Workshop on Designing Quake-Resistant Buildings in IIT-Kanpur

A workshop on earthquake-resistant practices for undergraduate students of architecture began at IIT-Kanpur on Monday. It will end on July 7.

Over 60 participants of 14 colleges from across the country are participating in the workshop. The participants were selected from over 100 applications received for the purpose. The aim of the workshop is to sensitize the students of architecture in earthquake resistant design practices through technical lectures, followed by design studios. They would be given guidance in earthquake resistant design by working on an architectural design project.

On the first day of the workshop, a quiz competition was held. Another quiz will be held at the end of the workshop to evaluate the progress made by the students.

The inaugural function was chaired by dean, research and development, IIT-K, A K Chaturvedi.

Chaturvedi said that interaction and synergisation of architects and structural engineers is a healthy sign for the country and help in minimizing post-earthquake effects. Durgesh C Rai, coordinator, NICEE welcomed the participants. He said that the aim of setting up of NICEE is to act as store house of information and ensure its smooth dissemination.

Mahua Mukherjee of IIT Roorkee welcomed the participants and told them about the schedule of the workshop.

During the six-day workshop, the students will be given an architectural design assignment, where they will be required to design an apartment complex containing a mix of various different types of apartments in addition to amenities and utilities for residents. The students would be exposed to resist software to test the adequacy of their designs from seismic performance perspective.

Mahua Mukherjee from IIT Roorkee, Vasudha Gokhale from Dr BN College of Architecture for Women in Pune, Atanu Dutta from Jorhat Engineering College and Alpana Dongre, VNIT, Nagpur are the resource persons of the workshop.

Lectures will be delivered by Hari Kumar of Geo Hazards. The studio sessions will be a mix of desk work and informal lectures, where individual cases will be used to illustrate earthquake engineering concepts.

The design prepared by the participants will be evaluated by a team of jury comprising Mahesh Tandon, A K Mittal, Balbir Verma and Naren Mitra.