The University of Toronto Seismic Design Team won the Best Seismic Performance Award at the 2026 Undergraduate Seismic Design Competition (SDC). U of T’s entry stood out amongst the 47 teams from around the world with a design created by the team of Civil Engineering, Daniels Faculty of Architecture and Computer Science undergraduate students.
The annual competition was held in Portland, Oregon July 14-17 during the 13th National Conference on Earthquake Engineering (13NCEE).
Their five-foot wooden tower, named Cascade Crossing, received highest honours for Seismic Design and 12th place overall. The category includes seismic response (how well the tower reacted to the earthquake test) and predictions (how accurately they estimated it would respond).
Team co-captain Naveen Black (CivE Year 4) is quick to give thanks to all the assistance and expertise given the team, “Our technical faculty advisor is CivMin Professor Constantin Christopoulos, along with Professor Oh-Sung Kwong.”
“It’s great having a relationship with Professor Christopoulos. He gives, honestly, infinitely valuable advice because he’s a huge presence in the industry. Even at competition, if we say our advisor is Professor Christopoulos, everyone will know him.
this year, we tried to place more emphasis on maintaining a positive relationship with him. And I think we benefited from that. We also work very closely with the U of T EERI chapter, which is graduate students who are primarily in civil engineering as well.”
The testing wasn’t the only hurdle the team had to face. Their entry went briefly missing as it failed to make its appointed delivery to the venue. Exercising some self-sufficiency on the road trip, the team trekked to a distant warehouse to retrieve their shipment. Black explains, “What ended up happening is me and Kevin had to make the trek out, taking roughly an hour by public transit, to the freight agent’s warehouse and pick it up ourselves. It’s a six-foot-tall box. You can’t really carry it very well, so that was a challenging trek back as well.”
The tower sustained damage in transit, despite being packed in a wooden shipping crate. “There’s always a little bit of damage to the tower because it’s quite fragile. It’s made of wood and glue, a bunch of sticks, when it comes down to it. Luckily, we were still able to repair it within the day that we had,” recalls Black.
Besides receiving support from EngSoc, via a fee levy, as well as advising and supervision from the UT-EERI club and the Department of Civil & Mineral Engineering, the team was successful in retaining corporate sponsors. The team received additional support from corporate sponsors Computers and Structures, Inc., ACCIONA, RJC Engineers, WSP, Stantec, Arcadis, and Hatch.
The next season of the design team will be starting up shortly in preparation for next year’s competition in Seattle.
WATCH THE SHAKE TEST VIDEO:
Team members (listed with student status as of September 2026):
Co-Captains
Naveen Black (Year 4 CivE)
Kevin Xu (Year 4 CivE)
Design & Analysis
Harry Chen (Year 4 CivE)
Tahmid Rahman (Year 4 CivE)
Ryan Goodfellow (Year 4 CivE)
Casey Wong (Year 3 CivE)
Jonathan Xian (Year 3 CivE)
John Falsarella (Year 4 CivE)
Kia Seiedi (Year 4 CivE)
Ryuki Nishimura (Year 3 Arch)
Carman Xu (Year 4 CivE)
Construction
Brian Tobing (Year 4 CivE)
Nivin Khan (Year 4 CivE)
Nedel Angelo Ellacer (Year 4 CivE)
Javine Matthews-Gilford (Year 4 Arch)
Vanik Park (Year 4 CivE)
Amiran Sultana (Year 3 CivE)
Julio Requejo (Year 4 CivE)
Sami Ahmed (Year 3 CivE)
Alan Sun (Year 3 Arch)
Kai Namba (Year 2 CivE)
Sacha Morin (CivE 2T6)
Architecture
Madison Munro (Year 4 Arch)
Kala Kamani (Year 4 Arch)
Janice Lau (Year 3 Arch)
Alisha Lubis (Year 4 Arch)
Logistics
Isobel Forrest (Year 4 CivE)
Charlie Miller (Rotman Commerce 2026)
Rosa Khashayardoust (Year 2 CivE)
Joyce Zhong (CivE 2T6)
Luana Zang (CivE 2T6)
Dana Bou Saab (Year 4 CivE)
Stanley Pang (Year 4 Comp. Sci.)