4 Earthquake - Proof skyscrapers to inspire Kiwi Architects

Christchurch, Kaikoura, Wellington - earthquakes have the power to literally reshape the land, and we humans can only crawl beneath a desk and wait out the ride, right? Well, maybe this was once the case, but no longer.

Earthquake-resistant skyscrapers are being built more and more frequently, with engineers and architects coming together to find myriad unique ways at battling nature's raw power and saving lives in the process.

New Zealand is an at-risk country building taller every year, and it's important that local architects learn from the ideas of our foreign counterparts to help safeguard Kiwi cities. Here are four earthquake-proof skyscraper designs to take inspiration from when you're next consulting on a tall building.

Taipei 101 - once the tallest building in the world - boasts an ingenious design to match both hurricane and earthquake forces. Architects C. Y. Lee & Partners undertook the challenge and specified an intricate dampening system in addition to uniquely designed framing.

The Tuned Mass Damper is a 726-ton sphere made of stacked steel plates visible to building occupants and tuned to swing freely at the sway rate of the structure. This motion pushes and pulls dashpots that convert the motion into heat by forcing fluid through internal openings.

As well as this, the building's beam structure has been designed for seismic ductility by strengthening open link portions of each beam with side plates to ensure open links do not control strength across eccentric links. Full moment connections between braced core beams and columns help provide an alternative load path through Taipei 101 in the event that the brace members are overloaded.

2. Burj Khalifa, United Arab Emirates

As the current tallest building in the world, Dubai's Burj Khalifa stands at a staggering 830 metres and is a genuine marvel of engineering. However, although the United Arab Emirates may not be known as a highly earthquake-prone nation, the Burj Khalifa is still designed with contemporary seismic engineering.

The building's 3.7-metres-thick concrete foundation is built on 194 bored, cast-in-place piles. At 1.5 metres in diameter and 43 metres in length, these piles are actually the largest of their kind currently in use in the UAE, states the Burj Khalifa's website. They help give the structure its ability to withstand earthquakes of up to magnitude 7.0.

Also in use is a system of sensors to detect building sway. Precision inclination sensors, clinometers and advanced Leica Geosystem GPS technology provides an accurate picture of building position and angle in real time.