The conversion was a 180,000-square foot adaptive re-use and seismic isolation retrofit of the city of San Francisco's old Main Library into a world-class Asian Art Museum.The conversion of the historic Main Library to the Asian Art Museum is a unique example of base isolation, an engineering method that offers the most advanced seismic protection possible.
Base isolation allows buildings to resist lateral forces like earthquakes by physically separating the building from the ground motions. Isolating the building base also absorbs and dissipates the energy so that the building is subject to reduced forces, allowing it to survive major earthquakes with minimal damage.