3 ms·

Im not saying that this particular tower is unsafe, but in the US we have loads of regulation. Depending on your political view, this can mean either the US is

Im not saying that this particular tower is unsafe, but in the US we have loads of regulation. Depending on your political view, this can mean either the US is helping to protect citizens or it means that it gets in the way of business/progress. Having some regulation in place helps prevent things like: http://i.imgur.com/McgeoNa.jpg http://i.imgur.com/McgeoNa.jpg But that doesn't mean that US isn't over regulated.

SCAQTony 11y ago
WOW! I just looked this up using Tin.eye and the imgur link to locate this fiasco and how it happened. This event happened in 2009 in Shanghai, China. The location was Block-7 at Lotus Riverside in the Minhang District. The building did not fall due an earthquake but rather due to very poor foundation planning. The coup de grace or death blow came when an underground parking garage was being dug below the building. (Why did not not dig out the garage first?) One worker was killed and no residents had moved in yet. (They want their money back) Building a sky scrapper in just a few weeks or even months seems pretty rushed and quite ill advised. Each floor would have to be inspected and certified as safe and I don't believe that could be done in under a year. Here is a page on what went wrong: http://affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/2010/02/its-no-fun-it-fell-right-over.html http://affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/2010/02/its-n...
- vidarh 11y ago
  > Each floor would have to be inspected and certified as safe and I don't believe that could be done in under a year. "Nobody" spends that long on modern highrises - the processes are generally well understood and most of the structures are "cookie cutter" designs with solid margins. The ones going up in London now typically takes 1-3 days per floor for the structure.
  - SCAQTony 11y ago
    If it takes 1-3 days per floor (let's presume this building was built in London and it only took one day per floor) would it not take 57-days then? or do they wait till the building is built and do it all at once? In Los Angeles you build a floor, it has to be inspected one floor at a time. Then again, London does not have earthquakes but both Shanghai and California do.
ethagknight 11y ago
Great point. Additional note- even with heavy US regulation, US still has its share of engineering disasters. Building code is written in response to such disasters albeit more frequently from non-catastrophic failures. For example, we might see high-strength steel requirements evolve in response to the new Bay Bridge's faulty steel rods. The US has had its share of disasters too. We studied these in-depth in civil engineering school, including the design decisions and cost compromises made along the way. Look up Citicorp Tower's tuned mass damper in NYC (disaster pre-empted), Kansas City Hyatt Regency walkway collapse (killed 114), as well as Berkman Plaza parking garage collapse during construction in Jacksonville, FL (killed 1). Back to OP, A general rule of thumb in engineering, there's cost, quality, and schedule: pick two. I always scratch my head at celebrating at some huge engineering feat completed in a small fraction of the typical timeframe, because it surely leaves out either value engineering/cost) or quality/safety. Schedule should be optimized, but prioritized? It's also possible that the Broad's schedule is merely a byproduct of the modular technique. The article doesn't mention cost beyond saying its a problem, and I assume that modular, industrialized construction requires factoring costs in a method similar to airplane accounting, a function of the quantity built. To be sure, there's room for huge innovation in the construction industry, and I'm excited to see how Broad develops their methods.

SCAQTony 11y ago

WOW! I just looked this up using Tin.eye and the imgur link to locate this fiasco and how it happened. This event happened in 2009 in Shanghai, China. The location was Block-7 at Lotus Riverside in the Minhang District. The building did not fall due an earthquake but rather due to very poor foundation planning. The coup de grace or death blow came when an underground parking garage was being dug below the building. (Why did not not dig out the garage first?) One worker was killed and no residents had moved in yet. (They want their money back) Building a sky scrapper in just a few weeks or even months seems pretty rushed and quite ill advised. Each floor would have to be inspected and certified as safe and I don't believe that could be done in under a year. Here is a page on what went wrong: http://affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/2010/02/its-no-fun-it-fell-right-over.html http://affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/2010/02/its-n...

vidarh 11y ago
> Each floor would have to be inspected and certified as safe and I don't believe that could be done in under a year. "Nobody" spends that long on modern highrises - the processes are generally well understood and most of the structures are "cookie cutter" designs with solid margins. The ones going up in London now typically takes 1-3 days per floor for the structure.
- SCAQTony 11y ago
  If it takes 1-3 days per floor (let's presume this building was built in London and it only took one day per floor) would it not take 57-days then? or do they wait till the building is built and do it all at once? In Los Angeles you build a floor, it has to be inspected one floor at a time. Then again, London does not have earthquakes but both Shanghai and California do.

ethagknight 11y ago

Great point. Additional note- even with heavy US regulation, US still has its share of engineering disasters. Building code is written in response to such disasters albeit more frequently from non-catastrophic failures. For example, we might see high-strength steel requirements evolve in response to the new Bay Bridge's faulty steel rods. The US has had its share of disasters too. We studied these in-depth in civil engineering school, including the design decisions and cost compromises made along the way. Look up Citicorp Tower's tuned mass damper in NYC (disaster pre-empted), Kansas City Hyatt Regency walkway collapse (killed 114), as well as Berkman Plaza parking garage collapse during construction in Jacksonville, FL (killed 1). Back to OP, A general rule of thumb in engineering, there's cost, quality, and schedule: pick two. I always scratch my head at celebrating at some huge engineering feat completed in a small fraction of the typical timeframe, because it surely leaves out either value engineering/cost) or quality/safety. Schedule should be optimized, but prioritized? It's also possible that the Broad's schedule is merely a byproduct of the modular technique. The article doesn't mention cost beyond saying its a problem, and I assume that modular, industrialized construction requires factoring costs in a method similar to airplane accounting, a function of the quantity built. To be sure, there's room for huge innovation in the construction industry, and I'm excited to see how Broad develops their methods.