Thursday, December 19, 2013
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Friday, November 22, 2013
Research in progress
Statement
This thesis proposes to Identify more advanced
Techniques for earthquake resistant structures to reduce
the damage-causing earthquake to people and cities in Iran.
Natural disasters hit
suddenly and leave behind live serious damages by physical injury, death and
loss of properties. One of the most outstanding natural disasters is the
earthquake (Van Westen et al. 2006). Earthquake damages to people are generally caused when the
seismic waves reach the bottom surface mostly around where human built
structures are located. Most of the damages and death are because of the
structure collapsing and also construction practices during the earthquakes (Primer on Natural Hazard
Management in Integrated Regional Development Planning).
Introduction
Geologists
have done a lot of research to predict and possibly to warn about impending
earthquake. Countries such as Japan, Iran, Chile, and Indonesia and many more
are on the subduction zones a tectonic setting that causes many deadly
earthquakes. Depending on how strong the buildings are designed in case of earthquake
these countries face high numbers of injuries constantly (USGS digital spectral
Library).
Developed
countries have come up with great solutions in terms of system of constructions
reduce damages to people and cities, even though it doesn’t work 100% of the
time, but its still protects people and their belongings. But Developing
countries are still struggling, and many people are suffering and losing their
families and properties after each earthquake.
Statement of the problem
Human
shelters addressed people basic needs for centuries investigating new
innovative ways to build housing in earthquake prone areas may result in less
damage and suffering. This thesis is going to investigate the recent earthquake
damages in Iran and attempts to propose alternatives to a safer built
environment. My country of origin is Iran, through out all these years that I
lived in Iran saw a lot of people are suffering after each earthquake, and it’s
damaging a lot of cities. Destroying people’s life all the time made me think to
help them one day, now it is the best time for me to get engage with this big
problem in my country, focusing on the recent earthquake damages and find out
some solutions.
What causes most earthquakes is
basically when two blocks of the earth suddenly slip past one another. And when
these two slides on top of each other, is called the faults. The Earth is broken
up into plates and these plates keep slowly moving around, which are called
tectonic plates. The edges of these plates are called plate boundaries and
those are made up of many faults. When these boundaries stock while they’re
moving and here is when an earthquake happens and we can feel the earth’s
moving. The reason that the earth shakes is because of the energy that causes
the blocks to slide on each other, get stored. Once this energy gets released
the seismic waves shake the earth when they move through it. And this is when
it reaches the earth surface and everything starts shaking (The geology of
earthquakes). IIEES (international Institute
of Earthquake Engineering and Seismology) researches, The Iranian land is one
of the seismically active areas known in the world that has been gone thorough
a lot of earthquakes over the years (USGS.org).
In fact we are not able to make
any changes in earth’s movements, but what we can do is design earthquake
resistant structures to reduce the amount of damages to people and cities
located on earthquake zones. Based
on studies in past earthquakes in Iran, delicate in construction is the major
damage caused in this area. Magnitude (the size of the earthquake) 6 is very
common on active zone areas like Iran, but when this considered earthquake
happens closer to the built areas (like cities) causes a lot of damages and the
reason is they are not prepared for this level of shaking. The 2009 earthquake in
Pandang, Indonesia was one of the examples that caused a lot of damages to the
buildings by shaking the ground. In that earthquake 600 people died under mud
and rock falling down (vigny 2009).
As a
matter of fact, landslides triggered by earthquakes often cause more loss than
earthquakes themselves Believing that with fewer causes we can save more lives
and reduce more human suffering, this thesis will investigate the materials and
methods that we can use to reduce these damages (Becky Oskin 2013, National
geographic).
There
are some countries such as Mexico and Japan that have the alarm systems, which
can sense when the earthquake occur and also can measure the magnitude of
shaking. It has been around since 1991 in Mexico and this system gets more than
60 seconds to warn because of the source that is about 186 miles. Having this
kind of system and also educating people to save their lives in case of
emergency can be very helpful. Because a lot of these miss responding to
earthquakes is cause by lack of knowledge (National Geographic).
Civil
engineers, planning agencies and also the insurance industries have models and
programs to estimate the amount of the earthquake loss. And based on their
results the quality and quantity of the progress depends on where its located
and how close is it to the fault lines (USGS). What an architect does in this case is, to keep people safe
and design spaces that they feel comfortable and protected.
Iran
is located in the active earthquake prone, that has experienced more that 130
powerful earthquakes with a magnitude of 7 or more, that 25 of them was just in
the past 100 years that killed more than 200,000 and damaged a lot of places,
which is also presented in table 1. And left behind many economical damages, in
villages and towns that are already struggling poverty (akhavan 2006).
Several deadly earthquakes have hit Iran in
recent years, many of which have caused widespread devastation. For example, a
6.1-magnitude earthquake hit the south of Iran in “Bushehr” last couple of
months killing 39 people and injuring around 850. The deadliest quake in the
country was in June 1990. It measured 7.7 on the Richter scale, killed around
37,000 people and injured 100,000. The worst earthquake in recent times hit a
southeastern province in December 2003, killing 31,000 people and destroying
the city of Bam's ancient mud-built citadel (PLOS Currents Disasters. 2013 May
1).
After
this earthquake 35.000 housing units were destroyed which is 63% of all the
houses in the area (NDGI 2005). The reconstruction took more than 3 years,
which is questioning because of planning and poor quality (Arsalan 2007).
After
the shaking causing of earthquake, victims need to start their regular life as
soon as possible. Losing families and properties can already be harmful and
exhausting so the best thing that they can do is restart living their lives. In
order to that they need their privacy. At this time the best option is
Transitional shelters until permanent housing plan would start. Obviously
reconstruction of housing takes a lot more time. This will help them not just
to have more time to rebuild their houses, but to recover from the mega
disaster and their lives (World Bank, Recovery Planning).
This
thesis is going to investigate the quality of housing spaces and adjust social
and economic conditions of living space In form of people need. And it would be
in longer time while victims are at the transitional shelters.
On
June 21, 1990 the Manjil-Roudbar earthquake happened. This city is located in
the north central part of Iran. Which is around the Alborz mountain range area
of the country. And this part of the country is located on a large fault line
of the earthquake (Tatar and Hatzfeld 2009). In that earthquake there were 15
thousand people dead, 30 thousand injured and almost 500 thousand people were
homeless. That earthquake destroyed 3 larger cities and also 700 villages,
which was a very big number in the earthquake (Moin Far and Nader Zadeh 1990). Mostly
the main cause of this earthquake was the faults located at the Alborz Mountains,
which are very active. Other than the geological and topographic results, deep
slopes and narrow alleys were causing a lot of problems (Tatar and Hatzfeld
2009).
Also
in this earthquake more villages around this area were damaged after all. One
of the problems with narrow allies is the rescue groups can’t get to the
injured people and help them, which is a very big issue. Other than that being
far away from health care centers is another big issue, which need to be
checked and is very important to have one close to each area (Yegian et al.
1995).
These
issues show that not only the system and materials that are used are important;
also the urban settings and planning are as important. Exit ways and, bigger
allies can help to rescue people under the destroyed buildings.
References
Leawood, K. S., Wolshon, B., Renne, J., Thomas, R.,
America, A. N., Nichols, E., ... & Kensington, M. D. (2012). Final Research Report: A Transportation
Guide for All-Hazards Emergency Evacuation. National Cooperative Highway
Research Program, Transportation Research Board of the National Academies.
Yeats,
R. S., Sieh, K. E., & Allen, C. R. (1997). The geology of earthquakes (Vol. 568). New York: Oxford
university press.
Khanli, Hadi
Mohammad · Sokouti, Mohsen · Mahmoodpoor, Ata · Ghabili, Kamyar · Golzari,
Samad E J · Bazzazi, Amir Mohammad · Ghaffari, Alireza · Nami, Farzad ·
Sabermarouf, Babak
Jaiswal,
K. S., & Wald, D. J. (2010, July). Development of a semi-empirical loss
model within the USGS Prompt Assessment of Global Earthquakes for Response
(PAGER) System. In Proceedings of the
9th US and 10th Canadian conference on earthquake engineering: reaching beyond
borders (pp. 25-29).
(Training, motivation, and performance: The case of human resource
management in construction projects in Mashhad, Iran, Amin Akhavan Tabassi *,
A.H. Abu Bakar)
Alquist-Priolo Earthquake Fault zoning act (1997) Fault- Rupture
Hazard zones n California American Department of conservation. Division of
Mines and Geology, United States.
Moin
Far A, Nader Zadeh A (1990) Technical report of Manjil Earthquake. BHRC, Tehran
,Nelson AC, French S (2002) Plan quality and mitigating damage from natural
disasters. J Am Plan As
68(2):194–207
Tatar M,
Hatzfeld D (2009) Microseismic evidence of slip partitioning for the
Rudbar-Tarom Earthquake
(Ms 7.7)
of 1990 June 20 in NW Iran. Geophys J Int 176:529–541
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Saturday, November 16, 2013
Video
This video made me think about some ways that are efficient and
quick to help people in this stage of earthquake damages.
Researches
Natural disasters hit suddenly
and leave behind live serious damages by physical injury, death and loss of
properties. One of the most outstanding natural disasters is the earthquake (Van Westen et al. 2006). Earthquake
damages to people are generally caused when the seismic waves reach the bottom
surface mostly around where human built structures are located. Most of the
damages and death are because of the structure collapsing and also construction
practices during the earthquakes (Primer on Natural Hazard Management in Integrated Regional Development
Planning).
Introduction
Geologists have
done a lot of research to predict and possibly to warn about impending
earthquake. Countries such as Japan, Iran, Chile, and Indonesia and many more
are on the subduction zones a tectonic setting that causes many deadly
earthquakes. Depending on how strong the buildings are designed in case of earthquake
these countries face high numbers of injuries constantly (USGS digital spectral
Library).
Developed
countries have come up with great solutions in terms of system of constructions
reduce damages to people and cities, even though it doesn’t work 100% of the
time, but its still protects people and their belongings. But Developing
countries are still struggling, and many people are suffering and losing their
families and properties after each earthquake.
Statement of the problem
Human
shelters addressed people basic needs for centuries investigating new
innovative ways to build housing in earthquake prone areas may result in less
damage and suffering. This thesis is going to investigate the recent earthquake
damages in Iran and attempts to propose alternatives to a safer built
environment. My country of origin is Iran, through out all these years that I
lived in Iran saw a lot of people are suffering after each earthquake, and it’s
damaging a lot of cities. Destroying people’s life all the time made me think to
help them one day, now it is the best time for me to get engage with this big
problem in my country, focusing on the recent earthquake damages and find out
some solutions.
What causes most earthquakes is
basically when two blocks of the earth suddenly slip past one another. And when
these two slides on top of each other, is called the faults. The Earth is broken
up into plates and these plates keep slowly moving around, which are called
tectonic plates. The edges of these plates are called plate boundaries and
those are made up of many faults. When these boundaries stock while they’re
moving and here is when an earthquake happens and we can feel the earth’s
moving. The reason that the earth shakes is because of the energy that causes
the blocks to slide on each other, get stored. Once this energy gets released
the seismic waves shake the earth when they move through it. And this is when
it reaches the earth surface and everything starts shaking (The geology of earthquakes). IIEES (international Institute of
Earthquake Engineering and Seismology) researches, The Iranian land is one of
the seismically active areas known in the world that has been gone thorough a
lot of earthquakes over the years (USGS.org).
In fact we are not able to make any
changes in earth’s movements, but what we can do is design earthquake resistant
structures to reduce the amount of damages to people and cities located on
earthquake zones. Based on studies
in past earthquakes in Iran, delicate in construction is the major damage
caused in this area. Magnitude (the size of the earthquake) 6 is very common on
active zone areas like Iran, but when this considered earthquake happens closer
to the built areas (like cities) causes a lot of damages and the reason is they
are not prepared for this level of shaking. The 2009 earthquake in Pandang,
Indonesia was one of the examples that caused a lot of damages to the buildings
by shaking the ground. In that earthquake 600 people died under mud and rock
falling down (vigny 2009).
As a matter
of fact, landslides triggered by earthquakes often cause more loss than
earthquakes themselves Believing that with fewer causes we can save more lives
and reduce more human suffering, this thesis will investigate the materials and
methods that we can use to reduce these damages (Becky Oskin 2013, National
geographic).
There are
some countries such as Mexico and Japan that have the alarm systems, which can sense
when the earthquake occur and also can measure the magnitude of shaking. It has
been around since 1991 in Mexico and this system gets more than 60 seconds to
warn because of the source that is about 186 miles. Having this kind of system
and also educating people to save their lives in case of emergency can be very
helpful. Because a lot of these miss responding to earthquakes is cause by lack
of knowledge (National Geographic).
Civil
engineers, planning agencies and also the insurance industries have models and
programs to estimate the amount of the earthquake loss. And based on their
results the quality and quantity of the progress depends on where its located
and how close is it to the fault lines (USGS).
What an architect does in this case is, to keep people safe and design spaces
that they feel comfortable and protected.
Iran is
located in the active earthquake prone, that has experienced more that 130
powerful earthquakes with a magnitude of 7 or more, that 25 of them was just in
the past 100 years that killed more than 200,000 and damaged a lot of places,
which is also presented in table 1. And left behind many economical damages, in
villages and towns that are already struggling poverty (akhavan 2006).
Several deadly earthquakes have hit Iran in recent
years, many of which have caused widespread devastation. For example, a 6.1-magnitude earthquake hit
the south of Iran in “Bushehr” last couple of months killing 39 people and
injuring around 850. The deadliest quake in the country was in June 1990. It
measured 7.7 on the Richter scale, killed around 37,000 people and injured
100,000. The worst earthquake in recent times hit a southeastern province in
December 2003, killing 31,000 people and destroying the city of Bam's ancient
mud-built citadel (PLOS Currents Disasters. 2013 May 1).
After
this earthquake 35.000 housing units were destroyed which is 63% of all the
houses in the area (NDGI 2005). The reconstruction took more than 3 years,
which is questioning because of planning and poor quality (Arsalan 2007).
After the
shaking causing of earthquake, victims need to start their regular life as soon
as possible. Losing families and properties can already be harmful and
exhausting so the best thing that they can do is restart living their lives. In
order to that they need their privacy. At this time the best option is
Transitional shelters until permanent housing plan would start. Obviously
reconstruction of housing takes a lot more time. This will help them not just
to have more time to rebuild their houses, but to recover from the mega
disaster and their lives (World Bank, Recovery Planning).
This
thesis is going to investigate the quality of housing spaces and adjust social
and economic conditions of living space In form of people need. And it would be
in longer time while victims are at the transitional shelters.
Critical Position
I believe that architecture is more than just a pretty object. Architecture has a moral responsibility to consider all aspects of design that affects both its users and the environment.
Thesis Statement
Natural disasters hit suddenly and leave behind lives serious
damages by physical injury, death and loss of properties. One of the most
outstanding natural disasters is the earthquake. Earthquake damages to people
are caused basically when the seismic waves reach the bottom surface mostly
around where human built structures are located. This
thesis proposes to approach more advanced techniques for earthquake resistant
structures to reduce the damage-causing earthquake to people and cities in
Iran. Most of the
damages and death are because of collapsing the structure and also construction
practices during the earthquakes
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