THE GRID REVISITED:

MORPHOGENESIS OF

SEISMICALLY

RESILIENT

STRUCTURES AT TWO

DIFFERENT

GEOGRAPHIC SCALES

MARIA BOSTENARU DAN

A project proposal

Overview

Introduction

State of the art

Research objectives and potential to meet these objectives

Scientific and wider societal issues

Research methodology

Originality and innovation in relationship to the state of the art in the research field

Management and feasability

Timeliness and relevance of the research

Introduction

Risk management is a process including steps

like identification, assessment, mitigation,

monitoring, review and communication of risks

resulting from a certain hazard on a site or an

activity. In this paper scale independent

instruments to seismic risk management along

its structural dimension will be redefined: the

morphology (organisational) and the resilience

planning (operational), by exchanging lessons

learned at different scales.

State of the art

Resilience

Bruneau et al

RISK UE

World Housing Encyclopedia

Computational morphogenesis (Ohmori et al)

Research objectives and potential

to meet these objectives

integration/networking with ongoing related research up to training

definition of units for an efficient urban structure towards seismic risk

a method for optimising frame structures through element „reordering‟

a seismic vulnerability reduction method for an urban system, optimised for a grid pattern

Public education

Research objectives and potential

to meet these objectives

integration/networking with ongoing related

research up to training

Conference sessions

Involvement of students in research

definition of units for an efficient urban structure

towards seismic risk

Graduation in architecture with focus urban planning

Experience in natural hazards (earthquake) research

Research objectives and potential

to meet these objectives

a method for optimising frame structures

through element „reordering‟

Research on frame structures, mainly concrete,

but also timber and steel from Germany

Typical for interwar time

Results cited in research on vibration periods of

frame structures

Adequate for selective retrofit

Research objectives and potential

to meet these objectives

a seismic vulnerability reduction method for an

urban system, optimised for a grid pattern

Method of regression

Employed so far for decision tree and criteria determination

Public education

Books, conference sessions, journal special issues,

oral and poster presentations

Press room sessions

Planning layers

Recovery planningInformation of process participants. Legislation

Technical (physical reconstruction)

Preparedness planningInformation of the public oppinion. Implementation planning

Organisational (emergency response)

Social

Mitigation planningDemocratisation. Use of local potentials

Technical

Social

Organisational

Resilience planningCooperation. Synergy

- Normal period

Social- Crisis period

Organisational- Recovery period

Economical

Technical

Scientific and wider societal issues

Seismic risk management – planning types recovery, preparedness, mitigation, and resilience

stages

Lisbon 1755

Morphology – Goethe Earthquake retrofit – redesign

Interdependencies architecture – mathematics Ch. Alexander

Shape generating algorithms - evolutionary structural optimisation - grid

Research methodology

Morphological investigation

Architectural object scale

Urban scale

Morphology = study of the form

– a grid street pattern for the urbanmorphology,

– frames for the morphology of thebuilding load-bearing structure.

Research methodology

Urban scale

Architecture – philosophy

Deleuze - deconstruction

Knurled and flattened

Catastrophes – occasions of urban remodelling

Lisbon earthquake 1755

London fire 1666

Earthquake Lisbon 1755

AlfamaAfter earthquake:

Baixa

Hausmannian

boulevard

Baroque proposal for the urban plan of London

Fire London 1666

Research methodology

Optimisation of the structure

Urban scale

Switching roles: strategic-common

Architectural object scale

Switching roles: load-bearing – not load-bearing

Lessons learned from one scale to another

The method of regression

grid street pattern

in the

urban structure

data set hypotheses

load-

bearing

frame

structure

optimised

structural

configuration

induction

deduction

element

reordering

in the

urban grid

for

optimised

structure

urban

textures

in

resilient

planning

hypothesis statementshypotheses

morphologic

decomposition

morpho-

genesis

Research methodology

Urban morphology

Geometry of street ways

In urban theory, the urban organism, a complex

system, has two morphologic groups of

elements:

– urban-life (content): totality of localised urban

activities;

– urban-frame (container): totality of spacescorresponding to localisation.

Research methodology

Urban morphology

Resilience planning

The earthquake vulnerability of the system is evaluated through an analysis of the system functionality. A system is defined analytically through its elements

and their relationships.

The role of the elements in the system differs, according to their urban-frame value (ex. city image), and their urban-life role.

Research methodology

Urban morphology

Restructuring urban actions are reordering

efforts of the elements into urban textures,

defined as sub-systems of the life-frame (matter

of the form of urban frame) elements able to

respond to the functionally requested situation.

At urban scale, textures of morphologic

elements will build the unit of analytic

decomposition.

Research methodology

Urban morphology

The Earthquake Master Plan of Istanbul proposes a division in risk sectors, based among others on textures In the Master Plan the principles of strategic planning,

a way of risk management, were applied.

“Urban System Exposure” (RISK UE)

Crotone project Minimal urban structure

Strategic urban structure

Research methodology

Evolutionary structural optimisation (Xie and Steven)

step-by-step removal of the inefficient parts of the initial structure leading to a more optimised structural configuration

Ohmori: extended version

organic wall/brace shapes could build retrofit elements added to an existing frame structure to be retrofitted

Originality and innovation in relationship to

the state of the art in the research field

Resilience planning at two geographic scales

Morphological common unit in organisational and operational dimensions of the project management

The street as spatial representation of the life way Lisbon 1755 grid street pattern for fast recovery

Grid at building level: regularity of the structure Frame structures

Change of the role of the elements is innovative

Originality and innovation in relationship to

the state of the art in the research field

Urban morphology Subject of international discussion

Dedicated journal

Morphology of architecture less

Different time scales of renewal in urban space and in architecture

RISK UE normal, crisis and recovery periods

New: urban structure for earthquake disaster mitigation

Management and feasability

Step 1: DocumentationObjective: Integration and networking withongoing related research

Method: Literature and field investigation.Instrument: Literature review and building survey.GOAL: Data on successful examples of earthquakeresilient planning, including successful examples ofthe approaches which build today the planninglayers and of computational morphogenesistechniques for this and related purposes.

Management and feasability

Step 2: Morphologic analysis at urban scaleObjective: Definition of units for an efficient urban

structure towards seismic riskMethod: systemic analysis of the urban morphologyInstrument: strategic planning instruments for

networks (organisational, operational)GOAL: Definition of urban textures on an urbanstructure based on a grid pattern according to thestrategic role of elements in earthquake resilienceplanning efforts.

Management and feasability

Step 3: Morphologic analysis and morphogenesis atbuilding scale

Objective: A method for optimising frame structuresthrough element ‘reordering’

Method: extended evolutionary structural optimisationInstruments: modal analysis instruments, non-linear

numeric computationGOAL: Development of an adapted evolutionarystructural optimisation method, which considerselements instead of parts, and instead of the step-by-step removal of parts the role change of the elements(load-bearing to non-structural) for more seismicefficiency.

Management and feasability

Step 4: Morphogenesis at urban scaleObjective: Reduction method of the earthquakevulnerability of an urban system employing a grid

pattern based optimisationMethod: regression urban-building-urban scale for the

morphogenesis on grid patternInstrument: zonation with view to resilience planningGOAL: Development of an evolutionary structureoptimisation method with application to urban planning,by switching the roles of the elements in the structure:in case of the urban organism from strategic to commonaccording to potential vulnerability (due to eventualresults of foreseen retrofit), for resilient planning forurban structures which can be analytical decomposed toa grid basis.

Management and feasability

Step 5: Spreading knowledgeObjective: public education

Method: publication of results, parallel informationflux to that of project management

Instrument: presentation at conferences, peer-reviewed publications, web dissemination, various

instruments of the participative planningGOAL: publications for each step from 2 to 4.

Timeliness and relevance of the

research

250 years since the Lisbon earthquake Different geographic scales at the anniversary

conference

2004 Sumatra earthquake did not produce such a change

Pre-disaster instead of post-disaster

2003 Earthquake Master Plan of Istanbul Successful implementation of a concept from the

1980s

Circulation network

The financial support of the European

Commission, in form of a Marie Curie

Reintegration Grants, for the project PIANO

“The innovation in the plan of the current floor:

Zoning in blocks of flats for the middle class in

the first half of the 20th century”, grant

agreement MERG-CT-2007-200636, at the host

institution Foundation ERGOROM ‟99, which

made possible this presentation, are gratefully

acknowledged.

THANK YOU!