In this thesis, frameworks are developed to: (i) quantify the severity of content movement; (ii) predict injuries caused by people losing balance and falling over, or from movement of building contents; and (iii) assess structural damage and injury-related losses caused by earthquakes. These frameworks are then applied to various structural forms to assess which has lower overall life-cycle costs and higher seismic resilience.

The first stage of this research investigated the influence of structural form on building structural and non-structural damage direct-repair costs using existing seismic loss estimation frameworks. In general, it was found that the stiffer building and stronger building considered incurred lower expected annual losses compared to more flexible buildings and weaker buildings. However, cost-benefit assessment showed that stiffer buildings and stronger buildings had higher life-cycle costs when initial construction costs were included.

The second stage focused on quantifying the severity of content movement; in particular content sliding. Existing numerical content sliding models were validated using shaking table tests of realistic furniture on common flooring materials subjected to sinusoidal floor motion. A new equation for predicting the peak sliding displacement of contents was then developed. This equation was found to be more sufficient and efficient compared to other existing prediction equations. Furthermore, it was found that sliding of contents within stiffer buildings were generally less severe compared to more flexible buildings. In contrast, contents in stronger buildings exhibited greater sliding response compared to weaker buildings.

A framework for predicting injuries caused by people falling, content movement, and building collapse was developed in the third stage of this research. Outputs from this framework were found to be consistent with anecdotal injury data. It was found that fall-related injuries were more likely to occur in stiffer buildings and stronger buildings. In addition, lesser content movement-related injuries occurred in stiffer buildings compared to more flexible buildings. However, more content movement-related injuries occurred in stronger buildings compared to weaker buildings. Lesser collapse-related injuries occurred in stiffer buildings and stronger buildings.

The final stage of this research investigated the influence of structural forms on life-cycle costs including initial construction costs, building damage direct-repair costs, and injury costs. Cost-benefit analyses showed that stiffer buildings generally have lower overall life cycle costs, and the highest seismic resilience, of all buildings considered.