Chris Arnold is the sole recipient of an honorary EERI membership in 2008

The EERI Board of Directors has voted to name Christopher Arnold an honorary member of the Institute. Honorary membership is awarded to recognize members who have made sustained and outstanding contributions either in the field of earthquake engineering or to EERI and the pursuit of its objectives. Chris has been a member of EERI since 1978, was elected to the Board of Directors in 1992, and served a term as president 1999-2000. Each year he creates the highly prized watercolor paintings that are printed and given to those who donate $100 or more to the EERI Endowment Fund. Chris put his vision “to further the alliance between technology and humanism that is the essence of a multidisciplinary organization” into practice in initiating the World Housing Encyclopedia, which links volunteer engineers and architects from all over the world and provides them and the public with information to improve vulnerable housing.

Chris has been a member of the Earthquake Spectra Editorial Board, and since 1992 has served as editor of the EERI Series on the Seismic Design of Buildings. He is co-author and editor of two recent FEMA books produced by EERI in the Risk Management Series: Designing for Earthquakes: A Manual for Architects, and Site and Urban Design for Security: Guidance against Potential Terrorist Attack.

Chris was a founding principal of Building Systems Development, Inc., (BSD) in 1964. The firm emphasized research and development rather than conventional design. BSD created a number of building systems for a variety of institutional building types in the 1960s and 1970s. BSD led the way in programming and the social aspects of architecture and housing; by early 1970, the firm had over 80 employees, including planners, housing specialists, economists, and sociologists. After the firm split into a number of centers in the late 70s, Chris began focusing on architectural aspects of the earthquake problem, using the combined technological and socioeconomic approaches that the firm had pioneered.

Chris studied politics, philosophy, and economics at Cambridge University and received degrees in architecture at London University (BA) and Stanford University (MA). He was elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 1990 and is a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects. He has served on many state and national boards and committees that have influenced seismic design, and in 1990 was the recipient of the Alfred E. Alquist Award bestowed by the California Earthquake Safety Foundation.