by Ofelia Moroni, Cristian Gomez
This housing type is mainly characterized by reinforced concrete shear walls that are built in both directions along the entire height. Some of the walls may be perforated with openings (coupled walls). These buildings are multiple housing units and are found in the major urban areas in Chile. Stiffness and mass distribution are regular and most of them may have a symmetry axis in at least one direction of the plan. In general, these buildings are quite stiff because they must resist a base shear of 5-6.7% (depending on the seismic zone) and the story drift must be equal to or less than 0.002. Seismic performance is very good, strength and stiffness are controlled, and torsional effects are minimal. The buildings may have one or two basement floors. Problems that may appear in the future include reduction in the wall density, introduction of soft floor, or torsional effects.