The Salt Lake City-County Building, the first building in the world to be retrofitted with seismic-base isolation against earthquakes, is the special projects grand award winner in a national competition.
Selected from among 113 entrants, the building won in the American Consulting Engineers Council's 23rd annual engineering excellence awards competition.The names of E.W. Allen & Associates, Salt Lake City, an 11-member structural consulting engineering firm, and other competition winners were announced at a recent reception in Washington.
The Salt Lake firm designed structural and seismic strengthening methods for the building, which was constructed between 1890 and 1894.
To help make the building earthquake resistant, consulting engineers equipped the structure with base isolation, achieved by inserting 443 base isolators between the existing stone and brick masonry foundation and footings. Base isolation supports the building on shock absorbers, which change the period of vibration.