Pei has had an affinity for wood for 20 of his 44 years. “It’s a natural material that is close to art and architecture,” says the associate professor in the department of civil and environmental engineering at the Colorado School of Mines.
Code-based earthquake engineering is on the verge of getting simpler, thanks to the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program’s recommendation to replace the traditional seismic hazards maps with an improved seismic hazards database.