Conference Report by Hugh W Morris
Dept of Civil and Environmental Engineering
The University of Auckland

Edited by Gregory Moore
University of Technology, Sydney

Introduction
Shake table tests and other testing
Peru and dissemination
Bam, Iran
Adobe and technical soils research
New Zealand presentation
World Housing Encyclopedia
Further information

The SismoAdobe 2005 conference was held in the fine facilities of the Catholic University of Peru (Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Peru, PUCP) in Lima. The excellent presentations used high quality visuals covering conservation, construction, architecture and engineering of earth buildings. Of the 360 attendees 65 were international from Latin America and about 55 wider international, a total of 26 countries were represented. There were 60 papers presented in plenary sessions and another 60 poster presentations.

The focus was on adobe, and to a lesser extent other forms of earth construction, in seismic areas in the following topic areas

• Seismic effects on earthen buildings
• Research, analysis and experimentation
• Earthquake-resistant design and construction concepts
• Seismic reinforcement for safety
• Code provisions
• Conservation and restoration of monuments
• Dissemination and application of appropriate technologies

The key impressions that struck me in my visit were:

• the extent of earth building in Peru
• the difficulty of implementing seismic resistant construction in South America
• the range of construction and architecture presented
• some innovative reinforcement approaches
• the comprehensive research on adobe and seismic resistant performance that has been done at PUCP, and
• technical information on clays and earth building as part of the TERRA project.