National Information Centre of Earthquake Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Kanpur 208016

  

Workshop for

EARTHQUAKE RESISTANT PRACTICES FOR UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS OF ARCHITECTURE
03-08 JULY 2008, IIT KANPUR
 

A “Workshop on Earthquake Resistant Practices for Undergraduate Students of Architecture” was conducted at IIT Kanpur during July 03 – 08, 2008. This was a part of NICEE initiative towards reaching the architects of tomorrow through a hands-on programme in earthquake resistant architectural design. The workshop was attended by 57 participants of 19 colleges from all over India (and Nepal). These participants were selected from over 100 applications which were received. The aim of this workshop was to sensitize the students of architecture in earthquake resistant design practices through technical lectures followed by design studios where they were given guidance in earthquake resistant design by working on an architectural design project.

 The selected participants were each sent a NICEE publication titled “Architectural Teaching Resource Material on Earthquake Design Concepts” authored by Murty and Charleson. The participants were advised to go through the book before coming for the workshop. On the first day of the workshop a quiz with multiple choice answers was given to the participants. Another quiz of similar difficulty level was administered to the participants towards the end of the workshop to evaluate the progress made by the students. 

During the six-day workshop the students were given an architectural design assignment where they were required to design an  apartment complex containing a mix of various different types of apartments in addition to amenities and utilities for residents. The brief was to incorporate earthquake resistant features at the conceptual design stage along with the usual design considerations such as activities, climate, image etc. Students were exposed to RESIST software to test the adequacy of their designs from seismic performance perspective and this session helped them arrive at reasonable sizes of structural members. The design assignment helped the students internalize earthquake safety issues and apply these in their design solutions.

The following faculty members were the resource persons of the workshop:

(a)    Prof Keya Mitra, Department of Architecture, Bengal Engineering & Science University, Shibpur
(b)    Dr. Mahua Mukherjee, Department of Architecture & Planning, IIT Roorkee, Roorkee
(c)    Dr. Vasudha Gokhale, Dr. B.N. College of Architecture for Women, Pune
(d)    Prof Bhavna Vimawala, Department of Architecture, SCET, Surat
(e)    Prof Nehal Desai, Department of Architecture, SCET, Surat

In addition to the above faculty, lectures were also delivered by Dr. Sudhir K. Jain and Dr. Durgesh C. Rai of IIT Kanpur, who also participated in the Design Studios and guided the students on how best to incorporate earthquake resistant features in their individual designs, keeping in mind all the other requirements of the design brief. The studio sessions were a mix of desk work and informal lectures where individual cases were used to illustrate earthquake engineering concepts to the entire class.

The final designs were evaluated by a Jury Board on the last day through presentations followed by brief questioning by the Jury. The Jury consisted of Ar. Tapan Kumar Sinha, Additional Director General, CPWD, New Delhi; Prof Amit Bose, Director, Designers & Planners Combine, New Delhi; Prof OR Jaiswal, Department of Applied Mechanics, VNIT, Nagpur; Prof Sudhir K Jain and Prof Durgesh C Rai of IIT Kanpur. After the initial scrutiny, best eight designs were shortlisted, which were again reviewed by the Jury. The final winners were as follows: 

 

     
I Prize  (a) Hemant Kumar Chaurasia of Lucknow College of Architecture, Lucknow
  (b) Sarang Sanjay Patwardhan of BKPS College of Architecture, Pune 
     
II Prize   (a) Himanshu Soni of Lucknow College of Architecture, Lucknow
  (b) Smita Yatish Prabhune of BKPS College of Architecture, Pune
     
III Prize (a) Anil Kumar K of School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi
(Two Winners) (b) Roshana Banepali of Khwopa Engineering College, Nepal
  (a) Mungekar Neha Nandan of Academy of Architecture, Pune
  (b) Minu Agarwal of Guwahati College of Architecture, Guwahati
 

   

The students feedback at the end of workshop was excellent. The overall rating assigned by the students to the workshop was 83% (average). The response had an average score of 4.71 (out of 5.0) to the question if they will recommend this workshop to their colleagues.

During the Valedictory Session, Prof Sudhir K. Jain advised the participants to draw a balance between the requirements of earthquake resistant design and host of design considerations that they normally consider in their architectural design exercises. The chief guest, Ar. Tapan Kumar Sinha lauded the quality of the design output by all participants and wished them success in their careers.

The workshop was made possible by the generous support from:

  • Computers & Structures Inc, Berkeley, USA

  • Poonam and Prabhu Goel Foundation, IIT Kanpur

  • Other donors of NICEE

For further details please contact Cdr Suresh Ailawadi, Retd, at asuresh@iitk.ac.in, nicee@iitk.ac.in
Contact no.: +91-512-259 7749, +91-9450162502

Additional photographs of the workshop are available at http://picasaweb.google.com/nicee.iitk
Press Coverage available at http://www.nicee.org/press_coverage.php