Report # 101 : Tunnel form building
by Ahmet Yakut, Polat Gulkan This type of rapidly constructed, multi-unit residential form has been used in Turkey since the late 1970s and early 1980s. It has demonstrated superior earthquake resistance and has also been increasingly utilized as permanent housing in post-earthquake reconstruction programs. Initially, the tunnel form building was targeted for multi-unit residential construction […]
Report # 104 : Adobe House
by Mehrdad Mehrain, Farzad Naeim This building type is typically one or two stories and used for single-family housing. It is more predominant in the desert, in cold-weather, or other inhospitable climates. It has a large mass and basically no strength, particularly against out-of-plane wall forces. These buildings are the most seismically vulnerable. In the […]
Report # 114 : Stonework building with wooden timber roof
by Masoud N. Ahari, Alireza Azarbakht Stonework buildings are a common type of rural construction in many parts of Iran (Figure 32). It is widely used in the mountainous areas because of the ease of attaining the building material. More than 71,000 stonework buildings were built in 1968-1972 in comparison to 54,000 brick masonry buildings […]
Report # 118 : Earring system (Shekanj) in dome-roof structures with unreinforced brick and adobe materials
by Nima T. Bekloo This building structure derives its name from the four earrings that are constructed at the four corners of a rectangular building at the spring level of dome roof. This structural system was developed due to the lack of of wood and stone. It was widely constructed more than 3 thousand years […]
Report # 117 : Four arches (Char taaqi) with dome-roof structures, and unreinforced brick and adobe materials.
by Nima T. Bekloo The ‘Four arches’ or Char Taaqi (in Persian) derives its name from the four arches that connects tops of four timber or masonry piers enclosing the space. It is an equilateral architectural unit consisting of four arches or short Barrel vaults between four corner piers, with a dome over the central […]
Report # 159 : Reinforced concrete buildings in Pakistan
by Yasir Irfan Badrashi, Qaisar Ali, Mohammad Ashraf This report addresses reinforced-concrete buildings in Pakistan. Due to the rapid urbanization in Pakistan in the recent past and consequently the scarcity and inflated cost of land in the major cities, builders have been forced to resort to the construction of reinforced-concrete buildings both for commercial and […]
Report # 150 : Timber-reinforced Stone Masonry (Koti Banal Architecture) of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, Northern India
by Piyoosh Rautela, Girish Chandra Joshi, Yogendra Singh, Dominik Lang Despite being located in a high seismic risk area, a region in the Himalayan states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh (Northern India) exhibits an elaborate tradition of constructing multistoried houses. In the Rajgarhi area of Uttarkashi district (Uttarakhand) a large number of intact buildings of […]
Report # 147 : Traditional Naga Type House
by Amir Ali Khan The housing type is most common throughout the Northeast India which lies in the most severe seismic zone of the country (Zone V – corresponding to MSK IX). Majority of this type of houses are used for residential purposes. Typically these houses are built with light weight locally available material like […]
Report # 145 : Pillar walaghar (URM infilled RC frame buildings)
by Yukta Bilas Marhatta, Jitendra K Bothara, Meen Bahadur Magar, Gopal Chapagain This building type is widely constructed in the urban and semi-urban area of Nepal. It has all the characteristics of a vernacular building only with the exception that few of the construction materials are not local. It is one of the most emerging […]
Report # 143 : Mud House of Bangladesh
by Amrita Das, Mohammad Shariful Islam, Dr. Md. Jahangir Alam, Nusrat Hoque In Bangladesh, a mud house is one of the traditional housing types that are used by poor families mainly in rural areas as well as in the outskirts of small cities. This building type is typically one or two stories and preferably used […]