How This UC Berkeley Building Withstands Powerful Earthquakes: Report

BERKELEY, CA — Above ground, UC Berkeley’s campus has green trees, historic buildings, the towering Campanile, and vast views of the Bay Area.

But next to the campus, underneath California Memorial Stadium, there’s an environment much more volatile and unnerving for some — the Hayward Fault.

Over the years, UC Berkeley officials have spent billions to mitigate the risks of the fault line.

California Memorial Stadium was almost completely retrofitted with scientific devices such as seismic dusters, which act as shock absorbers during an earthquake.

The UC Berkeley Grimes Engineering Building is also one that has been constructed specifically to withstand a large quake, according to a report from Fast Company.

The building was constructed with 36 thin metal rods made from a flexible compound known as shape-memory alloy, according to the report.

These are designed to bend under heavy tension and then essentially snap the building back into its original shape.

“This is a place where they test, understand, and deploy new technologies in seismic zones year after year after year,” structural engineer Mark Sarkisian, a partner at architect firm SOM, told Fast Company. “It’s remarkable what the professors here have done.”

Read more from Fast Company.