The ASSESS project: an example of a holistic multi-level study for seismic risk reduction

It is quite usual that advances in science do not find practical application in everyday life. This is only partly true for the problem of seismic risk reduction, because the progresses in seismic hazard assessment generally enter soon into the seismic codes, i.e., guidelines for new building design. More problematic is the case of the existing buildings, where a more complex evaluation of the seismic risk should drive intervention priorities [see more discussion in Grimaz et al. (2010, 2011d) and Slejko et al. (2012)]. ASSESS was a 3-year project financed by the Civil Protection of the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region (NE Italy) in order to study the seismic risk for some relevant buildings, identified at this stage in the school buildings and to develop tools useful for a definition of retrofitting priorities for seismic risk reduction.