Modeling, analysis and design of one of Zaha Hadid's buildings

Abstract

The project tackled here is the Issam Fares Institute, one of Zaha Hadids buildings, located at the American university of Beirut. It consists of one basement, five stories and a roof with a sixteen meters span cantilever. In this project the main challenge was to model the structure using ETABS; the structure consisted of mainly shear walls of which about 90% are inclined except for the basement. This project was of huge benefit since all the skills and knowledge acquired at the university were applied, new subjects were learned, skills were developed and the engineering judgment was improved. The major software used is ETABS, SAFE, SAP and AUTOCAD; in addition this project will be earthquake resistant therefore all the calculations and load combinations are based on the UBC code. The design of the building is done using, ACI-318M-05, UBC97 and ASCE-07. ACI-318M-05 is used for the all Reinforced Concrete sections mainly shear walls, slabs, beams and columns; UBC97 code is used in order to apply the lateral load combinations to the building. Finally the ASCE-07 code helps defining the several loads to be applied. AUTOCAD software has been employed to visualize the project and understand its complicated divisions in order to perform the model correctly and to understand where some columns and beams were needed. ETABS on the other hand has been used to analyze and design some structural elements, SAP software for inclined shear walls and finally SAFE for the foundations to visualize the soil reactions. This report presents all the information needed clearly; all computations, software results and formulas are there to help the reader comprehend.