Taipei Performance Center Will Feature Seismic Isolators And Projecting Auditoriums

摘要

THE NEW TAIPEI (Taipei) Performing Arts Centre (TPAC), the construction of which is expected to begin this year in Taiwan's capital, will feature stages, backstage facilities, lobbies, offices, rehearsal rooms, and workshops for three theaters located within a large central cubelike structure. Audiences will be seated in three auditoriums projecting outward from the structure. Because of the high risk of seismic events in Taipei, the TPAC's steel superstructure will be base isolated to attenuate "the transmission of ground motions into the building, significantly reducing the forces experienced by the structure and finishes," noted Rory McGowan, CEng, who served as the TPAC project director in the Beijing office of the international engineering firm Arup. Arup was responsible for the project's structural engineer- ing, its mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems, and its fire protection. It was also responsible for building physics, a discipline whose principles are related to those of sustainable design. McGowan, who contributed to written responses that were prepared for Civil Engineering by Arup's design team, is now with the firm's Dublin, Ireland, office.