Haiti Building Failures and a Replicable Building Design for Improved Earthquake Safety

Christianville is a group of U.S. mission projects (education, medical, dental, and eye) located 8 km east of Léogâne and near the epicenter of the 12 January 2010 earthquake. The facility consists of a conglomeration of buildings built using Haitian construction methods over the past 40 years and serves as a microcosm of Haitian building techniques in the remainder of the country. There was significant variation in the performance of the buildings during the earthquake—some buildings completely collapsed, while others survived without a crack. Much can be learned from both the buildings that failed and the buildings that did not fail. This paper provides an analysis of the buildings on the site from various perspectives, including earthquake survivability, construction techniques, structural details, and changes that could be made to improve survivability in the future and the issues involved in a new adaptable building design.