Seismic Rehabilitation and Repurposing of the Faculty of Design of the Tabriz Islamic Art University

Abstract

In addition to maintaining their cultural, social, and economic character, repurposing old industrial edifices breathes new life into them. The historical Khosravi leather factory was built in 1931 in the city of Tabriz in northwestern Iran. After restoration and repairing, the building has served as the main campus of the Tabriz Islamic Art University. The materials used in the construction of the building (i.e., unreinforced masonry) and the location of Tabriz is one of the most seismically active regions of Iran are the two main factors necessitating the strengthening of the faculty of design of the university. This study, therefore, aims to investigate the efficiency of a seismic retrofitting scheme proposed for the rehabilitation of this building. In the first step, the structure was quantitatively evaluated to determine its current structural condition. Then, by setting an optimal improvement goal, nonlinear static analyses were employed to assess the building’s structural response. The results of the analyses indicated that the building was incapable of reaching the Life Safety performance level, and the majority of the perimeter walls were ill equipped to withstand lateral loads. Therefore, it was vital to retrofit the structure using an appropriate retrofitting technique. Reinforced concrete (RC) shear walls seemed to be a suitable approach and thus were used to retrofit the building. A brick jack arching floor separated the first-floor story from the second floor, which itself had a wooden truss structure as its roof. These were strengthened using, respectively, concrete slabs and horizontal braces. The studied structure was devoid of any horizontal and vertical confinements, which is why several confining elements were used to enclose the masonry walls. The results obtained from the pushover analysis show that the desired rehabilitation goal was met and that the retrofitted structure has an acceptable performance.