Reid Zimmerman

For seismic design, U.S. building codes have historically focused almost exclusively on ensuring life safety and limiting the probability of collapse of new buildings. Over approximately the last decade, long-standing performance-based design in the United States has evolved into resilience-based design where additional metrics such as casualty rates, repair costs, and recovery times can be calculated. Furthermore, innovative structural solutions, some more emerging (e.g., mass timber lateral force-resisting systems) and others already well-loved (e.g., seismic isolation, energy dissipation, etc.) allow structural engineers to exercise creativity in achieving the seismic performance expectations of owners and the public. This presentation will (1) describe several of the more recent research and development efforts in resilience-based design in the U.S. (including functional recovery), (2) present project examples that targeted enhanced performance, and (3) conjecture, a bit, on what might be coming next. We are in an exciting and rapidly-evolving time for earthquake engineering in the U.S. (as well as New Zealand) and the speaker is excited to share his experience and observations with NZSEE 2026 attendees.