Increasing a building's life-cycle in regions of high seismic risk

Beyond life safety considerations, increasing a building's service life is paramount in regions of high seismic risk. With the implementation of scientific structural devices and systems, building services, contents, and economic investments can be protected. Building codes specifying equivalent static analyses in many cases lead to conventional designs including members and joints that have limited ductility and have questionable economic value following a major seismic event. What if structures were designed to behave dynamically moving freely at times, dissipating energy, protecting life safety, protecting investments, and allowing structures to remain elastic after a severe earthquake achieving the highest level of structural sustainability? What if these structures looked directly to nature for their mathematical derivations? What if the solutions to superior performance use conventional building materials? These solutions could provide a scientific response without great expense and construction complexity while increase a building structure's life-cycle in regions of high seismic risk.