1994 a very violent tremble took place across Los Angeles, California area that left fifty-seven people dead, more than 7,000 injured, more than 20,000 homeless and left over 40,000 buildings damaged. Around 4:30 a.m. a horrific 6.7 magnitude earthquake, that tested building codes and earthquake-resistant construction, shook Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Ventura, and Orange Counties with the most intense damage occurring in Sherman Oaks and Northridge. The earthquake caused several bridges and overpasses to collapse closing sections of the Santa Monica Freeway, Simi Valley Freeway, Golden State Freeway, and the Antelope Valley Freeway. There were also several fire outbreaks throughout the San Fernando Valley, Malibu, and Venice area because of underground gas lines that had been ruptured during the earthquake that caused additional damage.
Earthquakes are vibrations felt at the surface of the earth which are caused by disturbances of the energy in the earth's interior. These vibrations are known as seismic waves. (Skinner Robinson McVerry 1) There are different type sof seisimc waves such as Primary (P) waves, whcih travel the fastest, Secondary (S) waves which cause the earth to vibrate vertically, Surface (L) waves. P and S waves are "affected by changes in the density and the rigidity of the materials through which they pass." (Columbia Encyclopedia) Earthquakes vary in their intensity and duration. Often times they are strong enough to cause massive destriction. Tall buildings often suffer as a result of these natural disasters. In recent years this has become a larger and larger threat with both the number of large buildings, and their number of occupants increasing. In an effort to try to minimize the damage caused by earthquakes many some engineers focus primarily on designing and constructing earthquake resistant buildings. Earthquake engineers have gathered much of their information from analyzing past earthquakes, and learning which buildings can and can't withstand the tremors. The goals of these engineers is to design buildings that can withstand moderate earthquakes and obtain minimal damage, and that the buildings will not collapse lowering the probability of human deaths.
Taher, R. (2011). General recommendations for improved building practices in earthquake and hurricane prone areas. San Francisco, CA: Architecture for Humanity Retrieved from
Over the last four years of studying architecture, I have seen the power that it has to shape communities, shape lives, and to create new ways that people interact with each other. The way architecture can help enhance living and allow for creation of new interactions of people is one of the reasons I find the subject so interesting. The way architecture can shape a whole culture and the way that the culture then in turn shapes the architecture is fascinating to me. Architecture is also not a static subject, it is constantly evolving and adapting with time to take on new forms, create new spaces, and to provide commentary on the history of our time on Earth. The depth that architecture has, and the evolution of the subject is something I have fallen in love with through my study of it. However, when I first started out studying architecture, I had no idea of the depth that the subject had, and it was an incredibly daunting realization; however, it was as equally exciting. I have always had a love for learning and architecture has just fueled that fire. Even after completing my bachelors degree, the learning has not stopped. I get to learn something new about architecture daily, and getting to say that is an opportunity I am thankful to have. It is not just about the learning however, its
Earthquakes belong to the class of most disastrous natural hazards. They result in unexpected and tremendous earth movements. These movements results from dissemination of an enormous amount of intense energy in form of seismic waves which are detected by use of seismograms. The impact of earthquakes leaves behind several landmarks including: destruction of property, extensive disruption of services like sewer and water lines, loss of life, and causes instability in both economic and social components of the affected nation (Webcache 2).