Structural and Architectural Design of Complex-Shaped Structures in Seismic Regions: Early Stages from a Practical Perspective

This paper attempts to fill the knowledge gap that is encountered in the structural and architectural design of complex-shaped buildings in seismic prone regions. In a combined effort between academia and practice the challenges involved in the seismic design of complex geometry structures have been analyzed through a number of complex-shaped case study structures. Several parametric studies on the seismic performance of typical complex geometry components have been performed for the design situation where the complex geometry does contribute to the lateral stability. In the case it doesn’t, the principles of a previously proposed innovative design solution are shown that involves the isolation of external irregular parts of the structure from the regular interior one. The findings have been formulated as generic design recommendations, aiming to aid the early stages of comparable designs.