Unreinforced Masonry Retrofit

Our company has extensive experience in seismic retrofit engineering and construction of unreinforced brick masonry buildings. WCPC completed the earthquake retrofit for First Church of Christ, Scientist located at 1700 Franklin Street, San Francisco. This unreinforced brick masonry historic landmark building accommodates a church auditorium with historic organ pipes, a balcony and a Sunday school that totals over 22,000 square feet in 3 levels.

Several strengthening corrective measures have been incorporated (Five new shotcrete shear walls, three steel moment resisting frames, new plywood roof diaphragm, bracing of tall brick walls with structural steel members as well as attachment of brick masonry walls to roof and floors). In addition new handicap accessible ramps were installed at the main entry and at the sunday school and new handicap accessible restrooms were constructed at each level. The interior of the building received complete new painting and carpeting. All exterior wood framed windows were completely repaired, restored and repainted.

This project was engineered by Sikaroudi & Associates, Inc. and managed by Architectural Resources Group, Inc. While retrofitting the building to the stringent “General Procedure” requirements of the San Francisco Ordinance for unreinforced brick masonry buildings, the design and construction goals were to preserve the interior and exterior historic features of the building. The church and Sunday school services remained operational throughout the construction work. The construction started in April 2008 and was completed in June 2009 and signed-off by the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection.