Month: February 2013

We are currently in the process of organizing our final, three day trip to Victoria’s downtown core. After meeting with Brandon Paxton last week, we received the final draft of the screening review forms, as well as a list of the heritage buildings that we will be screening. Our preparations for the trip have included:

– Filling out preliminary information on the screening forms, using Google Earth and CRD Atlas

– Booking accommodations at the Hotel Rialto

– Organizing transportation and ferries

– Discussing project management strategies with our group mentor

– Gathering equipment (measuring tapes, safety gear, scratch testing kits)

– Planning a budget with Dr. Nesbit

 

Below is a preliminary timeline for how the work will be carried out in Victoria:

Sunday, February 17

– 9 am ferry to Swartz Bay

– Check into hotel

– Meet with Catherine, Brandon, and Geography students

– Perform any screenings which can’t be done during regular weekday business hours

– Perform exterior inspections of buildings in project area

Monday, February 18

– Perform complete screenings of buildings in project area (exterior, interior, roof access)

Tuesday, February 19

– Continue screenings of buildings in project area

– Final consultations with VCHT

– Return to Vancouver

 

We are very excited to begin the final phase of our project and experience downtown Victoria.

We arrived back in Vancouver Friday night, after a day trip to Victoria where we received a full project overview from VCHT. Our team will be assisting in conducting a pilot project, screening and assessing the seismic risk of heritage buildings located within a target area of the downtown core of Victoria, BC. The target area currently consists of the 500 block of Johnson Street, and may be expanded if the pilot proves successful. Our trip also allowed us to meet many of the people behind the project, namely:

Catherine Umland— VCHT executive director

Brandon Paxton— Masters Student at UBC

Rob Johns—Emergency Coordinator for the City of Victoria

Stephanie Blazey – GIS technician for the City of Victoria

Leon Plett – Read Jones Christoffersen Consulting Engineers Ltd.

Chris Ryzuk—Geotechnical engineering and committee member of VCHT

The Victoria Civic Heritage Trust (VCHT) is a non-profit charitable organization that was established in 1989 by the City of Victoria. They work with the City to develop, administer and financially support programs that preserve and enhance the heritage buildings and culture of Victoria. This is accomplished through monetary incentives in the form of tax exceptions and grants to building owners that promote the seismic retrofitting of heritage buildings.

      

The desire to collect information on the city’s heritage buildings, most of which are unreinforced masonry buildings (URM), is directly the result of the devastation which occurred in Christchurch, New Zealand in February, 2011. The city shares many similarities with Victoria, including seismicity, architecture and construction styles, and is a reminder that resilience can only be achieved through mitigation.

There are over 200 heritage buildings in Victoria, however only approximately 25% of them have received seismic retrofits. We will be going back to Victoria on the 17^th to conduct screening reviews for the project. The desired outcomes are:

• To create a set of data that describes the seismic conditions and inventory of heritage buildings from the screening process
• To develop guidelines to use in a parapet and façade bracing pilot program
• To gather information for GIS mapping for the City of Victoria

The potential difficulties that we foresee impeding our ability to conduct thorough assessments of properties are time, building owners, and use of buildings.

We received a tour of an ongoing seismic upgrade for a URM building by Leon Plett, of RJC consulting engineers. Afterwards, we toured a completed project and saw the significant improvements between heritage buildings before and after their retrofits.

The trip was highly informative and we would like to thank the VCHT and all other presenters for their time. We look forward to our next trip to Victoria.