This study demonstrates that geological characteristics will affect seismic retrofit strategy. An old temple had been retrofitted earlier but still suffered serious damage from recent earthquakes. In order to find a good solution to strengthen the temple, a computer structural model of the target building was developed and its accuracy was verified by using ambient vibration experiments. From nearby seismic station records, the strong motion characteristics were then studied using response

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... rum analysis. The results indicated that increasing the building's stiffness would also increase the input energy. Therefore, another retrofit scheme was proposed to absorb earthquake energy instead of increasing the building's stiffness. A conceptual strengthening model was developed and the computer analysis was targeted for the temple's inter-story drift ratio to be kept under 0.5%. The effect of the final design was analyzed and discussed.