MC2

The spread of central European modernism to
earthquake prone areas of the continent and
challenges for the preservation of reinforced
concrete heritage buildings
Maria Bostenaru, MCF
Rui Pinho
ROSE School / IUSS di Pavia, ITALY

CA‘REDIVIVUS projectMC2 “Putting the Knowledge Society into Practice
Overview
Introduction
Overview of the project
Load bearing structure – architectural space
Collaborative issues
Discussion
Further directions
Conclusions

Introduction
The CA’REDIVIVUS project, an interdisciplinary endeavour
encompassing concrete technology, building design and urban
sociology
ways to reduce earthquake vulnerability of multiple housing
construction with reinforced concrete structure of the Modern
Movement, with their physical, social and cultural
characteristics across Europe.
high vulnerability due to their high degree of occupation and low
capacity.
New views:
 historical pre-code reinforced concrete buildings - technical solutions
required: retrofit measures optimisation
 historical condominium housing - management solutions come in
question. regard. Societal issues concern the comprehensibility of the
reason for the measures, in order to get user support for the retrofit
strategy implementation, important in case of condominium buildings.

Project management
objectives
(measures package)
objective
(measure)
scientific method
instruments
step
goal

Step Goal Method Instrument Measure
1 technical reports on implementation
programmes
documentation investigation
training.
4; 8
2 a data table of use for the decision
method in the next step
parametrical study FEM 2
3 support the choices at step 4 and step
1
highlighting
comprehensibility
database 7
4 algorithm based on case studies (step
2) for experiments (step 6)
modularisation of the
decision model
pair wise
comparison
3
5 report about available systems for this
purpose
a basis system to
administrate modules
computer tools 6
6 trial of educational feasibility (step 3) project example exercise 5
7 dissemination of results presentation publications 1
Nr. Measures package
1 improving understanding of the
impact of earthquakes
2 development of an algorithm for
optimisation of retrofit measures
3 development of a decentralised
decision model
4 insights into applicability of
retrofit methods
5 development of a framework for
integral planning
6 solving contradictions between
the objectives of single actors
7 highlighting the comprehend-
sibility of the measures analysed
8 support changes by political and
economic environment:

Architectural contents

Timber frame load-bearing
structures
Portugal
Pombalino-buildings
1755 – Lisbon
earthquake
Region of the Alps
Fachwerk
(half-timbered)
1356 – Basel
earthquake

Iran
2003 – Bam earthquake
(Photo Hashemi et al)
Residential buildings with iron
or steel skeleton
Germany
1978 – Albstadt
earthquake

Reinforced concrete frame
housing
Romania
1940 and 1977 –
Vrancea earthquakes
Greece
1978 Thessaloniki
1999 Athens
earthquakes
infill clay brick
frame (skeleton) RC
roof RC
floors RC

Data organisation in the
WHE
Structural element Building materials
Structural element Seismic deficiency
Earthquake resilient
features
Earthquake
damage patterns
Seismic deficiency Seismic strengthening provision
Characteristic
strength
Mix proportion/
dimensions

Romania

Greece

Italy

Portugal

Reinforced concrete
The history, acceptance and technology of
reinforced concrete had impact on the way of
construction, the form and the surface treatment.
The time when reinforced concrete started to be
employed for housing construction coincided with a
unique and very short time (10-20 years) in the
history of arts. Several different architectural styles
co-existed with newest developments in music, arts,
physics, philosophy, economic and social theory
and industrialisation. The last proved to be decisive:
Not the aesthetics, but a solution to the problems of
the society, mainly the lack of adequate, many
times of affordable, but sometimes of one suiting
the life style, housing governed the way how the
buildings of the Modern Movement were raised.
Employing advanced construction technology of the
innovation in the functional elaboration, the one
responsible as before for efficiency and response to
life style exigencies, is further followed, but the
material per se also investigated and explicitely
addressed.

Reinforced concrete
The investigation of contemporary innovation in the
use of reinforce concrete was completed regarding
the work of architecture office Kramm+Strigl, in
Darmstadt, Germany,
Potential for learning lessons for the project, for the
reason that it gives to housing construction
qualities which raise it above common buildings, a
quality shared with buildings of the Modern
Movement.
Innovation
- texture-modenature, for the role of concrete in the
structure or a shelf-approach in construction,
- treatment of existing built substance. The reuse of
old concrete through such a recycling procedure
(Bürgerparkviertel) allows for keeping the original
material for some of its testimony in composition,
while allowing for redesign in matters like that of
reinforcement. This can apply for both a radical
solution as demolition and rebuild of the whole
construction, as well as for local interventions.

Lessons from timber
The interdependencies between the spatial structures in sacral
buildings (churches) and the spatial, 3D frame multi-storey
structures were investigated.
Lessons learned from seismic behaviour of traditional, as
compared to modern, structures are re-evaluated in the light of
a new understanding of the influence of the urban way of life.
For multi-storey constructions in an urban environment, an
engineering type was adopted, with roots in ship construction,
directly or indirectly, over the metaphor of the nave.
 Timber frame buildings, with excellent seismic behaviour, highly
developed in regions with ship building traditions, while in seismic prone
regions, if that factor was missing, the structural characteristics of wood
wasn’t used to a full.
 Stone churches adopted the metaphor of the nave, at the level of spatial
organisation, and the form of these naves influenced the employment of
the artificial stone called reinforced concrete in multi-storey constructions
in the past century.

Management strategy
The project CA’REDIVIVUS aims to show ways on how to reduce
earthquake vulnerability of housing buildings with reinforced
concrete structure of the Modern Movement, with their physical,
social and cultural characteristics. Both technical and
management solutions are required, the latter addressing the
subject of refurbishment without interfering with function. A
collaborative decision model, with modules customised for each
actor involved in the retrofit measure, builds a central element
of the project objectives, such as the development of an integral
planning (multidisciplinary aspects considered from incipient
project phases) framework and the inclusion of an educational
flow for the inhabitants who have to support the measures. The
analysis of the theoretical scaffold for participative planning and
the lessons for building research learned from such a project, in
which the author was involved from user side are hereby
considered.

Participatism

Case study HaDiKo

Retrofit strategy

Urban level
Number Legend
Volume height accents
47 (incl. 12 with aesthetic
qualities; 1 negative)
bordeaux-
red-orange
volume silhouette accents 4 blue
functional landmarks 1 triangles
aesthetic qualities 9+12 blue strips
negative value 4+1 black strips
Mapping of the hierarchy of the elements and of the façade (fronts
typology: continuous line = continuously built front, interrupted and
continuous line = front full with alveolar injections, interrupted line =
front broken by isolated buildings and vegetation, point line =
unstructured front; hierarchy of perception points: dark green =
intersection place, turquoise = reverence place, magenta = private/half-
private space, grey lines = public space with half-private character, light
green = public environmental space, dark magenta = public space).

contents / container
Morphologically, there are two elements of a
system:
the container, the load-bearing scaffold, which
forms the frame for a totality of spaces, related
in functional-spatial co-operation into the spatial
structure. This constitutes a physical level.
the content, the lived architectural space, a
totality of localised activities, related into the
functional structure. This is a phenomenological
level.

urban-building level interaction
ZONE B
ZONE A
ZONE C
BUILDING Y
BUILDING X
BUILDING Z
ELEMENT α
ELEMENT β
ELEMENT γ
marketingmanagementparticipation
consistsof

sincerity - unsincerity
Sincerity = elements being what they seem to
Sincerity in architecture:
 Load-bearing structure
 Architectural arrangement of the internal space and envelope
 Ornamentation
Historical styles – completely different attitudes towards sincerity
Sincerity in the Modern Avantgarde
 Expressions of function, materials and technology
 Exterior expression of spatial structures
Modern Avantgarde buildings
 Mono-functional (spectacle or exhibition): sincerity in exterior expression
 Poly-functional (various functions on superposed floors): not
Analysis
 Semper
 Le Corbusier
 Dutch pavilion at the EXPO2000 in Hannover

Decision system

Discussion
Impact
 natural hazards on urban texture
 perception and participative issues
contents and container
Multidisciplinary aspects and actors
Stylistic movements at the begin of the century
Procesual systemic analysis – role of materials
in historic stratification
European dimension

Further directions
Technical strategy
 selective retrofit
 nonlinear computer analysis
Morphologic (systemic) analysis
The role of the grid for object oriented urban-
building level interaction
Future projects
 Investigation of resilience

Conclusions
Systemic analysis
 Morphology: load bearing structure – architectural
space
 Functionality: architectural programme and
management strategy
 Processuality: material and historic stratification
Documentation of examples of best practice
and lessons learned as common method
Preservation requirements relevant for all
For intensive sustainable urban development

Thank you!
The project described in this paper is funded under the
Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowships research
mobility scheme of the European Commission, contract
nr. MEIF-CT-2005-009765 with a 2 years individual
fellowship in 2005-2007.

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