Dive Brief:
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Stanford University engineers have designed and built a two-story house that they say is so resistant to tremors and shakes it could erase the need for earthquake insurance.
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The model home is not attached to a foundation. Instead, it sits on a dozen sliding steel-and-plastic seismic “isolators,” which allow the house to skate back and forth rather than collapse when the earth beneath it moves.
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A "unibody" design ensures that every component of the home works together to make it stronger. Builders used glue rather than screws to fix drywall to wood framing, for example, and added mesh and additional screws to attach the stucco cladding.
Dive Insight:
Builders followed similar practices when constructing San Francisco City Hall and some structures at San Francisco International Airport. While the use of earthquake-defying technology is expensive in commercial construction, the Stanford engineers pared down the cost to make it affordable for homes.