This almost completed two-story town house is doomed to destruction. Structural engineers from five universities painstakingly constructed the full-scale wood-frame dwelling atop a pair of 529-square-foot "shake tables" at SUNY Buffalo's north campus in Amherst, New York. The home is being put through a series of increasingly powerful earthquake simulations, culminating in November with a 6.7 temblor (the equivalent of being within 5 miles of the 1994 Northridge, California, quake's epicenter). To monitor the devastation, the abode is outfitted with 250 sensors and a dozen video cameras. Researchers will analyze this data to evaluate the impact of quakes on construction materials, from drywall to roof tile. They're also assessing how well seismic-protection systems, like a prefabricated damper, might handle the Big One. Once they're finished torturing this house, the team will shift to Miki City, Japan – site of the world's largest shake table – where they'll build and destroy a six-story wood structure in early 2009, documenting the epic jolt with up to 20 videocams. Now that's jiggle TV.
– Greta Lorge
credit:Raimund Koch
Destruction site: Scientists will subject this house to a 6.7-magnitude earthquake sim.
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