LIVE: Trends of Urban Development in Yerevan and Seismic Safety Issues (video)
March 30, 2016, at 12:00, Yerevan, Armenia: The Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR), in cooperation with the Public Journalism Club (PJC) and the Media Center, is hosting a discussion on the trends of urban development in Yerevan and seismic safety issues. The speakers of the discussion event include: Mkrtich Minasyan, chairman of Armenia´s Union of Architects Sashur Kalashyan, architect at ArmProject Institute Armen Artonyan, head of the department of seismic resistance of buildings and structures at Seismic Protection Agency of the Ministry of Emergency Situations' Alexander Movsisyan, adviser to the Armenia’s Minister of Urban Development In recent years, ambitious building projects have been on rise in the centre of Armenian capital. According to the National Statistical Service (NSS), more than 2.6 million square meters of housing was built in Yerevan between 2005 and 2015, nearly six times more than between the post-independence years of 1991 and 2004. Not only does full-scale construction show a disregard for the value of historical buildings and the rights of local residents, but may also affect the seismic safety of buildings. Armenia’s whole territory is prone to earthquakes and Yerevan is no exception in this sense. According to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, 80 per cent of around 4,800 of the Soviet-era multi-storey buildings in the capital do not meet safety requirements. Meanwhile, new multi-storey buildings are replacing one or two-storey houses in the old districts. Sometimes, these new blocks are squeezed into the passages between Soviet-era buildings thus contributing to the dense arrangement of old and new buildings. IWPR Armenia office explored the topic in a recently published material, entitled “Alarm Over Armenia's Construction Boom”. The English version of the story is available here:https://goo.gl/Ziy0fm: The article gave an opportunity to the IWPR Office and Public Journalism Club to organize a discussion at the Media Center in order to talk over the quality of seismic resistance of the newly-built high-rise buildings in Yerevan, the seismic safety of the densely built-up areas, current state of the Soviet-era buildings and state programs implemented in this field.
