91视频

At an Urban Land Institute resilience panel last month, architect Ben Kaiser told attendees that, at long last, a school had stepped up to serve as a test case for his patented seismic safety system, .

鈥淭he idea that a desk will protect you is ludicrous,鈥� he said, knocking the American Red Cross-advised practice of dropping to the ground during an earthquake and seeking cover from falling material. 鈥淲e’re adamant with CoreFirst: we protect the person.鈥�

Kaiser, designer-builder-developer behind Portland’s , knows how to innovate 鈥� he’s pushed through tough projects where others have failed, like the all-timber Radiator Building and the topped-out, mass-timber Carbon12 condo tower (95 feet). A Midwest native, he grew up accustomed to tornado sirens and storm shelters. He’s passionate about his idea for an affordable partial seismic upgrade involving early detection and structurally-reinforced shelters inside schools. And now, after five years, Beaverton’s small, private (GIS) has put down $400,000 to install the first one.

鈥淏eaverton always wants to be innovative,鈥� Beaverton Mayor Denny Doyle said.

But it’s not universal excitement. A number of people are unconvinced of the promise of CoreFirst. They include state and federal seismic officials, Portland-area public school districts and partners at some of the city’s top engineering firms. They say the system is a waste of money that distracts from real solutions. At worst, they say Kaiser is endangering the lives of children with his untested theories about earthquakes.

鈥淚 see no engineering advantage,鈥� said Jay Raskin, vice chairman of the Oregon Seismic Safety Policy Advisory Commission (OSSPAC). 鈥淭his thing has not been vetted by the engineering community. He has an idea and he’s very persuasive about it, but he’s kind of off on his own with this. He has no support.鈥�

Kool-Aid and opera

Doyle, for one, is on-board with CoreFirst. He wants GIS to be a seismic showcase for other Oregon schools. That the system is minimally-invasive, saves money and features seismic detection technology potentially beneficial to the greater community are all pluses for him. He said the system seemed 鈥渢oo practical, too affordable鈥� to pass up.

With thousands of lives at stake and aging facilities throughout , public schools are on the front lines of discussions about resiliency. CoreFirst was created to upend what Kaiser considers out-of-date notions of school preparedness. He’s especially critical of the American Red Cross’ recommendation to 鈥渄rop, cover and hold on鈥� during an earthquake, because, he says, it’s only natural for people in mortal danger to seek safer ground.

There’s little dispute in engineering that a great need exists for seismic upgrades. Nearly 1,000 Oregon public school buildings have a seismic risk rated 鈥渉igh鈥� or 鈥渧ery high鈥� by the state geologist’s office. Plus, Portland is known to have an outsize number of buildings with hazardous, unreinforced masonry (URM), including around 300 multifamily structures and many public buildings.

Code now mandates full upgrades for certain at-risk structures. Owners can elect to bolster their properties, but due to the eye-popping price, most do so only when absolutely necessary. But CoreFirst, with an advertised cost of 25 percent of a full seismic upgrade, is meant to put resilience within reach for cash-strapped school districts and other owners.

A full seismic retrofit is often so invasive that owners must evict tenants or pay to relocate them, but CoreFirst seismic enclosures are designed to be quickly flown in from above. Also potentially attractive to schools: a build time of three months, or, one summer break.

According to Kaiser, the system consists of three elements working in concert:

1. In-ground early-detection sensors that warn schools of incoming quakes. (One of these systems is . Kaiser says it’s able to text seismic warnings to tenants.)
2. Kaiser’s deployed at strategic locations around a school. It’s to these 鈥渟anctuaries鈥� that teachers are to muster their classes in the seconds after an earthquake’s initial rumblings.
3. Shored-up exits to prevent material from falling on fleeing people. (This is widely regarded by structural engineers as a good idea.)

Another CoreFirst believer is GIS Head of School Blake Peters. Following publication of Kathryn Schulz’s 2015 watershed article in The New Yorker about seismic risk in the Pacific Northwest, Peters was inundated by worried parents. And he listened.

鈥淒oing nothing wasn’t an answer,鈥� he said.

Knowing a full upgrade was financially out of reach for the small school (200 students), Peters looked online for alternatives. He contacted Kaiser based on online materials.

鈥淚’d already drank his Kool-Aid before he even tried to sell me anything,鈥� Peters said, laughing.

Private schools pay for capital projects through reserves, bank financing and, of course, private donations. In this case, the fundraising campaign got a big assist from Kaiser himself, Peters said.

In late October, the school held an opera-themed fundraiser for a CoreFirst seismic upgrade in the Brewery Blocks. The event was a 鈥渉uge success,鈥� according to a , and reportedly exceeded its goal.

A week later, in , Doyle can be seen accepting Kaiser’s stamped design drawings at City Hall dressed for Halloween as Kylo Ren from “Star Wars.”

鈥淲e’re excited to be leading the way on innovative approaches to keeping children safe!鈥� reads the post.

A static response

Raskin, a resiliency-focused architect from Cannon Beach, said it’s unfortunate the first CoreFirst school will be located in Beaverton 鈥� the Beaverton School District (BSD) has perhaps the strongest seismic resiliency program in the state. Its building specifications go beyond state mandates, and new buildings are expected to serve as community gathering places following a major emergency.

鈥淚t should be the plan for all schools in Oregon,鈥� Raskin said.

CoreFirst, he said, should not.

Critics say, for one thing, that Kaiser’s comparisons of earthquakes to tornadoes miss the mark. Earthquakes are the sudden release of pent-up pressure along a geologic fault. And while detection technology has improved, they say there’s no reliable way to detect seismic emergencies fast enough to matter.

Kaiser started promoting his idea around the time Portland Public Schools (PPS) planned its previous bond program. With help from KPFF, he developed a conceptual plan to use his enclosures to strengthen schools in North Portland. But when his team applied for a grant from the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), it elicited a stark rebuke from FEMA’s head of Building Sciences, and PPS backed away.

That official, Edward Laatsch, sent a expressing 鈥渧ery significant concerns鈥� with CoreFirst. For one, Laatsch said he knew of no technology capable of detecting earthquakes and issuing warnings the way Kaiser describes. Further, Laatsch said Portland is threatened by a number of geologic faults smaller than the well-known Cascadia Subduction Zone, and Kaiser’s system doesn’t seem to account for them.

鈥淭he CoreFirst system 鈥� is significantly flawed and it is very doubtful that this system would meet the technical feasibility criteria for FEMA mitigation grant funding,鈥� Laatsch wrote.

Seismic experts, including Laatsch, worry that once a CoreFirst system is installed, districts might sit back, believing their problem fixed. Experts wonder why, in the case of GIS, a seismic system is needed so urgently in a two-story, wood-framed building (the nearly 50-year-old structure was built as an administrative space for Phil Knight’s Nike-precursor Blue Ribbon Sports).

Structural engineer Jeffrey Soulages, an Intel employee, echoed a common critique: 鈥淲hat this approach does is provide a false sense of security.鈥�

Kaiser insists his plan works. Beyond that, he said, a small step is better than nothing.

鈥淎 static response will get a static outcome,鈥� he says.

Support system

Kaiser thinks the discussion over CoreFirst has gotten 鈥減olitical.鈥� He’s frustrated with FEMA, which he says is 鈥渘ot cutting-edge at all,鈥� citing its botched handling of Hurricane Katrina.

Additionally, FEMA has been unresponsive to Kaiser’s outreach. He said he’s called Laatsch more than 10 times 鈥渢o no avail.鈥�

鈥淚 think he took about 15 minutes and then he wrote that response,鈥� he said of Laatsch’s letter, which PPS and BSD officials told the 91视频 was a reason they’ve avoided Kaiser’s system.

鈥淚 have begged FEMA to have a real discourse about this,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t really confuses me.鈥�

One man whose opposition he’s especially 鈥渃onfused鈥� by is Blake Patsy, head of KPFF, the largest structural engineering firm in Portland. Kaiser describes a productive rap session near CoreFirst’s inception, when the two met for coffee and Patsy helped Kaiser 鈥渃reate鈥� CoreFirst.

Patsy tells it different. He said he was initially interested when Kaiser came to him for support, but only if CoreFirst concepts were included as part of a larger, phased seismic upgrade plan. KPFF did assist on a conceptual plan for PPS, he says, but declined further involvement when it became clear Kaiser was interested only in 鈥渟elling his product.鈥�

鈥淗e’s basically a salesman,鈥� Patsy said. 鈥淗e wants to sell his product, and that doesn’t align with our engineering philosophy of doing what’s right for the project and the client.鈥�

Patsy said Kaiser brought to their meeting a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for him to sign, indicating to him that Kaiser was after his endorsement, not his input.

鈥淵ou don’t bring an NDA if it’s not your idea,鈥� Patsy said.

But the 鈥渓ine in the sand鈥� for Patsy was when he read Kaiser quoted in a 2013 91视频 article calling KPFF a partner in CoreFirst. After that, he told Kaiser, 鈥渨e’re done.鈥�

鈥淚f you have to read about what’s going on with your partner in the paper, that’s not a partner,鈥� Patsy said.

KPFF is not alone in asking Kaiser to cease using its name in connection with CoreFirst. His prospective steel supplier for the GIS project, Pleasanton, California-based , has done the same.

鈥淲e told him flat-out, we stand behind our product 100-percent, but we don’t get into the end application,鈥� said Jeremy Gilstrap, Simpson Strong-Tie’s vice president of engineering. 鈥淲e are not in a position to support what he’s doing.鈥�

Amit Kumar, senior structural engineer with the city of Portland, has heard Kaiser’s pitch several times, once when Kaiser approached the city about joining him. Kumar said he feels compelled to warn parents that while CoreFirst might improve a school building, it is not a seismic upgrade.

鈥淲e have told him that he cannot use the city of Portland to sell his product in any of his propaganda,鈥� Kumar said.

Kaiser still touts the endorsements of local structural engineering firm Nishkian Dean, as well as Art Johnson, the retired founder of KPFF and, incidentally, Patsy’s father-in-law.

Johnson and Nishkian Dean Vice President Edwin T. Dean in 2013 defended two aspects of CoreFirst in a , writing that there is merit in the notion of incremental seismic strengthening, and that examples of predictive seismic monitoring do exist.

鈥淐oreFirst is a new approach to looking at a big challenge that we have long faced,鈥� they wrote.

Creeped out

The latest on the GIS CoreFirst upgrade is that it’s still up in the air. On Wednesday, days before work was to start, Peters learned the cost had doubled to around $800,000. He said he was told by Kaiser it was the result of rising labor and material costs and price creep transferred through their chosen contractor, R&H Construction.

鈥淣obody knows with this new technology, so the cost keeps creeping,鈥� Peters said.

R&H directed all questions to Kaiser.

A building permit with the city of Beaverton is still valid, and Peters said work will get done when the funding is in place, if not this summer, then next.

鈥淓veryone is probably going to have to dig into their pockets a little deeper,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e will do this project.鈥�

Frustrated with the pushback his idea has received, Kaiser admits he set out thinking, optimistically, that CoreFirst would 鈥渏ust get adopted.鈥�

鈥淭he logic seemed so straightforward to me,鈥� he said. 鈥淧erhaps that was illogical on my part.鈥�