You want peace of mind that your building is as safe and resilient as it looks, but unseen structural vulnerabilities and changing code requirements can introduce new risks over time.
Those hidden issues can mean more than inconvenience - they could bring higher costs or even extended shutdowns. By understanding precisely how your building performs under earthquake forces and what local codes demand, you gain the insight needed to plan strengthening confidently.
With a seismic assessment from Structure Design, you see exactly where improvements are needed and how to achieve them - helping you extend your building’s strength, usability and value for years.
Take your first step toward safer, more efficient property performance - contact our award-winning structural engineers to organise a seismic assessment that helps ensure your property stays strong and functional long into the future.
Those hidden issues can mean more than inconvenience - they could bring higher costs or even extended shutdowns. By understanding precisely how your building performs under earthquake forces and what local codes demand, you gain the insight needed to plan strengthening confidently.
With a seismic assessment from Structure Design, you see exactly where improvements are needed and how to achieve them - helping you extend your building’s strength, usability and value for years.
Take your first step toward safer, more efficient property performance - contact our award-winning structural engineers to organise a seismic assessment that helps ensure your property stays strong and functional long into the future.
- Full seismic engineering assessments that help keep your building compliant and future-ready
- Earthquake strengthening and retrofit design shaped around the safety of your people and property
- Efficient seismic upgrades that minimise disruption while keeping cost and compliance on track
Supporting businesses, developers, and asset owners across New Zealand
Understanding your building through detailed seismic assessment
Resilience for your asset starts with understanding exactly how your structure will behave in an earthquake. Each Initial Seismic Assessment (ISA) or Detailed Seismic Assessment (DSA) pinpoints where your building faces the greatest seismic challenges, factoring in its construction, location and unique regional forces.
You receive clear, jargon‑free reporting pinpointing performance strengths and weaknesses and setting out the actions that would have the most benefit. Reports include thorough evaluation that compares your building to current codes and regional requirements, complete with plain explanations of obligations under shifting standards and suggestions for upgrades that help secure faster approvals.
Accurate data and practical recommendations make it easy for you to make well‑informed decisions for safety, compliance and future resilience. Discover how comprehensive structural analysis underpins durable performance in our structural engineering design solutions page.
You receive clear, jargon‑free reporting pinpointing performance strengths and weaknesses and setting out the actions that would have the most benefit. Reports include thorough evaluation that compares your building to current codes and regional requirements, complete with plain explanations of obligations under shifting standards and suggestions for upgrades that help secure faster approvals.
Accurate data and practical recommendations make it easy for you to make well‑informed decisions for safety, compliance and future resilience. Discover how comprehensive structural analysis underpins durable performance in our structural engineering design solutions page.
Designing strengthening around your needs
Once you have insight into how your building performs, structural strengthening design can be tailored to your daily operations and future needs. Earthquake strengthening and seismic upgrades are planned to protect your people and property, minimising disruption and delivering long‑term improvements.
Phased retrofit programmes keep your essential activities running while work progresses. Strengthening focuses on low-damage, efficient solutions selected for your building’s unique demands - whether that’s low‑damage systems and resilient materials or advanced base isolation.
Your construction partners benefit from unified engineering that manages buildability, programming and compliance from start to finish. Explore how detailed design analysis enhances building performance on our structural engineering design page.
Phased retrofit programmes keep your essential activities running while work progresses. Strengthening focuses on low-damage, efficient solutions selected for your building’s unique demands - whether that’s low‑damage systems and resilient materials or advanced base isolation.
Your construction partners benefit from unified engineering that manages buildability, programming and compliance from start to finish. Explore how detailed design analysis enhances building performance on our structural engineering design page.
We focus on achieving the required level of life safety and compliance while avoiding unnecessary intervention. This typically involves identifying the critical weaknesses in a building and targeting those, rather than strengthening everything. We assess options at different performance levels (for example 34% vs 67% NBS) and work with the client to understand what is appropriate for their building, tenants, and long-term plans. Buildability and disruption are key considerations - often the best solution is not just the cheapest structurally, but the one that minimises impact on the building’s use.
Seismic assessment and strengthening are currently governed by the Building (Earthquake prone Buildings) Amendment Act 2016. In December 2025, the Government introduced an amendment bill proposing to regulate only high-risk building types in medium and high seismic zones. If enacted, buildings in low seismic zones (Auckland, Northland, and the Chatham Islands), or those not classified as a high-risk building type, will no longer be designated as earthquake prone.
In high seismic risk areas, councils were required to identify potentially earthquake prone buildings by 1 January 2020, and by 1 July 2022 in medium risk areas. If your building was identified, statutory assessment and upgrade timeframes apply. In low-risk areas, identification is required by 1 July 2032, although proposed legislative changes may remove this requirement.
Seismic assessments can also be needed for other reasons. For example:
- When carrying out structural alterations, you will need to demonstrate that the overall compliance with the Building Code is not reduced. This will include an assessment of seismic performance.
- If there is a change of use for a building that increases the seismic risk, a seismic assessment and possible upgrade are required.
- Building owners may need to evaluate seismic risk in order to access finance and/or attract tenants.
- Building owners may want to go beyond minimum legal requirements and carry out seismic assessment and improvement to safeguard people, protect property and heritage values, or reduce the risk of operational disruption in an earthquake.
Under the current legislation, all earthquake-prone buildings will need to be upgraded (or demolished, if there are no heritage considerations). If the proposed Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill (2025) becomes law, buildings in low seismic risk zones would no longer be classified as earthquake-prone. In that case, strengthening would generally only be required where there is a change of use.