Simon Fraser University buildings at 'high risk' of damage in earthquake: report
Credit to Author: Zak Vescera| Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2019 21:34:15 +0000
More than 30 buildings on Simon Fraser University’s Burnaby campus are at high risk of falling or sustaining serious damage in the event of a major earthquake.
A 2017 seismic evaluation of 70 campus structures found 34 half of them were “high risk,” indicating a more than 10 per cent risk of partial or full collapse in a “moderately serious” seismic event.
They include the W.A.C. Bennett Library, the Shrum Science buildings and the Shell House student residence.
The report, compiled by Canadian engineering consultants Read Jones Christoffersen and obtained by Postmedia via freedom of information request, evaluated over 70 “blocks” of SFU campus, which consists largely of connected concrete structures.
While it cautions a fuller qualitative assessment is necessary, it estimated nearly half of examined “blocks” were at high risk and another 22 were at a “medium” risk, with a risk of collapse of five per cent or more.
Five others could not be reliably assessed.
SFU professor John Clague, an authority on environmental earth sciences, says there are multiple potential scenarios for an earthquake in the Metro Vancouver area — but it’s unclear when a quake will come, where it will be centred and how strong it will be.
“We’ve never had a damaging earthquake in Vancouver, so there’s a kind of reluctance to think they might occur,” said Clague. “But they will. It’s just a question of when.”
“The Big One” — an earthquake of magnitude 9.0 or higher on the Richter scale, which occurs roughly once every 500 years in the Pacific Northwest — would begin off the coast of Vancouver island but could still cause the ground to roll and liquefy in Metro Vancouver, Clague says, which could seriously damage tall buildings.
There’s also the potential for a smaller 7.0 “shallow” quake caused by a fault line, like the 6.3 Christchurch earthquake in 2011 that killed 185 people and caused about $30 billion in damages in 10 seconds.
In a statement to Postmedia, chief facilities officer Larry Waddeil argued the 2017 assessment was based off the model earthquake used in the 2015 National Building Code, which he called a “very rare event,” stressing a collapse is unlikely.
Clague agreed it’s unlikely a quake will be direct, but recommends planning for the worst-case scenario.
“You have to think about a worst-case scenario, but the most likely scenario is that we’re going to be dinged by an earthquake that’s far enough away that the buildings remain standing but are seriously damaged,” he said.
He says SFU’s seismic upgrades are “not up to snuff” compared to campuses like UBC, which has a detailed, public, seismic upgrade plan.
Waddeil points out most SFU buildings were built before 1995, when seismic requirements become “more stringent,” and says the university is working to develop a full-risk assessment in line with UBC.
The campus recently launched a series of renovations and has partially seismically upgraded some structures, like parts of its gymnasium. Waddeil says Strand Hall, the Academic Quadrangle and several other buildings have been upgraded since the 2017 report.
“SFU Safety and Risk Services and Facilities Services are developing a retrofit priority matrix that considers the magnitude of the seismic deficiency, the use of the building, and the cost of the retrofit, to help us to prioritize the upgrades required, and to plan for those,” he writes.
Advocates say retrofitting is long overdue, especially considering the campus’s unique architectural status.
SFU was built in the mid-1960s and designed by Arthur Erickson, the famed Vancouver architect.
The Academic Quadrangle, designed by famed architect Arthur Erikson, is the architectural centrepiece of Simon Fraser University. Its concrete foundations would be especially vulnerable in an earthquake.
Simon Scott, director of the Arthur Erickson Foundation, says the campus’s unique interconnected design makes it an internationally notable piece of architecture that could one day be considered a World Heritage site.
“I don’t think Vancouver really realizes what a valuable place Simon Fraser is,” he said. “There is not another university in the world like it.”
Like many architects of his time, Erickson used concrete extensively.
Today, those concrete foundations are especially vulnerable to a quake. Pre-cast concrete cladding also poses a “significant potential falling hazard,” according to the report.
Heritage consultant and architect Donald Luxton says current campus maintenance and planning has already deviated sharply from Erickson’s vision from the campus and left buildings in disrepair.
He cites the slated demolition of the Madge Hogarth House, which has a “high” safety risk, as an example of SFU sacrificing heritage for convenience.
“They can pay all the lip service they want to respecting the legacy, but I don’t see it,” he said.
He says it’s “imperative” that buildings are retrofitted and repaired to resist quakes and acknowledges that may change the campus, but urges the school to consider heritage value as it plans more repairs.
Not everything is ever completely retained or completely restored,” he said. “There’s no one answer.”
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