Public Housing in Florence: Seismic Assessment of Masonry Buildings

Florence is known all over the word for its historical and monumental buildings; however, most part of residential buildings have been made in the XX century, and they present all the critical issues proper of recent housing. Florence is one of the first Italian cities to have experienced the public housing. Its public housing population consists mostly of masonry buildings, and it does not comply the requirements provided by the current seismic legislation. This work is aimed at evaluating the seismic performance of a masonry building-type belonging to the public housing population of Florence. A typical public housing intervention, consisting of 18 masonry buildings, has been assumed as case-study. The seismic input has been described according to the Italian Code prescriptions, by considering the effective soil stratigraphy, and considering the effective mechanical properties of each layer. The seismic performance of the case-studies has been checked by performing a nonlinear static analysis. The results are expressed in terms of seismic performance, defined as the ratio between the seismic capacity and the corresponding demand. The obtained results evidenced the role of the building features on the seismic assessment of the buildings.