A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
Historic Desmond Building Retrofit—A Case Study of the Seismic Retrofit of a Non-Ductile Concrete Building in the Los Angeles Area
According to a Los Angeles Times report in Oct. 2013, by the most conservative estimate, as many as 50 old concrete buildings in the city of Los Angeles would be destroyed in a major earthquake, exposing thousands to injury or death. To address this concern, the City of Los Angeles recently proposed instituting what are arguably the most ambitious seismic safety regulations in California’s history; regulations that would require building owners to retrofit thousands of building deemed to be at risk of collapse during a major earthquake. Non-ductile concrete buildings built before 1980 were singled out as one of two particularly vulnerable structural types requiring attention. This paper presents a case study of seismically retrofitting a historic concrete building located in Los Angeles, California. Designed in 1916, the building originally housed the Willy’s Overland Company car dealership and assembly plant, which later became a Desmond’s department store warehouse. After the retrofit, the five-story warehouse will be transformed into high quality, creative office space with a ground floor cafe and the addition of a 7,000-square-foot sixth floor that will bring the total size of the building to 82,000 square feet. The retrofit project is currently under construction with full occupancy expected in the summer of 2015. When it is complete, it will be the first of many potential renovations of historic properties located in the South Park district for creative office use. This case study presents an innovative but rigorous approach taken to enable the addition of a story to the existing building by not exceeding the gravity load and lateral force change triggers in Chapter 34 of the 2011 Los Angeles City Building Code necessitating retrofit. Although demonstrated to not be required by code, a seismic retrofit was nevertheless instituted; this while continuing to ensure that the changes in force effects in retained existing structural members did not exceed code retrofit triggers. All structural modifications made since the building was originally constructed using very low strength concrete were considered in the evaluations and retrofit design.
Historic Desmond Building Retrofit—A Case Study of the Seismic Retrofit of a Non-Ductile Concrete Building in the Los Angeles Area
According to a Los Angeles Times report in Oct. 2013, by the most conservative estimate, as many as 50 old concrete buildings in the city of Los Angeles would be destroyed in a major earthquake, exposing thousands to injury or death. To address this concern, the City of Los Angeles recently proposed instituting what are arguably the most ambitious seismic safety regulations in California’s history; regulations that would require building owners to retrofit thousands of building deemed to be at risk of collapse during a major earthquake. Non-ductile concrete buildings built before 1980 were singled out as one of two particularly vulnerable structural types requiring attention. This paper presents a case study of seismically retrofitting a historic concrete building located in Los Angeles, California. Designed in 1916, the building originally housed the Willy’s Overland Company car dealership and assembly plant, which later became a Desmond’s department store warehouse. After the retrofit, the five-story warehouse will be transformed into high quality, creative office space with a ground floor cafe and the addition of a 7,000-square-foot sixth floor that will bring the total size of the building to 82,000 square feet. The retrofit project is currently under construction with full occupancy expected in the summer of 2015. When it is complete, it will be the first of many potential renovations of historic properties located in the South Park district for creative office use. This case study presents an innovative but rigorous approach taken to enable the addition of a story to the existing building by not exceeding the gravity load and lateral force change triggers in Chapter 34 of the 2011 Los Angeles City Building Code necessitating retrofit. Although demonstrated to not be required by code, a seismic retrofit was nevertheless instituted; this while continuing to ensure that the changes in force effects in retained existing structural members did not exceed code retrofit triggers. All structural modifications made since the building was originally constructed using very low strength concrete were considered in the evaluations and retrofit design.
Historic Desmond Building Retrofit—A Case Study of the Seismic Retrofit of a Non-Ductile Concrete Building in the Los Angeles Area
Jiang, Z. (author) / Sarkisian, M. (author) / Mathias, N. (author) / Garai, R. (author) / Lyrenmann, J. (author)
Second ATC & SEI Conference on Improving the Seismic Performance of Existing Buildings and Other Structures ; 2015 ; San Francisco, California
2015-12-03
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
Seismic Retrofit of a Historic Five Story Concrete Building
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