NICEE'S role in promoting confined masonry as an appropriate technology for building construction in India

The earthquake problem needs to be attacked from different directions and one important means to achieve seismic safety is to propagate building typologies that are inherently better against earthquakes. The confined masonry is one such building typology that has been shown to perform satisfactorily in resisting earthquake loads despite being low in intricacies of modern technology and being more close to traditional construction practices. National Information Center on Earthquake Engineering (NICEE) at IIT Kanpur in India has taken several initiatives in the recent past to promote confined masonry as an appropriate technology for building construction in India. These initiatives included organizing a group of professional interested in developing various aspects of confined masonry to make it more effective technology, and train artisans. NICEE published two very useful documents on confined masonry: the monograph for building professionals and the guidebook for technicians and artisans.