This lecture presents a view of the 1906 earthquake, and the 100-years which have followed. First the 1906 earthquake taught several important lessons about early construction. The 80 years which followed 1906 brought out the best seismic thinking of San Francisco's structural engineers. He will present details of recent seismic energy-dissipating solutions, some by Forell/Elsesser, specifically 1) City and County Building in Salt Lake City, 2) Oakland City Hall Upgrade, 3) Pacific Gas and Electric Complex in San Francisco, 4) San Francisco City Hall, and 5) California State Office Building in San Francisco. Finally new ideas for the future will be discussed.
ERIC ELSESSER is a native San Franciscan and has spent 50 years studying and designing creative structures. He graduated from Stanford University in 1955 with a B.S. degree and followed with an M.S. degree in 1956. He started his career with John Blume in San Francisco and opened his own structural design office in 1960. His office, Forell/Elsesser Engineers, has had a keen interest in the seismic behavior of buildings and has completed over 2,500 structures. Since 1970 he has lectured at Berkeley, Stanford, and at over 100 earthquake sites, throughout the world discussing the seismic behavior of structures. His first special interest was the structural configuration of buildings. This was followed by new structural systems which will dissipate seismic energy yielding limited damage to buildings. This has lead to thinking of buildings as sustainable with minimum post-earthquake damage, which can be called “seismic green buildings.” He was awarded an honorary membership in the Structural Engineers Association after years of creative structural design.
This is the sixth lecture in series sponsored by Stanford University's Quake '06 Alliance and University of California, Berkeley commemorating the 1906 Earthquake that cause massive destruction at Stanford University. The series will focus both on the historical and social perspectives of the 1906 Earthquake as well as the earth science, earthquake engineering, preparedness and disaster relief in order to prepare us for future earthquakes.