Inside Tallwood – Tour and Happy Hour

NHERI @ UCSD

10-story cross-laminated timber (CLT) building

FTF Founder and Principal Randy Collins recently returned to his alma mater, UCSD, where he attended an all-day Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) Industry-Academia Workshop and visited the Englekirk Structural Engineering Center. He walked the entire test specimen, pump house, and beneath the shake table. The UC San Diego LHPOST6 has enabled the seismic testing of full-scale structural, geostructural, and soil-foundation-structural systems with its ability to reproduce 6 degrees of motion recorded from actual earthquakes accurately.

Randy Collins with colleagues, Assistant Professor Marc Maguire, University of Nebraska, Omaha and Wayne Chang,Principal at Structural Focus, atop the 10-story CLT building
Marc Maguire, David Mar, Mar Structural Design, Dr. Thomas Sabol, Principal at Englekirk and Wayne Chang
Marc Maguire and Wayne Chang
Randy Collins with Dr. Shiling Pei, Associate Professor, Colorado School of Mines
Professor Joel Conte, UCSD, in the red hat

More than 35 research projects by researchers in the United States, with partners worldwide, have been tested on the LHPOST6, leading to changes in design codes for commercial and residential structures. Randy and his colleagues saw a 10-story cross-laminated timber (CLT) building tested. The impetus behind the project was the global demand for tall, seismically resilient residential and mixed-use buildings. Looking for a solution, the international wood seismic research and practitioner community believe that tall wood buildings have a substantial potential to create seismically resilient cities.

Geisel Library, UCSD

In addition to the LHPOST6, UCSD is home to the Brutalist Geisel Library. Designed by architect William Pereira in 1968, the futuristic eight-level reinforced concrete and glass structure is an engineering masterpiece. The cantilevered building, located at a canyon entrance, resembles a UFO. It features two underground levels, with the first two above-ground stories forming a pedestal to support the stepped levels above it. The serious-looking library’s name comes from the not-very-serious Theodore Seuss Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, and showcases a life-size bronze statue of The Cat in the Hat with its author.

Categories