Fast Company has highlighted the innovative seismic design of the Grimes Engineering Center at University of California, Berkeley, spotlighting a pioneering structural system developed by SOM that allows the building to return to its original position after a major seismic event. 

The story highlights the building’s exposed shape-memory alloy tension rod system—an advanced technology that flexes under seismic forces and then returns to its original form, allowing the structure to “snap back” into place. This system keeps the building largely elastic during an earthquake, minimizing damage and enabling it to resume use quickly afterward.

As the article notes, the visible seismic system also turns the building itself into a teaching tool—demonstrating earthquake-resilient design in real time for students and researchers on campus.

The new 36,000-square-foot pavilion sits atop the existing Bechtel Engineering Center, transforming the site through adaptive reuse while reducing embodied carbon by 42 percent compared to industry baselines.