New Zealand’s Earthquake Commission (EQC) and New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering will run a webinar on Thursday addressing the topic of designing resilient homes in quake-prone areas.

US engineer David Mar is the keynote speaker and he will talk about a recently completed project in San Francisco that delivered quake-resilient homes at almost no additional cost.

“Many of the units in the San Francisco project were for very low-income and formerly homeless seniors,” Mr Mar said. “That got us really thinking about the design.

“This low-damage designed building will keep functioning under much bigger earthquake loads and allow people to keep living in the building.  For example, windows are far less likely to break and the building will stay waterproof and heat-tight.”

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