POLICY BRIEF FOR NZSEE PROJECT ON RESILIENT BUILDINGS

How do Kiwis want buildings to perform during and after an earthquake?

Key points
New Zealand has gone through a period of A recent review commissioned by MBIE
unprecedented losses from seismic activity, from the Seismic Risk Working Group
which has highlighted shortcomings in the raised fundamental issues about Building
Code’s seismic regime objectives and who
seismic settings of our building regime.
makes the value tradeoffs required.
Engineering knowledge in designing for New social science research responded to
earthquakes has advanced significantly since this challenge by asking Kiwis what is
the current approach to building design was important to them. The key findings
developed in the 1970s. include:

New Zealand’s urban landscape has also 1. Safety is non-negotiable

changed profoundly with more multi-storey 2. Kiwis want more than life safety. In
development, in-fill housing etc. particular, social and economic
recovery are important objectives
New Zealand’s Building Code has not kept up 3. Speed of recovery is a particular
with these developments. New Zealand’s priority for some building types –
seismic thresholds for damage are relatively marae, community centres, and
low, meaning Kiwis are exposed to homes – that currently are not a
considerable economic and social disruption priority
after earthquakes. 4. Appetite for risk and expectations of
buildings seismic performance varies
significantly amongst Kiwis.

The challenge of modernising the seismic provisions of the Building Code were
introduced. There is more multi-storey
regulatory regime required to make development, in-fill housing and mixed-use, and
buildings resilient to earthquakes much higher inner-city populations who rely on
networked services.
New Zealand has experienced a period of
unprecedented losses from seismic activity. And seismic engineering has advanced.
These include the 2010-11 Canterbury earthquake Engineering knowledge in designing for
sequence, the 2013 Cook Strait-Marlborough earthquakes has also advanced significantly since
earthquakes and the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake. the current code settings were originally
In the case of the Canterbury earthquake developed. Technical advances over the last 50
sequence, several thousand homes and several years mean that engineers can now design for
hundred Christchurch commercial buildings were damage limitation as well as life safety, something
judged uneconomic to repair, despite having met that was not an imperative when the current
performance objectives for life safety. technical settings of the Code were first
introduced.
New data and lessons are emerging. Several
lessons can be drawn from studies that have We have much to learn from other leading
revealed how complex the patterns of earthquake jurisdictions. Some other countries, such as Japan
shaking can be and how buildings and the ground and Chile, have responded to damaging
performs in response. New seismic modelling, earthquakes by tackling seismic resilience
updating estimated earthquake exposure, will be through performance objectives in the Building
released shortly. Codes and design practices that go beyond life
safety to include broader social and economic
New Zealand has changed. New Zealand's urban
resilience outcomes.
landscape has changed profoundly since the
POLICY BRIEF FOR NZSEE PROJECT ON RESILIENT BUILDINGS MARCH 2022

New Zealand’s Building Code has not kept up Research findings – what do Kiwis
with developments. New Zealand’s seismic
thresholds for damage are relatively low and have
think is important? How do Kiwis
only been reviewed in a piecemeal way. Our want buildings to perform during and
current approach to building design was originally after an earthquake?
developed in the 1970s, and the technical aspects
of the seismic Code settings have not been New social science research aimed to fill gaps
significantly revised since then. We now face the in our understanding. Despite the advances in
challenge of how seismic design should respond to engineering science and design, our Building Code
the latest estimates of earthquake exposure from and standards remain primarily focused on life
the National Seismic Hazard Model. safety. A 2021 research project focused on
understanding societal tolerance for the impact of
A recent review highlighted opportunities to earthquakes on new buildings in New Zealand.
learn from developments and recent The New Zealand Society for Earthquake
experiences. The Seismic Risk Working Group’s Engineering (NZSEE), using funding from EQC,
(SRWG) late 2020 report 1 has shown up gaps and commissioned research that asked Kiwis what
inconsistencies in the building seismic they thought about the seismic performance of
performance regime and raises important buildings generally, importance of different types
questions on how objectives and priorities are set. of buildings, and how seismic risk compares with
other building design priorities. The research for
There are fundamental issues about regime the report ‘Societal expectations for seismic
objectives and who makes the value tradeoffs performance of buildings’ was conducted by
required. The SRWG’s report raised several Resilient Organisations and included 32
important technical issues but also highlighted interviews and 6 geographic focus groups. 2
fundamental questions including:
The research focused on how Kiwis’ performance
1. The Building Code focuses on life safety, expectations for buildings changed based on
but should that be extended to consider building use and location, the variation in risk
recovery of functions in buildings after an tolerance, and the importance of seismic risk.
earthquake?
What came through confirmed the importance of
2. Should key terms like low probability, factors beyond life safety set out in Figure 1.
amenity values be clearly defined and
clarified in guidance? Figure 1 Life safety comes first
3. How should gaps in the current regime be
addressed, including should the design of
future buildings consider the impacts
relating to adjacent buildings and how to
mitigate legacy issues for existing
buildings such as precast concrete
flooring systems and their supports?
4. Who decides what is prioritised and how
should these priorities be expressed in a
design sense? (Currently, technical
standards committees make critical value
judgements about importance levels of
different types of buildings – by
privileging schools but not marae or aged
care homes, for example).

1 https://fl-nzgs-media.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2020/11/Seismic- 2 https://www.nzsee.org.nz/db/PUBS/RBP_SocietalExpectationsReport-
Risk-and-Building-Regulation-in-NZ-For-Release.pdf
FINAL-for-Release.pdf
NZSEE (2022) Societal expectations for seismic performance of buildings.
All the graphics in this brief are drawn from this report.

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POLICY BRIEF FOR NZSEE PROJECT ON RESILIENT BUILDINGS MARCH 2022

Safety is non-negotiable. Safety was confirmed services to enable people to work and
as the most important overall performance business such as building suppliers.
objective. Safety here includes sheltering in place
• After three months during the recovery
during and after an earthquake and ensuring
phase, economic activity and employment
people and places that support life (hospitals,
are the priority.
emergency responders etc.) can function.
• After six months, the built environment
Kiwis want more than life safety. The findings
needs to support the ongoing recovery
demonstrate a growing need and expectation that
and rebuild process (e.g. motels to house
the built environment should provide recovery of
rebuild workers, community spaces and
functions to support social and economic
social networks such as places of worship
objectives following an earthquake; this is
to support individuals).
consistent with findings from US studies discussed
on page 13 of the research report. Figure 3 Recovery priorities by type of
building.
Figure 2 Priorities shift as recovery progresses

The speed of recovery desired varies by the

type of building. Figure 2 shows the different
stages of post-earthquake recovery and how new
priorities become important as the recovery from
the earthquake proceeds. The research focused on
the speed at which certain types of building Appetite for risk varies amongst Kiwis. A
functions shown in Figure 3 should return consistent finding in overseas research was the
following a major earthquake: heterogeneity of people’s risk tolerance, and Kiwis
are no different. Geographic context influences
• The initial priority in the first 30 days risk tolerance. Communities facing low seismic
following a major earthquake is providing hazard risk, geographic isolation, and high density
services that support life – including of the built environment are more risk-averse
emergency response services and shown in Figure 4.
healthcare and goods and services to meet
Access to resources. Communities that have
basic needs (shelter, food, water,
access to resources (physical, financial, and
electricity). Access to alternative facilities
human) are more accepting of seismic risk.
such as marae, community centres, and
Communities with fewer resources, under stress
schools was also important.
or facing significant social inequity issues, are less
• After a month, once individuals’ basic risk-taking.
survival needs are met, the focus shifts to Rural/urban contrasts. Recovery priorities are
access to services, including government different for different communities. For example,
services such as welfare support, healthy rural communities place higher importance on
living conditions, access to childcare buildings that support agri-business.

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POLICY BRIEF FOR NZSEE PROJECT ON RESILIENT BUILDINGS MARCH 2022

Tolerance for minor to moderate damage but less likely to rate capital or whole of life cost as
not permanent dislocation. Regular minor important. The structural component is just part
damage is acceptable to research respondents. (20–33%) of total building cost and a small
Minor to moderate damage (every 10–20 years, fraction of the annualised value of the services the
respectively) is acceptable if it doesn’t disrupt building delivers. Exploring willingness to pay
building tenants. However, there is less tolerance further is an important area for future research.
for long term impacts. A strong theme that
The architectural value of buildings scored
emerged was intolerance to impacts that created
quite low in terms of importance. However,
permanent dislocation of a community. While not
effective architectural design is a key component
assessed directly, with recent seismic activity,
of a building’s performance increasing durability,
overall tolerance for risk appears likely to have
functionality, and longevity.
declined.
Multiple overlapping objectives. Overall, these
Figure 4 Differences in communities’ risk
results reinforce that the strongest imperative for
tolerance
seismic resilience remains life safety. Pursuing
other objectives like economic and social recovery
and environmental sustainability are likely to be
complementary reinforcing objectives.
Next steps
Research begets more research. The research
discussed here provides systematic evidence on
what is important to Kiwis about how buildings
perform during and after an earthquake.
How important is seismic performance? The Conducting research inevitably identifies the
research also focused on relative priorities by opportunity for more research. For example,
comparing seismic with other non-seismic social norms are pliable, and respondents' recent
building design priorities (shown in Appendix A). experience of COVID clearly influenced the results.
While life safety during an earthquake came Similarly, one gap is the research did not explore
through as the top priority, other design issues the cost implications of improved building
also featured. resilience.
Accessibility came through strongly,
Better focused questions. But these caveats
particularly the need to facilitate access to
aside, it is important not to let the perfect get in
disabled and low mobility users. Good access is
the way of the good. Data and research data
important for the daily wellbeing of users but also
doesn’t tell you what to do. But it does highlight
supports safe and efficient evacuation during a
key questions to ask and enables better-informed
fire, earthquake, or another hazard event.
decision-making. One key question emerging from
Environmental sustainability has been the research will be how to respond to the
growing in importance in recent years. diversity in risk tolerance and seismic
Sustainability ranked relatively highly along with performance expectations amongst Kiwis in the
similar importance to air quality. Reducing future design of building standards?
building damage from earthquakes adds to
Find the gap. More work is needed to determine
building longevity and reduces environmental
how we should effectively incorporate societal
impact including reducing the use of carbon.
expectations into New Zealand Building Code,
The importance of cost differed significantly standards, and engineering practice. This includes
between participants. Those with strong understanding the gap between societal
commercial interests tend to rate cost expectations and what our current building and
considerations more highly if they factor in return engineering practices, standards, and regulations
on investment on short time frames. However, deliver. Future research needs to undertake this
those with a building user perspective are much gap analysis between the Code and societal

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POLICY BRIEF FOR NZSEE PROJECT ON RESILIENT BUILDINGS MARCH 2022

expectations and undertake an intervention New insights from the National Seismic Hazard
analysis to assess which policy levers and other Model have updated our understanding of
tools to use. earthquake exposure and, when these are
released shortly, will provide an increased
Conclusion – the choices ahead imperative for change.
New Zealand’s recent experience with a series of New Zealand is coming to a fork in the road, and
earthquakes has highlighted the need for reform. the research discussed here provides the
Since the existing approach to seismic design was opportunity to learn the way forward. Or, like the
first adopted, engineering practices have Bourbons after Napoleon, we can be destined to
improved markedly. In addition, there have been learn nothing and forget nothing by clinging to the
changes in both risk tolerance and the urban approach of the existing outdated regulatory
environment, and we face a new imperative for regime.
sustainable building practices. New Zealand’s
seismic thresholds for damage are relatively low;
meaning Kiwis are exposed to considerable
economic and social disruption after earthquakes.

Appendix A – Kiwis’ ranking building design requirements

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This paper was written by Derek Gill at NZIER, 24 March 2022 based on research commissioned by the New Zealand Society
for Earthquake Engineering and undertaken by Resilient Organisations with funding from Earthquake Commission (EQC).
For further information on the NZSEE project please contact Helen Ferner, [email protected].

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