Belmont City Hall and Police Facility

Belmont, california

PARADIGM was selected as structural consultant for this facility due to our extensive experience in Performance Engineering in combination with our retrofit experience. 

This facility was designed and constructed in accordance with the 1985 Uniform Building Code as a typical office building.  The building had a significant torsional irregularity, a condition, which allows the building to deform in a manner inconsistent with current code designs, which required the addition of new vertical force resisting elements.  

Our role was to evaluate the ability of the structure to perform consistent with the goals and requirements of an essential service facility
in accordance with the 1998 California Building Code.  As part of our evaluation and design, we incorporated the results of a Site-Specific-Response-Spectra and performed a “Pushover Analysis.”  Such analysis techniques, although commonplace in the private sector, were new to the public sector.  This type of analysis and subsequent design necessitated Paradigm enlightening the reviewing agency to the benefits of the Pushover Analysis and presenting the findings in a manner consistent with Code Based Designs.