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Complex Tower Meets Quake Code

by Virginia Fairweather, Civil Engineering Magazine, ASCE World Headquarters, 345 East 47th Street, New York City, NY.,


Serial Information: Civil Engineering—ASCE, 1986, Vol. 56, Issue 3, Pg. 64-66


Document Type: Feature article

Abstract:

A Los Angeles building consists of a triangular 23-story office tower stacked on top of an 11-story rectangular parking garage. The dual-shape is unique in seismically active southern California and city building codes called for dynamic analyses of any building having irregularities in shape or stiffness. Designers were challenged to make the two shapes behave as one in the event of an earthquake. The solution was to use a standard rigid frame along the perimeter of both the rectangular base and the triangular tower. This was supplemented with a common rigid frame in the core that acts as a spinal cord to connect the two configurations. The building has been heavily instrumented under a USGS program that should tell engineers about motion in unusual structures during earthquakes. The building could mark a design departure from predominantly square high-rises in the area.

Subject Headings: Building codes | Standards and codes | Rigid frames | Parking facilities | Earthquakes | Building design | Structural dynamics

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