At
Homecoming 2008, civil engineering professor Jack Moehle, former director of
the Pacific Earthquake Engineering
Research Center,
updated visitors on the seismic retrofit of Memorial Stadium and plans for the
new athletic training center. Here are the highlights. To see the lecture, go
to www.coe.berkeley.edu/news-center/multimedia/video-gallery/the-science-behind-the-stadium.
HAYWARD
FAULT
The numbers
62% Probability of a magnitude 6.7+ quake in the
next 30 years
140 Years,
on average, between major quakes on the fault, the last in 1868, 141 years ago
The plan
A
“let-it-move” seismic retrofit of the stadium and added training facility to be
completed in 2013. The stadium’s western half will be split into three sections
that can shift independently in a quake.
MEMORIAL STADIUM
Why now?
In 1997,
the campus initiated the Seismic Action Plan for Facilities Enhancement and
Renewal to systematically upgrade campus buildings in need of seismic
strengthening. The stadium needs a retrofit to ensure the safety of those who
use it.
Legal matters
Detractors
of the new building plan, some of whom took up temporary arboreal residence in
an oak grove west of the stadium, tried to halt the project by invoking the
1972 Alquist-Priolo Earthquake Fault Zoning Act, intended to promote new
construction away from faults. Judges ruled in favor of the university and
appeals were denied. The tree-sitters eventually climbed down and the grove was
cleared so construction could begin.
Did you know?
Memorial
Stadium, listed in the National Register of Historic Places, opened for the Big
Game in 1923. Cal
beat Stanford 9-0.
STUDENT-ATHLETE
HIGH PERFORMANCE
CENTER
What is it?
The new
training center is a 142,000-square-foot conditioning and sports medicine
facility that will serve student athletes from football and 12 Olympic sports,
their coaches and staff. It will be built on the stadium’s west side, providing
68,000 additional square feet of plaza, in sediment that shows no earthquake
movement in the past 10,000 years.
COURTESY
UC BERKELEY CAPITAL PROJECTS
