School G.Galilei & L.B.Alberti

Province of L’Aquila 
CATEGORY Civil & Industrial Buildings
SERVICES PROVIDED Structural design of a new building block
LOCATION | Avezzano, Italy
PROJECT DURATION | 2011
PROJECT VALUE | € 7.000.000,00

In 2009, the severe L’Aquila earthquake devastated the region of Abruzzo in central Italy. The magnitude 6.3 tremor, also rated 5.8 or 5.9 on the Richter magnitude scale, struck on the 6th of April 2009 at 03:32 am local time.   

The epicentre located near L’Aquila, the capital of Abruzzo, destroyed the town together with surrounding villages. There have been several thousand foreshocks and aftershocks since December 2008, more than thirty of which had a Richter magnitude greater than 3.5. The earthquake was felt throughout central Italy and 308 people are known to have died.  

The High School Istituto Tecnico Commerciale “G. Galilei e dell’Istituto Tecnico per Geometri “L. B. Alberti” was severaly demaged after the shock and it required several strengthening measures to retrofit the 6 building blocks: 

  • CF1, CF2, CF3: Connection of the 3 building blocks (due to lack of seismic joints) and base isolation; 
  • CF4, CF5: Connections of the 2 building blocks (due to lack of seismic joints), strengthening measures to reinforce the main structural elements and insertions BRAD hysteretic dissipative systems; 
  • CF6: demolishment of the existing building block and replacement with a new steel structure detached from all the rest by means of seismic joints. 

 Hopper Engineering and Consultancy was responsable for the strcutural design of CF6 in collaboration with Coding srl. 

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