This Berkeley building can snap back into place after a major earthquake

The visible seismic system at UC Berkeley’s Grimes Engineering Center safeguards the building and turns it into a teaching tool for earthquake-safe design.

[Photo: David Burk/© SOM]

Zig-zagging around the glass-and-steel perimeter of the UC Berkeley Grimes Engineering Center, 36 thin metal rods could be what it takes to prevent the building’s total destruction.

The rods are the central element of a novel seismic-responsive structural system that is designed to help the building snap back to its original shape in the event of a major earthquake. Their trick is an embedded cluster of taut cables made from a highly flexible compound called a shape-memory alloy that’s capable of bending under tension—like the lateral shaking in a........

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