Most earthquake engineering research projects are concerned with the analysis and design of high-rise buildings. Comparisons of
actual earthquake forces with pseudo-static design forces recommended
by various building codes indicate that in actual earthquakes the forces in low-rise buildings can be up to three to five times the pseudo-static design forces. This paper is concerned with evaluating and comparing the earthquake response of low-rise buildings calculated using local response spectra and real time-histories with various Building Code Recommendations. It is shown that Building Code Recommendations underestimate the
structural response.