Assessment of all wide span Timber Structures owned by the City Munich

Following the Bad Reichenhall ice-arena collapse, the Chair of Timber Structures and Building Construction at the Technische Universitat Munchen conducted a large-scale project to assess the structural reliability of all 152 wide-span timber structures under the responsibility of the City of Munich. The paper presents the chosen approach and gives recommendations on how to assess wide-span timber structures as well as on intervals of future evaluations to maintain a designated level of safety. The concept of a Building Book will be introduced. The paper will conclude with a discussion of the observed types of failure, causes for failure and accountabilities for failures, referring to our database of 214 failed timber structures.