Conference Tours, Saturday afternoon, 27 April 2013 Waterfront walking tour The waterfront "walking" tour will begin with a bus ride from the Michael Fowler Centre leaving at 1.30pm. A look inside the Wellington Regional Emergency Management Office in Thorndon will be followed by a tour of the 1990s base-isolation retrofit at Parliament Buildings. On the way from there to the waterfront, we will pass several Wellington icons which have undergone detailed seismic assessment recently: The "Gliding On" government departmental building in Stout St has been assessed by full scale in-situ testing of a concrete-encased riveted steel beam-column joint which was temporarily isolated from the structural frame around it.  This interesting and novel assessment is the subject of a conference oral presentation paper. NZ Post House is a concrete-encased steel moment resisting frame building.  It has been assessed by time-history and push-over analyses. A further base-isolated building on the waterfront is the maritime museum, which will be discussed in passing, along with several other seismic retrofits on the waterfront. We will cross the road to the city again for a description of the innovative retrofit of the Huddart Parker Building, which incorporates low damage reinforced concrete frame detailing in particular.  Be sure to catch the related paper in the conference oral presentations. Onwards past old and new retrofits and the base-isolated Te Papa Museum to the new Chaffer's Marina construction, for a detailed look at the work.  A walk back to the Michael Fowler Centre ends the tour at 5.30pm. City views and earthquake risk context and design responses The tour leaves the Michael Fowler Centre at 1.30pm aboard a chartered bus.  After dropping off "walking" tour participants at the Wellington Regional Emergency Management Office for the start of their tour, the bus is bound for Wright's Hill, atop the Wellington Western Hills.  A broad over-view of the seismic context of the Harbour Capital will be provided by Russ van Dissen, leader of the "It's Our Fault" seismic hazard project.  This will be an excellent opportunity to put physical scale onto Russ's keynote conference presentation, and on a fine and still autumn day, the view of Wellington will be glorious. The site challenges of the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary Visitor Centre will be discussed from the Sanctuary carpark, followed by a quick look at the Karori Tunnel strengthening recently completed.  Kelburn School is the next stop to view seismic assessment and retrofit (note the keynote presentation on Ministry of Education school strengthening in the conference programme). An overview of the Victoria University of Wellington campus developments at Kelburn will note the diverse techniques employed on the site to mitigate damage to critical university facilities, including award winning designs of energy dissipating steel frames and PRESSS technology together with retrofitted base isolation. The bus will then take the tour down into the city campus of Massey University to showcase the timber PRESSS Creative Arts building, before completing the loop at the Michael Fowler Centre at 5.30pm. Cuba and Courtney Heritage Precinct This casual guided walking tour will begin at 1.30pm with a discussion over the Cuba precinct model on display in the town hall, linking with the Wellington City Council's Earthquake Expo.  Former Wellington City Council structural leader, Claire Stevens, will provide commentary as the walk moves around the Cuba and Courtney area, providing the physical scale to the challenge of heritage building retrofit in the inner city precinct.  A café stop is a must along the way! Tour Bookings To book a place on the tours, please do via the online conference registration form.  There is no charge to participate.  

Conference Secretariat: Conferences & Events Ltd  Contact: nzsee@confer.co.nz