(Renderings courtesy of Oregon State Treasury)

In 2022, Oregon will gain its first earthquake-resilient building meeting stringent U.S. Resiliency Council (USRC) standards for Platinum status.

Westlake provided surveying services for the Oregon State Treasury Resiliency Building. The new 36,000 sqft building, located in Salem, was designed to withstand a 9.0 Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake without damage through use of a seismic base isolation system. Base isolators work by deflecting seismic energy, by decoupling a structure from the ground motion, using a flexible or sliding interface.

In order for the ‘resilient’ model to work as designed, the seismic isolators needed to be placed precisely in 3 dimensions (East/West axis, North/South axis, and vertically). Working with L&M, a Division of Steelfab Inc., WCI’s industrial measurement team provided the precise location orientation and elevation of the isolators to ensure they work properly.

The 2-story building provides office space for 130 employees and designed to withstand windstorms, fire, and even mitigating infectious disease. State-of-the-art features include a seismic base isolation, on-site solar energy production with back-up emergency power, emergency water and septic systems, advanced ventilation and air filtration features, and data and telecommunications to support connectivity after a disaster.