The monument is of highly national significance, especially that it served as the seat of the Romanian Parliament for nearly a century. The building’s overhauling project is of increased difficulty. The most important elements that had to be takend into account were the wealth of architectural details, the building’s sheer volume and its location on an unfavourable, steep hill. The building’s seismic safety was increased by introducing reinforced concrete stiff cores, coupled together by newly cast rigid slabs. The adverse effects of the steep hill were adressed by introducing a „pile support wall”, along the monument’s outer perimeter. The piles were linked together with an extensive raft beam. Furthermore, a large number of horizontal and vertical steel tie thrusts were introduced in the building’s walls. The thrusts were placed in the longest wall boreholes ever made in Romania for such a project.

Given the financial crisis that has impacted our country for some years now, the main objective targeted by any developer is that of performing its investment at a cost as low as possible. The pursuit of such goal has revealed as optimal solution for the performance of the structure the solution which incorporates both a cut-down cost of reinforced concrete elements in the superstructure and the “top-down” construction method for the infrastructure.

A significant decrease of the loads triggered by the weight of superstructure slabs has been achieved by using the post-tensioned flat slab solution.

obligation to analyse certain specific aspects related to design loads (due to earthquakes and wind), as well as to difficult foundation conditions. Comparisons need to be made with respect to the application of the provisions concerning seismic design computation laid down by the Romanian technical regulations in force, and of those laid down by European regulations, accounting as well

for the data obtained through seismic micro-zoning. The particularities of geo-technical investigations stand outP11-101 in case the turbines are placed on moisture-sensitive soils or on grounds affected by instability phenomena (carst), the foundation solutions adopted in such situations being presented. The article emphasizes the need for a thorough checkout of the computations upon which the dimensioning of the standard structures provided by suppliers have relied, as the seismic and geotechnical conditions in many sites in Romania may require the re-design of certain basic elements of these structures in order to choose the optimal solution based on the actual location.