13-27 Manners Street is a modern 14-story commercial tower building in the heart of downtown Wellington.

The reinforced concrete tower building was built in the 1980s, and its primary weaknesses were the precast floor units, which lacked strength and were vulnerable to building deformation.

Based on seismic assessments, a strengthening solution was developed to incorporate viscose dampers into the existing structure. Miyamoto provided seismic rehabilitation services to address the building deficiencies.

To investigate the feasibility of the proposed strengthening solution, nonlinear time history analysis was considered a suitable tool. For this purpose, a 3D mathematical model of the building was developed and analysed using both ETABS and Open Sees. 

During the retrofitting of the building, Miyamoto incorporated fluid viscous dampers into the existing concrete frame to reduce inter-storey drifts and minimise forces on the moment frames. The building was retrofitted by our team to allow the client to minimise downtime for functional recovery while ensuring a safer, more resilient structure for occupants.