7 ms·

> Initial findings showed that 73 percent of mechanical, electrical and plumbing components observed failed to conform with the developers’ drawings How is tha

> Initial findings showed that 73 percent of mechanical, electrical and plumbing components observed failed to conform with the developers’ drawings How is that even legal? Let alone technically possible? How does construction of these monsters work? "Yo, Bert, I need some 5x5 high-elastic steel framing for the 72th floor!" "Sorry man, we ran out of that when we 'redesigned' the elevator shaft, how about you take this plywood we should have used for the 68th floor?"

kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
It's going to get even better when the concrete starts spalling off in 40 years of swaying in the wind.
- pmontra 6y ago
  Do they use concrete in those towers or is it all steel?
  - OJFord 6y ago
    Generally concrete slabs form the rough shape of it, on top of a framework of steel. At least from what I see in the UK. I know NY & London do have, at very least historically but I assume now too, quite different heights and construction methods, due to differences in the geology.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
    All of the new thin supertall residential towers in NYC are reinforced concrete. It is incredibly stupid to allow such construction methods.
    - vineyardmike 6y ago
      > It is incredibly stupid to allow such construction methods. Why? Seems pretty standard construction, and unusual that something so common is "incredibly stupid"
Tade0 6y ago
A friend of mine used to design electrical components for highways. The workers would almost always try to assemble the devices as fast as possible, cutting corners here and there.
uxhacker 6y ago
I am doing a restoration of an old palace in Poland, the biggest issue is often the contractors do not understand the architect’s drawings. The drawings are more for the regulators such as building control than actually for the people working on site. Talking to the constructors it is normal for architects to specify the impossible, leaving it to the constructor to actually make it up on the job. Somebody said to me that over 30% of construction costs is waste. It looks like there is an opportunity to implement lean methods in construction. And weirdly implement Alexander’s ideas patterns and anti patterns.
- loup-vaillant 6y ago
  > Talking to the constructors it is normal for architects to specify the impossible If the drawings are indeed for regulators, then architects should be sued when they prove to be impossible impossible. Failing that, we should get rid of architects to begin with (if they draw impossible things, what good are they?), and have actual engineers draw something that can actually be built. (Of course, the engineer should risk a lawsuit if something goes wrong).
  - finnthehuman 6y ago
    >and have actual engineers draw something that can actually be built. (Of course, the engineer should risk a lawsuit if something goes wrong). The engineers put a note in the drawing that basically tells the contractor to overrule their drawing if it isn't up to building code. Somehow this lets them wash their hands of liability if the contractor builds to specifications that don't meet building code.
  - abdullahkhalids 6y ago
    Let me compare this to physics. We theoretical physicists will publish an experiment that we think is perfectly feasible. When we show it to the experimentalists, they will laugh and implement a very basic version of it with lots of simplifying assumptions, because that is all that is possible within technology and budgetary constraints. They will write a paper about it. The theoreticians will understand things a little better and publish simpler variants of the experiment that are better than what the experimentalists did. This goes back and forth for years, sometimes decades, until both sides have come to an agreement on what is possible and yet useful. I don't think this back and forth is what happens between architects and contractors. Contractors are not paid to produce knowledge, and they have no incentive to better conform to regulations. So I expect the convergence between architects and contractors is very slow. I don't think the solution is to regulate architects more, but rather to create a system where contractors actively provide feedback, so that processes can be iterated upon.
amelius 6y ago
> How is that even legal? I suppose an engineer has to sign for it.
fsloth 6y ago
"Let alone technically possible?" Most of MEP work is laying out pipes and wires so that the fixtures such as airvents, electric sockets and so on get connected to the system. The MEP contractor's task (overly simplifying) is to punch holes into walls and drag their spans of pipes and whatnot through them. The designs' intent is to specify the fixtures, and how the perform (airflow etc). The subcontractor basically promises that they make those fixtures do their job - and not that their wiring and whatnot follows any specific plan necessarily. Modern digital workflows are getting slowly integrated to the process and they may improve the productivity and quality in long term.
PaulHoule 6y ago
This is why it takes forever to build a nuclear power plant. This kind of 'normalization of deviance' is normal in normal construction, but has to be either reworked or formally normalized in critical work.
throwanem 6y ago
Buildings not exactly matching the architect's original design is so common that there's a term, "as-builts", for the set of drawings the prime contractor prepares and delivers along with the building, showing what was actually built (hence the name) and, by comparison with the originals, what was changed in the course of the build. I'm not the right kind of engineer to hazard a guess as to whether this is an unusually high variance for this scale of project. We also don't know what "failed to conform" means - the language is as vague as, given the ubiquity of changes at build time, intentionally pejorative. There's really not enough here to judge either the architect or the contractor; it could be a brilliant design badly implemented, or it could be a terrible design the contractor did their best to make work, and no one here or in the NYT article, including its writer, has enough information to say which.
ArchitectAnon 6y ago
Your example is not that far off, I know of a building where the subcontractor’s subcontractor substituted a less elastic steel and it caused bolts to fail with the potential to drop a few 100m out of the sky and land on the public below. I don’t know the details but the subcontractor could probably only have picked up the defect by hiring a metallurgist to spot check the bolts to verify that it was the right steel they had been supplied with and I’m guessing that wasn’t done. More generally, what often happens with big projects like this is the design team is not connected with the contractors that build the job. The reason why this happens is because early in the design stage when you speak to a main contractor you don’t get to talk to the actual subcontractors that will build the thing, you are essentially speaking to the salesmen that will eventually get their buying guys to hire subcontractors to do the actual work. If they are brought on early then Contractors typically find ways to use proprietary lock in and cost ratcheting techniques to increase the cost of a build once they have secured the job so to avoid this a fairly common setup for a building of this size is for a design team to prepare drawings and a performance specification to a level of detail that gets you regulatory compliance, but not a full nuts and bolts design with buildability assessed. This is not just the architectural design but also the structures, M&E, security, landscape etc. So, for example, the electrical design might be a block diagram and the loads, but the bus bars might not be sized and the suppliers for all the switchgear wont be selected. At pinch points there may be a more detailed reference design. At this point there will be a design build contract made between the contractor and the client based on the partially complete design. This design gets handed over to the contractor to complete and the contractor’s engineers take over and complete the details. Sometimes some of the original design team gets novated from the client to the contractor, quite often only the architects but you have to be really sharp in your negotiations if you do this because once they have you hooked there will be huge time and cost pressure to complete the designs for less fees and to find ways to save money. A rule of thumb I use is that on a A1 sheet’s worth of information takes about 1 person week to complete when you include all the research. Often with consultations with other specialists this work will be stretched over a couple of months. On a big project there will be 10s of thousands of drawings in play. This can’t be rushed if you don’t want any mistakes, but it almost always is and if you are an engineer or an architect working for the contractor at this point there is huge pressure to cut corners. Non-famous architects and engineers are actually not very well paid compared to other professionals and we tend to work very long unpaid hours with workers rights laws regularly flouted, e.g. firing pregnant women etc. Another issue is that there is corruption in the buying department of the main contractor as well, they have gold watches and get taken on days out to go and ‘bet on horse racing’ by the subcontractors. So the contractor’s incentive to cut costs and corruption cause a lot of last minute design changes to use a ‘preferred supplier’ or to reduce complexity or use cheaper materials. When coupled with the time pressure, things go wrong. Everyone will say, ‘oh you architects should design everything properly down to the last detail, there should be PLM models like the aircraft industry’ but the fact is every building is a prototype, a building this large has a much higher margin of safety but it is as complicated as an airliner and airliners cost a lot more money to develop than buildings. No-one is willing to pay for the time input, they would rather let the contractor bodge it on site, often contractors will end up using the reference designs and filling the details themselves on site, e.g. using drawings never intended to be construction information. Another one is ‘well then you should use more standardisation’ from personal experience in trying to make my own business more profitable, you can try to standardise construction details but there are a lot of high level client influenced design decisions that ripple right through a building down to the 1:2 construction details so this only works up to a point. I’ve managed to break my details down into reusable components, but I’ve not managed to literally reuse the same drawings for multiple projects. As we’ve seen with the 737 Max debacle the airline industry is not immune from these kind of mistakes, I think ultimately the problem is probably more with project management and construction contracting culture than it is with ‘the Architects are hand wavy artists’ (we’re mostly not)
JayPeaEm 6y ago
> How is that even legal? It's not legal. I work in an industry that monitors such things and recommends Banks/Lenders not pay if/when these discrepancies arise (Construction Risk Management). The appropriate party will make revisions and then prove that that change won't affect the overall project. > Let alone technically possible? On larger projects, Subcontractors of Subcontractors of Subcontractors can become lazy, use materials not rated for their intended use, someone doesn't double check it since they're lazy, clicks a checkbox and calls it done; out of sight out of mind. > How does construction of these monsters work? Preconstruction Due Diligence, Funding via Banks, Approval/Contract Signing, Mobilization to Site, Construction of Building, Final Inspections & Warranties transfered, a Certificate of Occupancy issued, and people move in. With mega projects, you have so many moving parts that something will fall through the cracks. Some material got substituted, the pent house staircase dimensions are 2-inches off creating a variance approval, but that dimension now affects the elevator machine room, they used Cast Iron Pipe on Floors 1-10 then PVC at 11-40 and there's issues at the different pipe connections; it just cascades. This is the main reason I also work in Building Information Modeling (BIM) to mitigate such problems. The whole point of my industry is to act as a third party between the Developer & Bank/Lender, opine on the Preconstruction Documents (Contracts, Geotech, Budget, Schedule), document the Construction each month via photos, attend Meetings, review the application for payment, and flag the bank when something changes (No Energy Star appliances suddenly? Variance? Certain brand of vinyl flooring stock low so substitute it with vinyl tile? Change Orders about to deplete the Contingency?) It becomes such an undertaking after a certain budget size or apartment unit amount. Eventually, people get stretched thing or get lazy, they're over budget, they've gone way past their scheduled completion date and just don't care since their next project is starting up and Permits are taking way longer to get; just happens. Hope this gives a little perspective.
- tzs 6y ago
  I wonder if it would help avoid some of these issues if all materials used in the building by all the different contractors and subcontractors and subsubcontractors etc were required to come through a single entity? That wouldn't help with someone getting the dimensions wrong on a staircase, but it could catch things like a contractor wanting to use the wrong kind of pipe of floor material or appliance.

kevin_thibedeau 6y ago

It's going to get even better when the concrete starts spalling off in 40 years of swaying in the wind.

pmontra 6y ago
Do they use concrete in those towers or is it all steel?
- OJFord 6y ago
  Generally concrete slabs form the rough shape of it, on top of a framework of steel. At least from what I see in the UK. I know NY & London do have, at very least historically but I assume now too, quite different heights and construction methods, due to differences in the geology.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
  All of the new thin supertall residential towers in NYC are reinforced concrete. It is incredibly stupid to allow such construction methods.
  - vineyardmike 6y ago
    > It is incredibly stupid to allow such construction methods. Why? Seems pretty standard construction, and unusual that something so common is "incredibly stupid"

Tade0 6y ago

A friend of mine used to design electrical components for highways. The workers would almost always try to assemble the devices as fast as possible, cutting corners here and there.

uxhacker 6y ago

I am doing a restoration of an old palace in Poland, the biggest issue is often the contractors do not understand the architect’s drawings. The drawings are more for the regulators such as building control than actually for the people working on site. Talking to the constructors it is normal for architects to specify the impossible, leaving it to the constructor to actually make it up on the job. Somebody said to me that over 30% of construction costs is waste. It looks like there is an opportunity to implement lean methods in construction. And weirdly implement Alexander’s ideas patterns and anti patterns.

loup-vaillant 6y ago
> Talking to the constructors it is normal for architects to specify the impossible If the drawings are indeed for regulators, then architects should be sued when they prove to be impossible impossible. Failing that, we should get rid of architects to begin with (if they draw impossible things, what good are they?), and have actual engineers draw something that can actually be built. (Of course, the engineer should risk a lawsuit if something goes wrong).
- finnthehuman 6y ago
  >and have actual engineers draw something that can actually be built. (Of course, the engineer should risk a lawsuit if something goes wrong). The engineers put a note in the drawing that basically tells the contractor to overrule their drawing if it isn't up to building code. Somehow this lets them wash their hands of liability if the contractor builds to specifications that don't meet building code.
- abdullahkhalids 6y ago
  Let me compare this to physics. We theoretical physicists will publish an experiment that we think is perfectly feasible. When we show it to the experimentalists, they will laugh and implement a very basic version of it with lots of simplifying assumptions, because that is all that is possible within technology and budgetary constraints. They will write a paper about it. The theoreticians will understand things a little better and publish simpler variants of the experiment that are better than what the experimentalists did. This goes back and forth for years, sometimes decades, until both sides have come to an agreement on what is possible and yet useful. I don't think this back and forth is what happens between architects and contractors. Contractors are not paid to produce knowledge, and they have no incentive to better conform to regulations. So I expect the convergence between architects and contractors is very slow. I don't think the solution is to regulate architects more, but rather to create a system where contractors actively provide feedback, so that processes can be iterated upon.

amelius 6y ago

> How is that even legal? I suppose an engineer has to sign for it.

fsloth 6y ago

"Let alone technically possible?" Most of MEP work is laying out pipes and wires so that the fixtures such as airvents, electric sockets and so on get connected to the system. The MEP contractor's task (overly simplifying) is to punch holes into walls and drag their spans of pipes and whatnot through them. The designs' intent is to specify the fixtures, and how the perform (airflow etc). The subcontractor basically promises that they make those fixtures do their job - and not that their wiring and whatnot follows any specific plan necessarily. Modern digital workflows are getting slowly integrated to the process and they may improve the productivity and quality in long term.

PaulHoule 6y ago

This is why it takes forever to build a nuclear power plant. This kind of 'normalization of deviance' is normal in normal construction, but has to be either reworked or formally normalized in critical work.

throwanem 6y ago

Buildings not exactly matching the architect's original design is so common that there's a term, "as-builts", for the set of drawings the prime contractor prepares and delivers along with the building, showing what was actually built (hence the name) and, by comparison with the originals, what was changed in the course of the build. I'm not the right kind of engineer to hazard a guess as to whether this is an unusually high variance for this scale of project. We also don't know what "failed to conform" means - the language is as vague as, given the ubiquity of changes at build time, intentionally pejorative. There's really not enough here to judge either the architect or the contractor; it could be a brilliant design badly implemented, or it could be a terrible design the contractor did their best to make work, and no one here or in the NYT article, including its writer, has enough information to say which.

ArchitectAnon 6y ago

Your example is not that far off, I know of a building where the subcontractor’s subcontractor substituted a less elastic steel and it caused bolts to fail with the potential to drop a few 100m out of the sky and land on the public below. I don’t know the details but the subcontractor could probably only have picked up the defect by hiring a metallurgist to spot check the bolts to verify that it was the right steel they had been supplied with and I’m guessing that wasn’t done. More generally, what often happens with big projects like this is the design team is not connected with the contractors that build the job. The reason why this happens is because early in the design stage when you speak to a main contractor you don’t get to talk to the actual subcontractors that will build the thing, you are essentially speaking to the salesmen that will eventually get their buying guys to hire subcontractors to do the actual work. If they are brought on early then Contractors typically find ways to use proprietary lock in and cost ratcheting techniques to increase the cost of a build once they have secured the job so to avoid this a fairly common setup for a building of this size is for a design team to prepare drawings and a performance specification to a level of detail that gets you regulatory compliance, but not a full nuts and bolts design with buildability assessed. This is not just the architectural design but also the structures, M&E, security, landscape etc. So, for example, the electrical design might be a block diagram and the loads, but the bus bars might not be sized and the suppliers for all the switchgear wont be selected. At pinch points there may be a more detailed reference design. At this point there will be a design build contract made between the contractor and the client based on the partially complete design. This design gets handed over to the contractor to complete and the contractor’s engineers take over and complete the details. Sometimes some of the original design team gets novated from the client to the contractor, quite often only the architects but you have to be really sharp in your negotiations if you do this because once they have you hooked there will be huge time and cost pressure to complete the designs for less fees and to find ways to save money. A rule of thumb I use is that on a A1 sheet’s worth of information takes about 1 person week to complete when you include all the research. Often with consultations with other specialists this work will be stretched over a couple of months. On a big project there will be 10s of thousands of drawings in play. This can’t be rushed if you don’t want any mistakes, but it almost always is and if you are an engineer or an architect working for the contractor at this point there is huge pressure to cut corners. Non-famous architects and engineers are actually not very well paid compared to other professionals and we tend to work very long unpaid hours with workers rights laws regularly flouted, e.g. firing pregnant women etc. Another issue is that there is corruption in the buying department of the main contractor as well, they have gold watches and get taken on days out to go and ‘bet on horse racing’ by the subcontractors. So the contractor’s incentive to cut costs and corruption cause a lot of last minute design changes to use a ‘preferred supplier’ or to reduce complexity or use cheaper materials. When coupled with the time pressure, things go wrong. Everyone will say, ‘oh you architects should design everything properly down to the last detail, there should be PLM models like the aircraft industry’ but the fact is every building is a prototype, a building this large has a much higher margin of safety but it is as complicated as an airliner and airliners cost a lot more money to develop than buildings. No-one is willing to pay for the time input, they would rather let the contractor bodge it on site, often contractors will end up using the reference designs and filling the details themselves on site, e.g. using drawings never intended to be construction information. Another one is ‘well then you should use more standardisation’ from personal experience in trying to make my own business more profitable, you can try to standardise construction details but there are a lot of high level client influenced design decisions that ripple right through a building down to the 1:2 construction details so this only works up to a point. I’ve managed to break my details down into reusable components, but I’ve not managed to literally reuse the same drawings for multiple projects. As we’ve seen with the 737 Max debacle the airline industry is not immune from these kind of mistakes, I think ultimately the problem is probably more with project management and construction contracting culture than it is with ‘the Architects are hand wavy artists’ (we’re mostly not)

JayPeaEm 6y ago

> How is that even legal? It's not legal. I work in an industry that monitors such things and recommends Banks/Lenders not pay if/when these discrepancies arise (Construction Risk Management). The appropriate party will make revisions and then prove that that change won't affect the overall project. > Let alone technically possible? On larger projects, Subcontractors of Subcontractors of Subcontractors can become lazy, use materials not rated for their intended use, someone doesn't double check it since they're lazy, clicks a checkbox and calls it done; out of sight out of mind. > How does construction of these monsters work? Preconstruction Due Diligence, Funding via Banks, Approval/Contract Signing, Mobilization to Site, Construction of Building, Final Inspections & Warranties transfered, a Certificate of Occupancy issued, and people move in. With mega projects, you have so many moving parts that something will fall through the cracks. Some material got substituted, the pent house staircase dimensions are 2-inches off creating a variance approval, but that dimension now affects the elevator machine room, they used Cast Iron Pipe on Floors 1-10 then PVC at 11-40 and there's issues at the different pipe connections; it just cascades. This is the main reason I also work in Building Information Modeling (BIM) to mitigate such problems. The whole point of my industry is to act as a third party between the Developer & Bank/Lender, opine on the Preconstruction Documents (Contracts, Geotech, Budget, Schedule), document the Construction each month via photos, attend Meetings, review the application for payment, and flag the bank when something changes (No Energy Star appliances suddenly? Variance? Certain brand of vinyl flooring stock low so substitute it with vinyl tile? Change Orders about to deplete the Contingency?) It becomes such an undertaking after a certain budget size or apartment unit amount. Eventually, people get stretched thing or get lazy, they're over budget, they've gone way past their scheduled completion date and just don't care since their next project is starting up and Permits are taking way longer to get; just happens. Hope this gives a little perspective.

tzs 6y ago
I wonder if it would help avoid some of these issues if all materials used in the building by all the different contractors and subcontractors and subsubcontractors etc were required to come through a single entity? That wouldn't help with someone getting the dimensions wrong on a staircase, but it could catch things like a contractor wanting to use the wrong kind of pipe of floor material or appliance.