Housing in Bucharest, Romania : An Analysis of Vulnerability to Earthquakes

This book contains a selection of reports contributed to the World Housing Encyclopedia project (http://www.world-housing.net/) by the author, some of them together with Eng. Ilie Sandu, about housing types in Bucharest, Romania, covering a time span from the late 19th century, from when such an amount of housing buildings is kept that the typology is representative, until the end of the 20th century. Apart of the report contributed to date to the World Housing Encyclopedia, also two new reports are included, one on multistory masonry housing, and one on buildings of the Modern Movement with commercial ground floor. The reports are grouped in their historical evolution, related to the dominant architectural style of the time, and, in some cases, this means more than one report exemplifying such a style (for example low rise and middle rise masonry buildings during the Neoromânesc, Modernist buildings with and without commercial ground floor, two different types of block of flats of the International Style which resisted well and respectively poorly to earthquakes). The selection of reports is preceded by an introduction, which includes an overview of surveys performed by the author or research groups the author participated in on the built substance of Bucharest, Romania, to assess how representative these housing types are for the city. The housing types cover load bearing masonry structures, reinforced concrete skeleton and moment resisting frames and reinforced concrete structural walls, out of precast elements and not. Apart of the vulnerability assessment, also possible and applied retrofit solutions are reviewed. The book is richly illustrated with photographs and drawings of typical floor plans, (3D) sections and axonometric views.