Does anyone have any stories about projects they might have been involved with that collapsed, failed, or maybe even just behaved badly... Im not expecting anyone here was charged with criminal negligence like some involved with the KC Hyatt, but if you have been, tell us about that too!
My dad linked me too some images this morning which really shocked me. They were pictures taken during the investigation of the Kansas City Hyatt walkway collapse in 1981.
So i did a little bit more reading on the subject and the more i read, the more mind blowing the whole situation was. Changes made late in the game altering significant structural details were apparently not checked? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyatt_Regency_walkway_collapse
This is one of the most amazing cases of construction failure I've ever seen. There was a program produced on one of the cable channels about it a couple of years ago, it may have been the History Channel. I watched it and was enthralled.
Those pictures are so scary, considering the consequences.
i totally agree... considering 114 people were killed... 200 injured. And i believe the architects in this case were charged with criminal negligence, as they signed off on the final drawings.
i wonder if someone should have gone to prison for this. And who is in the end really responsible for this? was it the architects? the engineers? the contractors?
Actually in the Wiki article I think it said the structural engineers....and they were convicted of negligence but I don't think anybody went to jail. They said it was a failure of communication between the engineers and the contractors.
instead of using nuts (the ultimate cause of failure) and threaded rods, the contractor could have used a smooth rod and welded the platforms to it, which should have worked
There was no mention of the architects in the article at all. I don't see how they could be held responsible for anything. The structural engineer blew it. They under engineered it and they signed off on structural drawings that didn't work.
Didn't the article say that even the original design was 60% weaker than Kansas City code requires? And then the revisions made it even worse so that it could barely hold the dead weight of the walkway. Pretty crazy...
We discussed this 1st yr building class at school. From what I remember, the box chanels were supposed to have been welded the other way.... ][ way instead of this [] way. If that was the case, drilling through the web of the chanel would have destroyed any carrying capacity of the member
I don't remember who the architects were - but we did study this collapse when I was an undergrad. The structural engineers obviously blew it - and they took most of the heat. This ruined a lot of careers.
However, I'd say the architects blew it as well because the original detail was un-buildable. If the architects had done their job they would have come up w/ a detail they could actually execute in the field...which in turn PROBABLY wouldn't have failed catestrophically like it did.
Assuming that the architect actually drew the detail ofcourse. Most likely they did though. But it is the structural engineers job to tell you if this works or doesn't work. The structural engineer should have rejected it completely or come up with a different solution. Who knows what dialog went on between the architect and engineer but in the end the liability falls in the hands of the engineer.
i think some professional (surely not criminal) responsibility could've been placed in the architect...from the point of view of an architect reviewing the structural drawings:
the amount of shear from transfering the load from one rod to another along the beam, should've been a red flag in re. to the change in design
supporting the beam with nuts, instead of plates (as mdler suggets) should've been a red flag in the original design
having the structural rod connect through the box beam at the weld should've been a red flag in the original design as well
especially since these were all exposed connection and an integral part of an important design element (atrium skywalks), i'd imagine the architect would review these connections quite closely (assuming most architects will not spend the time reviewing every structural connection in the building), and at least one of those pretty obvious red flags should've been raised...(and perhaps they did, and were assured by the structural designer that it would be fine)...
either way, shouldnt the engineer have done on site structural observations throughout the construction process. The building department (if there was one back in the day in Kansas City) should have also reviewed the dwgs and done site observations before the hotel got their certificate of occupancy
At the same time, I wonder how many more people were on the bridges than they were designed for (including the factor of safety). I wonder what these bridges were 'called' in terms of determining occupancy????
As much as I bitch about it, this is the reason we have codes and building department planchecks...
mdler...all true...and i am sure the bridges were overloaded as well...and there is plenty of blame to go around, with the structural engineers being major...
funny thing, i always hesitate before stepping into any overhanging structure i feel to be crowded...i just don't trust people to be responsible...
that situation was bad in so many ways, i'd like to think it wouldn't happen today...(not in my office anyways)
There was a great article years ago in the New Yorker - referenced here, recently, maybe by Steven? - about the miscalculations on the Citicorp tower in NYC and how plates had to be secretly welded in at the corner connections after hours to ward off a catastrophic failure.
And yeah, simples - my old office would never have allowed anything like this to slip by. I think it only takes one big failure to make people start paying attention.
As for liability, doesn't some fall to the architect simply for being the main contract holder with the client? Assuming a traditional contractual relationship, the SE's work is within the responsibility of the architect.
that was my thinking as well liberty bell ... but perhaps for this project there were independent contracts with the structural guys and the clients. if thats the case im sure the architects are still thanking god every morning... because if the structural guys had been under contract with the architects wouldnt the architects have had final liability?
yeah.... should have plated the area where the t-rod cam through and beefed up the shear point.....could have also used another nut on the underside of the top flange for the channel.....so now you have 2 points of bearing and not just 1.....
Quite an interesting topic-
I own that book-reading it makes me think twice about architecture as a career choice. Someone could die if I make a mistake and nobody checks behind me...
and that is one of the reasons I want an engineering degree to go with my architecture degree. I find it amazing that you can look at how it was built and with just minimal structural knowledge know that the system was going to fail. It really is amazing it got built.
this brings up something I've been thinking about recently. do buildings with massive cantilevers or bridging elements (i'm thinking about recent projects by MVRDV, OMA, Jean Nouvel, Machado Silvetti and others) get checked regularly by engineers to make sure that the buildings is maintaining its structural integrity?
i don't know what kind of tests are available, but it seems like you would want to check on these kinds of things every few years or so.
from the design of the atrium, the client, and the time period, i would venture John Portman as a guess of the architect of the Hyatt building.
"Crown Center hired renowned architect Edward Larrabee Barnes, FAIA, as the master planner for the hotel project. Two local Kansas City architectural firms, PBNA (Patty Berkebile Nelson Architects) and Duncan Monroe and Lefevre Architects, were hired as the project architects to prepare the hotel design and to perform construction administration duties. The two local firms formed a new corporation, which went by the joint name of Patty Berkebile Nelson Duncan Monroe Lefevre Architects Planners (or PBNDML). The key players in this story are Herb Duncan, FAIA, a project architect with PBNDML and Robert J. (Bob) Berkebile, FAIA, principal architect for the conceptual design of the hotel. It was Mr. Berkebile who sealed the architectural drawings, including the architectural skywalk details."
Portman didn't design it, one of his copy cats did. Atrium hotels became a dime a dozen after Portman started the trend with the Hyatt in Atlanta (which i believe was built in '62)
Yeah lletdownl, this is always a fascinating story to me, as well as the Citicorp building near-disaster that liberty mentioned. (Wasn't there even a hurricane bearing down on NYC while they were running around reinforcing the structure?! Phenomenal.)
Anyway, I missed the bulk of this interesting conversation but it reminds me of another point--
How many of y'all had to take Architectural Ethics courses in which you studied these and other disasters? Please answer, I'm curious.
I'll start, we had to take a pretty work-heavy Ethics course at our school that was extremely well-taught; it ended up, quite surprisingly, being one of my very favorite classes at school. The teacher was fantastic. I learned A TON, most importantly, to take my job very seriously.
evil....There was also the great Tent Fire in Hartford...I guess you could call it a collapse. It is remembered till this day happened in July....lot of lives lost.
the other buildings in Connecticut which collapsed:
Space Frame Structure in Hartford think it was the Arena.
Poured in Place lift slab structure in Bridgeport La....bee ---aunce Plaza.
which I believe brought about the structural aspect of the building code which deals with progressive collape of a structure instood of complete failure.
Jul 17, 07 8:27 pm ·
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Structural Collapse - Hyatt Center
Does anyone have any stories about projects they might have been involved with that collapsed, failed, or maybe even just behaved badly... Im not expecting anyone here was charged with criminal negligence like some involved with the KC Hyatt, but if you have been, tell us about that too!
My dad linked me too some images this morning which really shocked me. They were pictures taken during the investigation of the Kansas City Hyatt walkway collapse in 1981.
Please take a look at them here
http://ethics.tamu.edu/ethics/hyatt/hyatt2.htm
So i did a little bit more reading on the subject and the more i read, the more mind blowing the whole situation was. Changes made late in the game altering significant structural details were apparently not checked?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyatt_Regency_walkway_collapse
This is one of the most amazing cases of construction failure I've ever seen. There was a program produced on one of the cable channels about it a couple of years ago, it may have been the History Channel. I watched it and was enthralled.
Those pictures are so scary, considering the consequences.
i totally agree... considering 114 people were killed... 200 injured. And i believe the architects in this case were charged with criminal negligence, as they signed off on the final drawings.
i wonder if someone should have gone to prison for this. And who is in the end really responsible for this? was it the architects? the engineers? the contractors?
Actually in the Wiki article I think it said the structural engineers....and they were convicted of negligence but I don't think anybody went to jail. They said it was a failure of communication between the engineers and the contractors.
who were the architects? i didnt' see it mentioned in the article.
instead of using nuts (the ultimate cause of failure) and threaded rods, the contractor could have used a smooth rod and welded the platforms to it, which should have worked
There was no mention of the architects in the article at all. I don't see how they could be held responsible for anything. The structural engineer blew it. They under engineered it and they signed off on structural drawings that didn't work.
Didn't the article say that even the original design was 60% weaker than Kansas City code requires? And then the revisions made it even worse so that it could barely hold the dead weight of the walkway. Pretty crazy...
pretty amazing that this got built
i can only imagine the amount of shear that resulted from offsetting the load from the second walkway...
i also am not sure who the architects were or what ever happened to them... anyone know? im guessing they had difficulty getting work after that?
We discussed this 1st yr building class at school. From what I remember, the box chanels were supposed to have been welded the other way.... ][ way instead of this [] way. If that was the case, drilling through the web of the chanel would have destroyed any carrying capacity of the member
I don't remember who the architects were - but we did study this collapse when I was an undergrad. The structural engineers obviously blew it - and they took most of the heat. This ruined a lot of careers.
However, I'd say the architects blew it as well because the original detail was un-buildable. If the architects had done their job they would have come up w/ a detail they could actually execute in the field...which in turn PROBABLY wouldn't have failed catestrophically like it did.
Assuming that the architect actually drew the detail ofcourse. Most likely they did though. But it is the structural engineers job to tell you if this works or doesn't work. The structural engineer should have rejected it completely or come up with a different solution. Who knows what dialog went on between the architect and engineer but in the end the liability falls in the hands of the engineer.
i think some professional (surely not criminal) responsibility could've been placed in the architect...from the point of view of an architect reviewing the structural drawings:
the amount of shear from transfering the load from one rod to another along the beam, should've been a red flag in re. to the change in design
supporting the beam with nuts, instead of plates (as mdler suggets) should've been a red flag in the original design
having the structural rod connect through the box beam at the weld should've been a red flag in the original design as well
especially since these were all exposed connection and an integral part of an important design element (atrium skywalks), i'd imagine the architect would review these connections quite closely (assuming most architects will not spend the time reviewing every structural connection in the building), and at least one of those pretty obvious red flags should've been raised...(and perhaps they did, and were assured by the structural designer that it would be fine)...
either way, shouldnt the engineer have done on site structural observations throughout the construction process. The building department (if there was one back in the day in Kansas City) should have also reviewed the dwgs and done site observations before the hotel got their certificate of occupancy
At the same time, I wonder how many more people were on the bridges than they were designed for (including the factor of safety). I wonder what these bridges were 'called' in terms of determining occupancy????
As much as I bitch about it, this is the reason we have codes and building department planchecks...
mdler...all true...and i am sure the bridges were overloaded as well...and there is plenty of blame to go around, with the structural engineers being major...
funny thing, i always hesitate before stepping into any overhanging structure i feel to be crowded...i just don't trust people to be responsible...
that situation was bad in so many ways, i'd like to think it wouldn't happen today...(not in my office anyways)
lletdownl I really enjoyed reading this.
There was a great article years ago in the New Yorker - referenced here, recently, maybe by Steven? - about the miscalculations on the Citicorp tower in NYC and how plates had to be secretly welded in at the corner connections after hours to ward off a catastrophic failure.
And yeah, simples - my old office would never have allowed anything like this to slip by. I think it only takes one big failure to make people start paying attention.
As for liability, doesn't some fall to the architect simply for being the main contract holder with the client? Assuming a traditional contractual relationship, the SE's work is within the responsibility of the architect.
that was my thinking as well liberty bell ... but perhaps for this project there were independent contracts with the structural guys and the clients. if thats the case im sure the architects are still thanking god every morning... because if the structural guys had been under contract with the architects wouldnt the architects have had final liability?
yeah.... should have plated the area where the t-rod cam through and beefed up the shear point.....could have also used another nut on the underside of the top flange for the channel.....so now you have 2 points of bearing and not just 1.....
b
included a chapter on the hyatt regency failure in his nice little book, why buildings fall down definitely recommended reading for architects
Quite an interesting topic-
I own that book-reading it makes me think twice about architecture as a career choice. Someone could die if I make a mistake and nobody checks behind me...
and that is one of the reasons I want an engineering degree to go with my architecture degree. I find it amazing that you can look at how it was built and with just minimal structural knowledge know that the system was going to fail. It really is amazing it got built.
this brings up something I've been thinking about recently. do buildings with massive cantilevers or bridging elements (i'm thinking about recent projects by MVRDV, OMA, Jean Nouvel, Machado Silvetti and others) get checked regularly by engineers to make sure that the buildings is maintaining its structural integrity?
i don't know what kind of tests are available, but it seems like you would want to check on these kinds of things every few years or so.
from the design of the atrium, the client, and the time period, i would venture John Portman as a guess of the architect of the Hyatt building.
this quote taken from this document: THE HYATT SKYWALK REVISITED: WHAT HAPPENED? COULD IT HAPPEN AGAIN?
Portman didn't design it, one of his copy cats did. Atrium hotels became a dime a dozen after Portman started the trend with the Hyatt in Atlanta (which i believe was built in '62)
Yeah lletdownl, this is always a fascinating story to me, as well as the Citicorp building near-disaster that liberty mentioned. (Wasn't there even a hurricane bearing down on NYC while they were running around reinforcing the structure?! Phenomenal.)
Anyway, I missed the bulk of this interesting conversation but it reminds me of another point--
How many of y'all had to take Architectural Ethics courses in which you studied these and other disasters? Please answer, I'm curious.
I'll start, we had to take a pretty work-heavy Ethics course at our school that was extremely well-taught; it ended up, quite surprisingly, being one of my very favorite classes at school. The teacher was fantastic. I learned A TON, most importantly, to take my job very seriously.
that era seemed to have quite a few near disasters and actual disasters. Kemper arena, Rosemont Arena, a building in Conn. that collapsed.
i wonder what the effect has been on the architects - especially liability. Is this why so many AE firms from that era broke into specialties?
evil....There was also the great Tent Fire in Hartford...I guess you could call it a collapse. It is remembered till this day happened in July....lot of lives lost.
the other buildings in Connecticut which collapsed:
Space Frame Structure in Hartford think it was the Arena.
Poured in Place lift slab structure in Bridgeport La....bee ---aunce Plaza.
which I believe brought about the structural aspect of the building code which deals with progressive collape of a structure instood of complete failure.
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