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Whether those particular gates were actually designed for widebody aircraft is exactly the point of contention. Clark Construction says the design specification

by wahern 4y ago

Whether those particular gates were actually designed for widebody aircraft is exactly the point of contention. Clark Construction says the design specifications for those gates were for narrowbody aircraft, and suggests that this is but one of many SeaTac flip-flops that caused tremendous cost inflation, resulting in an earlier lawsuit initiated by Clark for unpaid labor costs. Given the acrimony it would seem rather difficult to know as an onlooker what transpired and why. Seattle Times has a better article: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/sea-tac-airports-new-1b-international-terminal-too-tight-a-squeeze-for-20-big-jets/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/sea-t... > Clark’s latest legal brief, filed in late February, asserts that the contract documents defining the work “specifically state that Clark was to design the Project to accommodate narrowbody aircraft at Gates A6 and A8, not widebody aircraft.”

readthenotes1 4y ago
"Given the acrimony it would seem rather difficult to know as an onlooker what transpired and why." It's very plausible that the people writing the requirements took the cheap/ignorant route and it's very plausible that Clark knew it was a mistake but it would be a worse mistake to fight.
- rjzzleep 4y ago
  This seems like a common problem not just in construction but in all parts of society. It very likely that plenty of engineers looked at the design of this and said that it doesn't work this way and that they were silenced along the way. Germany built massive transit hub train terminals in a matter of a year during the Nazi period(I forgot the name, but it was a transit hub for military equipment between Hamburg and Dresden I think), while today, this story here reads exactly like Stuttgart 21, where a decade long construction projects ends up with less capacity than the previous train hub. My dad was telling me about when he learned construction where there was the same guy responsible for building the stairs and sometimes that person would diverge from the plan because his experience would tell him that the design was wrong. I managed part of a construction project when I was working in Government in Germany and many of the subcontractors told me exactly the same thing, the guys designing the network, AFA and data center access control(Bosch), as well as the network cabling, and even the carpenter and the elevator company all told me the same thing. The architect sent them wrong specs and these guys said that, were they to change any of the specs they would be liable for any upcoming issue. The elevator company was the only one that looked at the specs and told his worker to change it and then in front of me told his worker that he would take responsibility for the change. It went beyond that, because the Architecture firm running the construction project actually told these subcontractors not to send us issues that they see, so until I started actively poking around they told me that they were told not to inform us directly. For all other building services engineering parts I had to get personally involved, finding the issues, then corroborate them with a second contracting firm only to then face an uphill battle to convince leadership of the decades of upcoming problems if we don't change them. This is the same reason people hire Accenture and EY we read in the other thread. As long as leadership doesn't know they're not going to be liable for all the crap that was installed under their watch. And because the contracting firms know that they will building things EXACTLY according to spec(or this case the construction tender). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21
  - candiddevmike 4y ago
    I'm seeing some weird parallels with the byzantine generals problem/distributed consensus and the architect/contractors in your story. Did the architecture firm eventually sign off on the changes the subcontractors made?
    - rjzzleep 4y ago
      They had to, we hired them. But it's more interesting that the leadership was really upset at having to tell them to change plans. After the changes to the construction project they heavily limited what information I have access to. Fundamentally I didn't have any authority to change these things on my own, so what caused the leadership to change course was basically an email in the following format: "Here's the current state we have ... Here's what will what happen if you move forward with it ... I would heavily recommend against proceeding with the current course. Ultimately it is your own decision and you will have to bear the consequences of that decision"
  - sofixa 4y ago
    > Germany built massive transit hub train terminals in a matter of a year during the Nazi period Well, things are always easier easier to build when you have access to slaves, but they still won't solve the project management issues in debacles auch as Berlin Airport. Do you have any concrete transit projects built under Nazi rule in mind? Everyone knows of the Autobahn which was drastically expanded during Nazi rule, but I can't find anything about other transit projects outside of the regular railways that were built for the army or deportations.
noughtme 4y ago
Having not seen the contract, but having worked in construction, I think it's likely the contract did not specify clearances and/or turning radii, or maybe even dimensions. Clark was probably hoping the Port would cave and pay for change orders. It's even possible that individuals at the Port were aware of deficiencies, but let it slide...for reasons.
beerandt 4y ago
>specifically state that Clark was to design the Project to accommodate narrowbody aircraft at Gates A6 and A8, So sounds like it's a design-build contract. What many don't realize about this is that in contrast to other contract types (eg design-bid-build), the "design and build" in design-build are both contracted to one entity. This reduces what would be typical conflicts between the architect and contractor, because it eliminates incentive to play blame game when plans have internal contradictions or issues with constructibility/ buildibility (specs are impossible to build). This process has other advantages, like shorter lead and construction times and fewer delays, since the builder doesn't need to wait on all design phases to be complete before starting work. But it also effectively eliminates a party of review. To all the other comments suggesting VR/ or software simulation as a solution: 1) on a project this size, I guarantee 3D models were made and presented for both schematics and visuals, and 2) all the modeling in the world doesn't fix the original specs being wrong. Even if 3D lifelike visuals aren't a part the deliverables, the contractor has incentives to make them, including because of the case at hand. And (for those without construction experience) they have much greater incentive to point out errors in the (owner-provided) specs than to ignore obvious blunders. Change-Orders are the bread and butter for most companies doing this type of work, because the contract guarantees an inflated profit margin on the value of changes made. Which aligns incentives for both parties. It sounds to me like the owner/rep for seatac just wasn't paying any attention or doing their job. Which happens a lot on public pet projects when politicians want to be hands on and not outsource owner/rep responsibility to a more experienced party. Many states have departments that specifically will do this for any public entity in the state, and others allow their DOT to handle construction responsibilities for other departments, on-demand.

by wahern 4y ago

readthenotes1 4y ago

"Given the acrimony it would seem rather difficult to know as an onlooker what transpired and why." It's very plausible that the people writing the requirements took the cheap/ignorant route and it's very plausible that Clark knew it was a mistake but it would be a worse mistake to fight.

rjzzleep 4y ago
This seems like a common problem not just in construction but in all parts of society. It very likely that plenty of engineers looked at the design of this and said that it doesn't work this way and that they were silenced along the way. Germany built massive transit hub train terminals in a matter of a year during the Nazi period(I forgot the name, but it was a transit hub for military equipment between Hamburg and Dresden I think), while today, this story here reads exactly like Stuttgart 21, where a decade long construction projects ends up with less capacity than the previous train hub. My dad was telling me about when he learned construction where there was the same guy responsible for building the stairs and sometimes that person would diverge from the plan because his experience would tell him that the design was wrong. I managed part of a construction project when I was working in Government in Germany and many of the subcontractors told me exactly the same thing, the guys designing the network, AFA and data center access control(Bosch), as well as the network cabling, and even the carpenter and the elevator company all told me the same thing. The architect sent them wrong specs and these guys said that, were they to change any of the specs they would be liable for any upcoming issue. The elevator company was the only one that looked at the specs and told his worker to change it and then in front of me told his worker that he would take responsibility for the change. It went beyond that, because the Architecture firm running the construction project actually told these subcontractors not to send us issues that they see, so until I started actively poking around they told me that they were told not to inform us directly. For all other building services engineering parts I had to get personally involved, finding the issues, then corroborate them with a second contracting firm only to then face an uphill battle to convince leadership of the decades of upcoming problems if we don't change them. This is the same reason people hire Accenture and EY we read in the other thread. As long as leadership doesn't know they're not going to be liable for all the crap that was installed under their watch. And because the contracting firms know that they will building things EXACTLY according to spec(or this case the construction tender). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21
- candiddevmike 4y ago
  I'm seeing some weird parallels with the byzantine generals problem/distributed consensus and the architect/contractors in your story. Did the architecture firm eventually sign off on the changes the subcontractors made?
  - rjzzleep 4y ago
    They had to, we hired them. But it's more interesting that the leadership was really upset at having to tell them to change plans. After the changes to the construction project they heavily limited what information I have access to. Fundamentally I didn't have any authority to change these things on my own, so what caused the leadership to change course was basically an email in the following format: "Here's the current state we have ... Here's what will what happen if you move forward with it ... I would heavily recommend against proceeding with the current course. Ultimately it is your own decision and you will have to bear the consequences of that decision"
- sofixa 4y ago
  > Germany built massive transit hub train terminals in a matter of a year during the Nazi period Well, things are always easier easier to build when you have access to slaves, but they still won't solve the project management issues in debacles auch as Berlin Airport. Do you have any concrete transit projects built under Nazi rule in mind? Everyone knows of the Autobahn which was drastically expanded during Nazi rule, but I can't find anything about other transit projects outside of the regular railways that were built for the army or deportations.

noughtme 4y ago

Having not seen the contract, but having worked in construction, I think it's likely the contract did not specify clearances and/or turning radii, or maybe even dimensions. Clark was probably hoping the Port would cave and pay for change orders. It's even possible that individuals at the Port were aware of deficiencies, but let it slide...for reasons.

beerandt 4y ago

>specifically state that Clark was to design the Project to accommodate narrowbody aircraft at Gates A6 and A8, So sounds like it's a design-build contract. What many don't realize about this is that in contrast to other contract types (eg design-bid-build), the "design and build" in design-build are both contracted to one entity. This reduces what would be typical conflicts between the architect and contractor, because it eliminates incentive to play blame game when plans have internal contradictions or issues with constructibility/ buildibility (specs are impossible to build). This process has other advantages, like shorter lead and construction times and fewer delays, since the builder doesn't need to wait on all design phases to be complete before starting work. But it also effectively eliminates a party of review. To all the other comments suggesting VR/ or software simulation as a solution: 1) on a project this size, I guarantee 3D models were made and presented for both schematics and visuals, and 2) all the modeling in the world doesn't fix the original specs being wrong. Even if 3D lifelike visuals aren't a part the deliverables, the contractor has incentives to make them, including because of the case at hand. And (for those without construction experience) they have much greater incentive to point out errors in the (owner-provided) specs than to ignore obvious blunders. Change-Orders are the bread and butter for most companies doing this type of work, because the contract guarantees an inflated profit margin on the value of changes made. Which aligns incentives for both parties. It sounds to me like the owner/rep for seatac just wasn't paying any attention or doing their job. Which happens a lot on public pet projects when politicians want to be hands on and not outsource owner/rep responsibility to a more experienced party. Many states have departments that specifically will do this for any public entity in the state, and others allow their DOT to handle construction responsibilities for other departments, on-demand.