This thesis is concerned with the experimental stress analysis of the stepped coupled shear wall subjected to lateral uniform loads using two dimensional photoelastic technique as the method of ana]ysis. The stepped coupledshear walls are assumed to be having one-level variationbehaviour of physically short cracks, PSC, were studied. A single overloadcauses an acceleration if crOL > cry regardless the value of OLR. Otherwise,the retardation caused by a single overload increases with increasing OLRup to a certain value depending on the values of crOL / cry and crBL / cry ,and