I have been seeing a lot of stories on the news lately about buildings collapsing (partially or fully) around the world... what does this say about architects and their role in ensuring the welfare of the public?
Probably a lot of those buildings are in the "developing" world and were built without engineers, architects, inspections, or any kind of governmental oversight. It doesn't necessarily say anything about the profession.
We know that in the US we are failing miserably at infrastructure maintenance. We *should* have a peaceful army of hundreds of thousands of inspectors checking in on every public structure on a regular schedule. But, you know, a proposal to create cushy government union jobs for highly trained professionals can't seem to get any traction in this country. America Fuck Yeah.
You know, I've been chewing on the Texas fingerprinting of architects story and I was beginning to wonder if there might be a bit of "predictive programming" involved.
Waht i mean is, that the first thing that comes ot mind when thinking of "fingerprints" is criminality. Texas claims they are doing it to keep out criminals but forcing all archtects to be fingerprinted like that makes the subtle implication that we already are criminals. Now, you combine that with the poor infrastructure maintenance as some have mentioned above and it starts to sound like architects could be set up as convenient scapegoats should more buildings collapse.
And then if I really let my parnoid mind kick into overdrive, i can't help but wonder if specific buildings might be targeted for collapse (via small, well placed explosive device) with the intent using "architectureal failure" as the popular narrative.
Consider the World trade center in New York. The evil terrorists were the convenient scapegoats in that situation. But they could've left the airplanes out of the equation altogether and taken down the building using just the planted bombs. If those towers had collapsed withut the plane crashes, Yamaski would have been suspect nmber 1.
I had a building collapse on me during construction a few years ago. The joist manufacturer had supplied lateral bracing that was too long, so there was a horizontal bow in the joists. The contractor sent a guy up on a lift to start taking the bracing off, the whole assembly racked, and fell (this was a gymnasium, so the guy was over 30 ft in the air. broke his back jumping). Turns out, one of the column baseplates did not line up with the anchor bolts, and the contractor had cut the baseplate off in the field. He then TACK WELDED the column back to the baseplate and moved on. They never notified us or sought instruction from the structural engineer on it, and the weld broke lose when the lateral bracing issue came up, taking the rest of the structure with it. Contractor kept that superintendent on the job for another 6 weeks before firing him.
It was a terrible situation, but I shudder to think what might have happened if it have finished construction that way.
that theater in london lost it's ceiling. i blame "traditional" architecture.
handsum, i wonder how that would play out. maybe they would get an interview with the architect on tv, and it would potentially become painfully obvious that the architect has no idea how buildings go together, it was his junior staff and consultants that put it together. could you really sacpegoat the architect then? you would need a scapegoat people can hate so the public rallies. a broke ignorant architect wouldn't fit the bill. the public would just pity the poor guy.
Considering the number of buildings it is pretty amazing how safe buildings generally are. I will check the stats, but I would guess that the chances of being killed in a building collapse are even lower than being killed in a plane crash.
building collapse
I have been seeing a lot of stories on the news lately about buildings collapsing (partially or fully) around the world... what does this say about architects and their role in ensuring the welfare of the public?
Probably a lot of those buildings are in the "developing" world and were built without engineers, architects, inspections, or any kind of governmental oversight. It doesn't necessarily say anything about the profession.
Perhaps it's just me, but it seems that there are more buildings that do not fall down than there are some that do.
LOL, Non Sequitur!
We know that in the US we are failing miserably at infrastructure maintenance. We *should* have a peaceful army of hundreds of thousands of inspectors checking in on every public structure on a regular schedule. But, you know, a proposal to create cushy government union jobs for highly trained professionals can't seem to get any traction in this country. America Fuck Yeah.
Donna, ramen to that.
You know, I've been chewing on the Texas fingerprinting of architects story and I was beginning to wonder if there might be a bit of "predictive programming" involved.
Waht i mean is, that the first thing that comes ot mind when thinking of "fingerprints" is criminality. Texas claims they are doing it to keep out criminals but forcing all archtects to be fingerprinted like that makes the subtle implication that we already are criminals. Now, you combine that with the poor infrastructure maintenance as some have mentioned above and it starts to sound like architects could be set up as convenient scapegoats should more buildings collapse.
And then if I really let my parnoid mind kick into overdrive, i can't help but wonder if specific buildings might be targeted for collapse (via small, well placed explosive device) with the intent using "architectureal failure" as the popular narrative.
Consider the World trade center in New York. The evil terrorists were the convenient scapegoats in that situation. But they could've left the airplanes out of the equation altogether and taken down the building using just the planted bombs. If those towers had collapsed withut the plane crashes, Yamaski would have been suspect nmber 1.
I had a building collapse on me during construction a few years ago. The joist manufacturer had supplied lateral bracing that was too long, so there was a horizontal bow in the joists. The contractor sent a guy up on a lift to start taking the bracing off, the whole assembly racked, and fell (this was a gymnasium, so the guy was over 30 ft in the air. broke his back jumping). Turns out, one of the column baseplates did not line up with the anchor bolts, and the contractor had cut the baseplate off in the field. He then TACK WELDED the column back to the baseplate and moved on. They never notified us or sought instruction from the structural engineer on it, and the weld broke lose when the lateral bracing issue came up, taking the rest of the structure with it. Contractor kept that superintendent on the job for another 6 weeks before firing him.
It was a terrible situation, but I shudder to think what might have happened if it have finished construction that way.
that theater in london lost it's ceiling. i blame "traditional" architecture.
handsum, i wonder how that would play out. maybe they would get an interview with the architect on tv, and it would potentially become painfully obvious that the architect has no idea how buildings go together, it was his junior staff and consultants that put it together. could you really sacpegoat the architect then? you would need a scapegoat people can hate so the public rallies. a broke ignorant architect wouldn't fit the bill. the public would just pity the poor guy.
Considering the number of buildings it is pretty amazing how safe buildings generally are. I will check the stats, but I would guess that the chances of being killed in a building collapse are even lower than being killed in a plane crash.
Just pray they don't start fingerprinting developers for criminality, or we'll all be unemployed.
That crime of crime isn't punished, it's rewarded.
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