Scholarship: Rosa Gonzalez - Carbon case for resilient design

The extent of the demolition of Christchurch city following the 2011 earthquake sequence strongly made the socio-economic case of building back with resilient buildings designed to performance objectives that exceed collapse prevention. Although the buildings generally performed satisfactorily from a structural design perspective, from an environmental perspective, the building performance resulting in significant demolition waste, reconstruction embodied carbon and extensive carbon costs associated with demolishing structures before the end of their design life. Events like this have highlighted the need to move towards higher targeted performance-based earthquake engineering in New Zealand. The aim of this project is to provide policy makers and stakeholders with evidence-based environmental incentives for designing structures in New Zealand for higher seismic performance. <br><br>As New Zealand grapples with the issue of shifting to a low-carbon economy, it will be increasingly important that our buildings are not only seismically resilient but also positively contribute to New Zealand’s transition to a net-zero carbon economy. This project endeavours to increase the knowledge base of the building sector on the carbon implications of design choices with particular focus on seismic performance.