Building with bounce

Press, 25 February 1981, Page 21

Building with bounce

Unique in the world, this new Wellington multi-storey building is based on rubber foundations to try to limit the effects of the large earthquake that is expected to hit the capital city one day. . - I Eighty of the 200 mm thick rubber blocks, complete with central lead plug, isolates the Ministry of Works’ new district office near the Hutt motorway from direct contact • with the ground. (The lead plugs are designed to limit the degree of the building’s swaying in an earthquake by absorbing energy. They will also stop the building moving in strong winds.) : . The William Clayton building will be completed in about 18 months, and when finished will have three seismographs installed to measure the vibrations of any earthquakes. •’ ’ > But even before the building’s completion, the D.S.I.R. has installed equipment designed to measure the movement of the building in relation to any. ground tremors. “What’s going to happen is that the ground will move and the building will stay still — we hope,” said Mr Dick Hefford, one of the D.S.I.R.’s physics and engineering technicians checking the device. The building is the only one in New Zealand to sit on rubber blocks (the technical term for this is “base isolated”). The base isolators are “home grown” — they were invented by the D.SJLR., and made by a Christchurch firm.