New guidance to help design buildings that bounce back
Low Damage Seismic Design (LDSD) Volumes Two and Three launched today, giving engineers, architects, and building owners practical tools to design buildings that go beyond minimum code and recover faster after earthquakes.
Developed by industry experts and co-funded by the Natural Hazards Commission Toka Tū Ake (NHC) and Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), this guidance reflects what research and experience has shown is important to New Zealanders: communities want buildings that can be repaired faster, reoccupied sooner, and help people get back to normal life after an event.
“While minimum code design protects lives, it doesn’t guarantee quick recovery,” says Professor Ken Elwood, joint Chief Engineer (Resilient Buildings) at MBIE and NHC.
Prof Elwood explains that recent events highlighted this gap.
“Canterbury and Kaikōura showed us that many buildings delivered on life safety but were too damaged to use, meaning that families were out of homes, and schools and businesses were closed for months.
“In Canterbury, widespread demolition and slow recovery added environmental and financial costs to the social disruption. Kaikōura reinforced that even modern, code-compliant buildings can be unusable for months.”
These experiences underscore NHC-funded research showing that New Zealanders expect buildings to sustain far less damage and return to function much sooner than the current code delivers.
LDSD guidance fills this gap by providing clear, practical ways to design for resilience. It introduces a voluntary framework for “better than code” design, giving building owners the ability to set performance goals and designers clear pathways to achieve them.
The LDSD series began with Volume One: Benefits, Options, and Getting Started, published in 2024. Volumes Two and Three now build on that foundation with performance frameworks and detailed technical criteria.
This guidance also complements TS 1170.5:2025(external link), a new technical specification from Standards NZ that provides earthquake design loads based on the latest National Seismic Hazard Model.
“The TS tells us how strong earthquakes could be in different parts of New Zealand, and LDSD shows how to design buildings that can handle such earthquakes and recover faster. Having these two pieces come out together is a big step forward for the industry.”
LDSD and TS are both voluntary documents, enabling a design team to go above the minimum design requirements of the Building Code.
LDSD is part of a suite of research, guidance and initiatives under NHC’s Resilient Homes and Buildings Action Plan [PDF, 2 MB], which aims to make homes and buildings safer and more resilient.
The guidance is available on Design.Resilience.NZ(external link) – an online hub of resources for building above code, created by NHC, MBIE, Building Research Association NZ (BRANZ) and engineering technical societies.
Development of LDSD guidance was led by the Structural Engineering Society of NZ (SESOC), and reflects years of collaboration between engineers, architects, researchers, and industry leaders.
“Congratulations to everyone involved – you’ve created a resource that can mark a step change for how homes and buildings are designed in New Zealand.
“Better seismic performance is not only essential for community resilience, but as this guidance shows, it’s also completely achievable,” adds Prof Elwood.
Explore the guidance
The full suite of LDSD guidance is available on Design.Resilience.NZ:
- Volume 1: Benefits, Options, and Getting Started(external link) – helps owners and developers understand LDSD and decide if it’s right for them.
- Volume 2: Performance Framework(external link) – defines outcome objectives, performance goals, and verification pathways.
- Volume 3: Technical Guidance(external link) – detailed design criteria for structural and non-structural elements.