Forell Elsesser is thrilled to announce that the Oregon Supreme Court won an Excellence in Design award, the top prize in Seismic Retrofit Category for this year’s 2023 SEAONC Structural Engineering Excellence (SEE) Awards Program. The Oregon Supreme Court Building, which utilized base isolation, was successfully re-opened in 2022 and is now one of Oregon’s most seismically resilient historic buildings!

Constructed in 1914, the Supreme Court Building of Oregon is one of the state’s oldest continuously operating government buildings. To preserve the historic structure and its unique features, the Oregon Judicial Department embarked on a $55M retrofit project to protect the structure for the future. The retrofit design, which utilized seismic isolation instead of conventional fixed-base seismic strengthening, proved to be the most effective solution for simultaneously improving seismic resilience and minimizing the impact of the structural strengthening on the historic fabric of the building.