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Video shot Monday morning shows New Orleans’ historic Karnofsky Shop was destroyed by Hurricane Ida Sunday. [...]
The site, located on South Rampart Street, is where Louis Armstrong played jazz music and briefly worked. It’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
— WGNO New Orleans
The two-story brick building in New Orleans’ Central Business District has stood vacant for decades and was considered a hallmark of both Jazz history and Jewish culture within the Crescent City. The Karnofsky family, which purportedly loaned Louis Armstrong the money to buy his first cornet... View full entry
The Champlain Towers South design violated building codes at the time of original construction. On the northern side, under the portion of the tower that collapsed, the columns were too narrow to accommodate all of the vertical and horizontal rebar called for in the plans while maintaining clearance required by the code. The pool deck had narrow columns and inadequate load bearing capacity, engineers consulted by the Herald found. Only columns beneath the surviving structure were fully compliant — Miami Herald
A team consisting of Sarah Blaskey, Aaron Leibowitz and Ben Conarck worked with four engineers and a general contractor to analyze the "Anatomy of Collapse" and explain the failure of the Champlain Towers South in Surfside, FL. One key factor in the collapse appears to have been "punching shear"... View full entry
More than a decade before William Friedman designed the collapsed Surfside condominium, Florida’s board of architecture suspended him for six months for designing structures that toppled during Hurricane Betsy. Sign pylons that were “an integral part of the structure” of a Miami commercial building failed during the 1965 storm, according to documents from the Florida State Board of Architecture, obtained by The Real Deal. — The Real Deal
In its order suspending Friedman, the Florida Board of Architecture wrote that the pylons were “insufficient and grossly inadequate” and were not in accordance “to accepted standards of architectural practice.” In 1966, the board found Friedman guilty of “gross incompetency, in that he... View full entry
Almost one week after a Miami apartment complex partially collapsed, a 2018 report has resurfaced which warned of “major structural damage” to the base of the building. As reported by The Guardian and The New York Times, the 2018 survey identified a failing concrete slab on the pool deck and... View full entry
Author note: this article was published on June 24th, one day after the building collapsed. The final number of people who were killed, injured, or affected by the collapse may therefore be revised from the figures noted in this article. A twelve-floor residential building in Miami, Florida... View full entry
The National Science Foundation (NSF), last week, released video of the Arecibo Telescope's cable failure and collapse. Part of the Arecibo Observatory, the telescope was completed in 1963, and was the largest single-aperture telescope until 2016. This year, NSF decommissioned the telescope... View full entry
The Florida DOT (FDOT) announced last week that it will build a replacement for the pedestrian bridge that collapsed in March 2018 while under construction on the Florida International University campus in Miami. [...]
The department said that it will oversee and manage the construction of the new bridge and will incorporate the recommendations offered up by the National Transportation Safety Board [...].
— Construction Dive
The collapse of the pedestrian bridge on Florida International University's Miami campus killed six people in March 2018. View full entry
After a months-long investigation, OSHA has cited and fined 11 firms in connection with the October 2019 partial collapse of the Hard Rock Hotel in New Orleans. The agency has proposed fines totaling $315,536, and all companies have 15 days to contest the monetary fines and citations. — Construction Dive
According to Construction Dive, the following firms have been cited by OSHA: Heaslip Engineering LLC drew the largest fine, $154,214, and the only willful citation among the group. Suncoast Projects LLC, dba Hub Steel, based in Groveland, Florida, had the second-highest total... View full entry
Louise Blanchard Bethune is recognized as the first American woman who worked as an architect. Maybe there’s a Bethune among our young girls in the Crescent City, Baton Rouge, Lafayette or elsewhere in the state. — The Advocate
As the investigation into the deadly Hard Rock hotel collapse in New Orleans continues, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell, who has been meeting with the expert architects and engineers studying the collapse made a stunning realization: “The majority of them were absolutely men.” A staff... View full entry
An underground car park that was under construction in southwest China collapsed, killing eight people and injuring two others, official media said Tuesday.
State broadcaster CCTV said the 10 people were trapped in the rubble when the collapse occurred Monday afternoon in Guizhou province's Guiyang city.
— ABC News
Three workers were able to escape the scene. The 10 trapped workers were rescued early on Tuesday local time, reports ABC. View full entry
The National Transportation Safety Board members that have been investigating a March 15, 2018 bridge collapse at Florida International University have concluded that the design firm FIGG Bridge Engineers, Inc. responsible for the project underestimated the loads created by the bridge's concrete... View full entry
The priority remained on stabilizing the building, two days after the top floors collapsed on one another, sending debris to the street below and killing two people. One worker remained missing, and authorities have said they also want to find him before moving onto an investigation into what happened. — 4WWL
According to 4WWL the cause of the collapse isn't clear. Jean Mattei, former president of the American Society of Civil Engineers, said that it is currently too difficult to know what caused the failure, reports 4WWL. "From the videos and from what I've seen, it was something that started at the... View full entry
Morandi Bridge in the Italian city of Genoa has been demolished almost a year after its partial collapse killed 43 people. Thousands of residents were evacuated before the operation, which was over within eight seconds. Water was sprayed over the scene to reduce the dust produced by the blast. — The Guardian
The partial collapse of Genoa's nearly mile-long Morandi highway bridge on August 14, 2018 killed 43 people trying to cross the bridge at the time. A controlled explosion brought down the last two pillars this morning while the rest of the old bridge is being removed. Construction on the Renzo... View full entry
Notre Dame is not stable and urgently needs reinforcing. [...]
The collapse of a part of the vaults has severely reduced the safety of its structural system, which, in the case of a Gothic cathedral, does not rely on the heavy mass of the walls, as in classical architecture, but on discharging weight through clustered columns, external flying buttresses and counter-supports—a structural “exoskeleton” that until now has been extremely effective and resilient.
— The Art Newspaper
A new assessment of the Gothic cathedral's structural system after the devastating April 15 fire shows that the stability has been severely weakened by various factors and warns that the walls could now fail to withstand strong wind gusts. The morning after the incident: Notre Dame's spire is gone... View full entry
Seattle’s construction frenzy turned deadly Saturday afternoon when a tower crane working on a new Google campus fell like a thunderbolt from the roof of a South Lake Union building, smashing into six cars and killing four people. — The Seattle Times
"The four-building, 607,000-square-foot project will house a new Google Seattle campus, and also include about 150 new apartments," reports The Seattle Times about the tragic incident at a South Lake Union site at Fairview Avenue and Mercer Street. "Construction began in 2017 and is set to be... View full entry
