New System Ranks Expected Earthquake Performance of Buildings

In November, the U.S. Resiliency Council launched its voluntary rating system for a building’s expected performance in an earthquake. The program, modeled after the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED rating system, allows an owner to specify desired performance levels to the design team. The USRC system rates a building from one to five stars, based on three anticipated performance categories: building safety, damage and recovery time.

Nadine M. Post, ENR's editor-at-large for buildings, is an award-winning journalist with 45 years of experience covering trends, issues, innovations, controversies and challenging projects. Post has written about many industry giants, including 10 ENR Award of Excellence winners. And she has covered disasters, failures and attacks, including the 1993 bombing and the 2001 destruction of the World Trade Center. Project stories include the redevelopment of the World Trade Center; the 828-meter-tall Burj Khalifa; Los Angeles’ Disney Concert Hall; and Seattle's Bullitt Center and Rainier Square Tower. In 1985, Post wrote McGraw-Hill's book Restoring the Statue of Liberty (1986) for the restoration’s architects—Richard S. Hayden and Thierry W. Despont.

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