Quake Safe

The Quake Safe is a method of making adobe houses safer in earthquakes. It is a frame made from string, bamboo (or other available wood; ie eucalyptus, ...) and wire. It can be retrofitted to an existing adobe (mud brick) house or incorporated into a new house as it's being built.

The main idea is to have poles inside and outside the walls, with string (or wire?) connecting the inside and outside poles, through small holes in the wall. Wire then runs horizontally at several levels between all the inside poles, and between all the outside poles. This connects them and provides basic physical support if they walls start to collapse.

This design gives the house a much higher level of protection against earthquakes. It is not designed to prevent the house from being seriously damaged or destroyed, but rather to prevent complete collapse. At the very least, it can be expected to give more time for the occupants to escape from the building.

See also

• Earthquake mitigation for buildings

External links

• Quake Safe official site (Internet Archive)
• Finalist on The New Inventors (Australian TV program) 29 November 2006.