Residential Building Models for Seismic Risk Assessment at the Historic Downtown of Mexico City

ABSTRACT

In recent decades, seismic vulnerability studies in residential Historic Districts have increasingly resorted to simplified assessment methods, which, very often, are grounded on idealized models obtained from the analysis of the most recurring material and geometrical features in a specific area. This paper aims to discuss the procedure to get residential building models appropriate for simplified seismic vulnerability studies at Historic Downtown of Mexico City (HDMC). The models are built based on a comprehensive analysis from post-seismic reports, web-based inspections (i.e. 3D buildings in Google Earth and Street View 2017 panoramic), and existing literature in broad research domains – from history to urbanism, architecture, and conservation studies. From that analysis, it was obtained a set of building models organized into nine material classes (i.e. M1-M9), and four geometric categories (i.e. A, B, C, and D), whose matrix combination enables a final classification of 36 typologies. The neighbourhood of La Merced was selected as a pilot study area to obtain a typological matrix suitable to be applied to other areas of the HDMC.

KEYWORDS:

• Building typologies
• cultural heritage
• historic downtown
• Mexico City
• seismic risk

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to express their sincere gratitude to the ACH (Autoridad del Centro Histórico de la Ciudad de México (2016–2018)), as well as acknowledge Eng. Pilar Espinoza Vázquez, from Instituto Politécnico Nacional Escuela Superior de Ingeniería y Arquitectura Tecamachalco (IPN ESIA), and Dr. Diana L. Flores Salazar, from Universidad Insurgentes (UI) for their contribution to this work by sharing information about some buildings of La Merced neighbourhood. The work presented in this article was supported by the European Union within the framework of the Erasmus Mundus Advanced Master in Structural Analysis of Monuments and Historical Constructions (SAHC) and by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) through the postdoctoral fellowship SFRH/BPD/122598/2016.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ CNMH is the acronym in Spanish of Coordinación Nacional de Monumentos Históricos (CNMH); DEH is the acronym in Spanish of Dirección de Estudios Históricos; INAH is the acronym in Spanish of Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia; and ZCCM is the acronym in Spanish of Zona Central de la Ciudad de México.

² SEDUVI is the acronym in Spanish of Secretaría de Desarrollo Urbano y Vivienda; SOBSE is the acronym in Spanish of Secretaría de Obras; SPC is the acronym in Spanish of Secretaría de Protección Civil.

³ ACH is the acronym in Spanish of Autoridad del Centro Histórico.

⁴ INBA is the acronym in Spanish of Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes..

⁵ Housing and Population Operational Centre (Centro Operacional de Vivienda y Poblamiento — COPEVI), Housing Centre of Urban Studies (Centro de la Vivienda y Estudios Urbanos — CENVI), Management Trust of Historical Centre (Fideicomiso del Centro Histórico — FCH), and the Housing National Institution (Instituto Nacional de la Vivienda — INVI).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) through the postdoctoral grant SFRH/BPD/122598/2016.