Newly Constructed Buildings with Seismic Isolation in Romania

In the aftermath of the earthquake in Turkiye, it was visible that seismically isolated buildings behaved excellently, just as expected. Japan’s extensive use of seismic isolation began after the Kobe earthquake, when the few seismic isolated buildings went through the devastating earthquake with no damage. Romania’s last big earthquake was many years ago, and people tend to forget about the great disaster that was produced in 1977. However, the engineering community is taking steps towards the improvement of our built environment. Although until recently, seismic isolation was only used for retrofitting works on public buildings, private residential buildings started being built with the base isolation. The construction method is not new, and design companies started adopting it because its advantages are obvious, so owners started not choosing only the traditional way because of economic reasons but also adopting new technology to protect the functionality of the building after a strong seismic event. Romania is one of the most seismic-prone countries in Europe, after all. In this paper, several recently constructed buildings are presented. These buildings are all private and equipped with seismic isolation interfaces allowing the owners to adopt bold shapes of the structure.