When a deadly 6.3-magnitude earthquake hit Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2011, over 60 per cent of concrete buildings three storeys or higher in the downtown business district had to be demolished as they were no longer safe to live or work in.

Structural engineer Dr. Lisa Tobber, an assistant professor in the School of Engineering within UBC’s Faculty of Applied Science, wants us to consider what this scenario means for British Columbia — a seismically active region that is waiting for the “Big One” to strike, and where buildings are designed to preserve life rather than remain safe to reside after an earthquake.

“As we saw in Christchurch, a lack of resiliency has major ramifications. Buildings that aren’t required to be structurally sound after an earthquake end up getting demolished,” said Dr. Tobber.

“Here in BC, that could lead to hundreds of thousands of people who are suddenly homeless because their mid- or high-rise building isn’t safe to return to after a disaster.”

Dr. Tobber leads a research group that is advancing knowledge of how to design and construct disaster-resilient buildings. She is particularly interested in concrete – a material of choice in high-rise buildings for its durability and versatility.

She is being awarded the BC Housing Professorship in Resilient Reinforced Concrete Buildings, which will enable her to play a leading role in guiding interdisciplinary research in this area.

Dr. Tobber acknowledges that concrete, while known for its longevity, is not a perfect material. Concrete is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, and concrete construction is time consuming and requires specialized labour, something in short supply these days.

Her research is looking at ways to reduce the environmental impact of concrete construction while creating more resilient structures through the seismic design of precast buildings, using hybrid systems (like wood framing and reinforced concrete core walls), integrating new and more sustainable kinds of concrete materials, and adopting earthquake-resilient structural systems and technologies.

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