The Class A office building is located at 200 North LaSalle Drive in the heart of Chicago’s Loop. The thirty-story tower features a curtain wall facade that maximizes tenant views with floor-to-ceiling glass. SGH performed a critical facade...
The Class A office building is located at 200 North LaSalle Drive in the heart of Chicago’s Loop. The thirty-story tower features a curtain wall facade that maximizes tenant views with floor-to-ceiling glass. SGH performed a critical facade...
As part of the Preservation Easement Program, Landmarks Illinois oversees the preservation of properties with designated easement on their facades. Working for Landmarks Illinois, SGH evaluated the condition of landmarked facades and roofs in...
As required by the City of Boston, The Carillon’s condominium association undertook an inspection of the building’s facade. SGH performed the inspection, identifying cracks in the glass fiber-reinforced concrete (GFRC) panels along...
The City of Boston requires the inspection of exterior walls and appurtenances of buildings as described in Ordinance 9-9.12 of the City of Boston Municipal Code. SGH performs ordinance-compliant assessments of buildings within the City of Boston...
Several cities have passed mandatory ordinances requiring owners of certain buildings to undergo a structural screening process to determine if their building contains a potential “soft story” at its lowest level, typically...
In 2009, the City of Oakland passed a mandatory ordinance (No. 12966) requiring owners of certain buildings to undergo structural screening to determine if the building contains a potential “soft story” at its lowest level, typically comprised of large open areas compared to the stories above.
The “soft story” wood frame retrofit ordinances adopted by many California cities including Los Angeles and San Francisco are the largest of their kind. These ordinances mitigate a deficiency known to cause collapse in past...
A well-designed, constructed, and maintained building facade protects the building interior from water leakage, air infiltration, and energy loss. However, environmental exposure and time can degrade facade components. Facade deterioration can lead to a range of issues from compromised performance to potential falling hazards.
A new rule in New York now requires that all parking garages under the jurisdiction of the New York State Uniform Fire Prevention and Building Code undergo a periodic condition assessment to help ensure structural integrity and user safety. Owners of parking garages must retain a professional engineer to perform the inspection and submit a report to the local authority having jurisdiction to obtain an operating permit.
Damaged and deteriorated building facades are a serious public safety concern. The damage also affects the appearance and structure of buildings playing significant roles in San Francisco’s culture and history. When facade elements fail, there is a chance the component could fall — putting people and property at risk. As a result, many cities, including Boston, Chicago, and New York, have adopted facade ordinances.
By: Michael Cochran, Dilip Khatri, Kevin OConnell, Doug Thompson
Los Angeles is no stranger to earthquakes and, like other cities in California, has experienced extensive damage in previous seismic events, which has led to significant advancements in earthquake engineering. Some might say that L.A. has been...
The Mandatory Soft Story Retrofit Ordinance 66-13 is a mandatory seismic retrofit program requiring evaluation and retrofit of multi-unit, wood-frame structures with five or more residential units, two or more stories over a "...
By: David McCormick, Maison, Bruce, Bonowitz, David, Kornfield, Laurence
Abstract: We investigated 1920s-era four-story wood-frame corner buildings common to San Francisco, many of which were damaged in the city's Marina District during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Such buildings can have relatively weak and...
By: David McCormick, Bruce F. Maison, David Bonowitz, Laurence M. Kornfield
Reports results of computer simulation study on the seismic pounding of four-story, wood-frame corner buildings that are common in the city of San Francisco. The study calibrated two building computer models to simulate actual earthquake response...