Magnusson Klemencic Associates

But even now that San Francisco, Los Angeles and other California cities have finally opened the door to "performance" skyscrapers, San Diego remains reluctant.

It is one thing to be conservative about innovation when public safety is in your hands. But at some point, caution becomes overcaution, and that gets in the way of progress. Performance-based seismic design, if done properly, has the potential to make buildings perform better in earthquakes. That should be the overriding goal of cities: to facilitate construction of better buildings, not buildings that simply meet the code-prescribed minimums.

Thanks to huge leaps in computing power, engineers have better tools than ever before to truly design buildings rather than blindly follow the provisions of prescriptive codes. Structural engineer Ron Klemencic, designer of the performance-based concrete frames for One Rincon Hill and the Infinity developments in San Francisco, maintains there is no technical basis for the prescriptive code requirement of a dual moment-resisting frame for buildings taller than 240 ft. He also says the 240-ft height threshold for the dual frame is arbitrary. Many of his fellow engineers agree.

Klemencic came to San Francisco with a portfolio of performance-based skyscrapers, including several in Seattle. Yet it took him more than three years and untold anxiety to get the city to approve his performance approach for the Infinity towers and a year for One Rincon Hill.

All eyes were on the two projects as they underwent the peer-review process. Architects, contractors, developers and even competitors were rooting for Klemencic because they all wanted to reap the benefits of performance-based design if he succeeded.

Kudos to San Francisco and Los Angeles for ultimately weighing in on the side of progress. But special kudos go to Klemencic for taking the lumps, especially during the Infinity review, and digging in his heels until he got what he wanted. With more than 25 performance-based skyscrapers approved or under review on the West Coast, it is clear he blazed what will soon become a well-beaten path.