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The contractors who designed and built the disastrous Florida International University bridge have been cited by federal authorities for several “serious” worker-safety violations and face tens of thousands of dollars in fines. [...]
The FIU pedestrian bridge collapsed March 15 while it was still under construction over Southwest Eighth Street, killing five motorists below and a worker, Navaro Brown, who had been standing atop the span.
— Miami Herald
This round of OSHA citations is likely only the beginning of legal actions resulting from the deadly collapse of the new Florida International University pedestrian bridge in March 2018. Investigations of the National Transportation Safety Board are ongoing and, depending on its findings, could... View full entry
Renowned Italian architect Renzo Piano has offered to help design a new Genoa bridge to replace the one that collapsed, killing 43 people.
A native of the city, Piano was already involved in redesigning a 2km (1.2-mile) stretch of its waterfront.
Regional governor Giovanni Toti said: "We have gladly accepted the help, and he's already made some proposals."
— BBC
The BBC writes that Piano reportedly "provided sketches to Genoa officials, showing the road sitting on pillars that each resembled the prow of a ship. The other main feature would be 43 very tall posts illuminating the bridge at night in the shape of sails - one for each victim of the disaster."... View full entry
A 12-story building collapsed in Miami Beach on Monday morning, leaving at least one person injured, police there said. [...]
The building that collapsed at 5775 Collins Ave. was the 12-story Marlborough House, which was scheduled to be demolished to make way for a new condo building [...]
Police said there was a demolition permit on file for the site, but not an implosion permit.
— CNN
Miami's WSVN 7 News reports: "As the building was falling, and we’re seeing all this smoke come towards us, a boulder the size of the front-end of a car flew across the street, hit a man that was standing... View full entry
Nearly two months after a brand-new South Florida bridge collapsed onto a busy roadway — killing six people — the Florida Department of Transportation is still refusing to release documents that could shed light on the tragic accident.
Now, the Miami Herald is taking the state to court. On Wednesday, the Herald filed suit against FDOT in Tallahassee's Leon County Circuit Court to compel the release of emails, meeting minutes and other records relating to the bridge's design and construction.
— miamiherald.com
Just days before the FIU bridge collapsed, cracks had been observed on the structure. A meeting was held by the university and the FDOT the morning of the collapse on whether these cracks were a safety risk. The Miami Herald requested records from that meeting and other documents, which have been... View full entry
An abandoned 26-story building in downtown Sao Paulo, Brazil, caught fire and collapsed early Tuesday, showering the surrounding streets with fiery embers and killing at least one person, firefighters said.
About 150 firefighters were battling the blaze, which started at about 1:30 a.m. local time. It is thought to have been caused by a gas explosion, according to reports.
— NPR
Though officially abandoned as the former São Paulo headquarters of the federal police, about 50 families were believed to have occupied the building as squatters. Most people have reportedly managed to get out, however at least one person died in the building collapse, firefighters said... View full entry
In 2016, a Manhattan crane collapse in Tribeca killed one person, seriously injured two others and left another with minor injuries. Workers were trying to secure the crane against winds by lowering the boom when the crane collapsed to the ground. The accident was caused by a series of operator... View full entry
Last week, street planners Victor Dover and Kenneth García of the Miami firm Dover, Kohl & Partners published a proposal for redesigning the area. The pair criticized not only the “accelerated bridge construction” technique used in the FIU-Sweetwater UniversityCity Bridge, but the fundamental design of the street it once spanned. — citylab.com
Following the Miami FIU bridge collapse three weeks ago, investigations have been conducted on what went wrong. Looking ahead to reconstruction, the Miami based design firm Dover, Kohl & Partners proposes a new pedestrian friendly design for Eighth Street. Focusing on greater harmony between... View full entry
The National Transportation Safety Board reports that its investigators remain at the scene of the deadly Miami pedestrian bridge collapse that occurred last week on the Florida International University campus. NTSB investigators and contractors remove and catalog core samples from the... View full entry
The pedestrian bridge that collapsed at Florida International University in Miami on Thursday was built using Accelerated Bridge Construction (ABC) technology, according to a statement from the university.
Unlike traditional methods of construction, ABC streamlines the building process so that bridge projects can be completed quicker and more cost effectively.
— cnn.com
The FIU bridge which collapsed last week was engineered using Accelerated Bridge Construction (ABC), a method used by many companies for its time and cost efficiency. Weighing 950 tons, the bridge was meant to connect FIU's campus to an adjoining neighborhood where many students live. Of the... View full entry
MIAMI (CBSMiami) — Florida International University’s (FIU) massive new pedestrian bridge collapsed Thursday afternoon killing several people.The 950-ton bridge, located at 109th Ave and 8th Street, collapsed on a number of cars. Florida Highway Patrol confirms several people are dead due to the collapse. They also said several cars have been crushed. At least one person was taken as a trauma alert to the hospital, according to Miami-Dade Fire Rescue. — miami.cbslocal.com
The collapsed bridge had recently been erected this past Saturday and was constructed "using an innovative approach to bridge construction", which was meant to alleviate traffic and reduce risk. The recent positioning of the bridge was the largest pedestrian bridge move by Self-Propelled Modular... View full entry
There is a persistent risk of doing harm, dashing hopes, and eroding trust with trial and error, no matter how virtuous the objectives. It is the duty of the powerful to minimize that risk as much as possible. “It was supposed to be innovation, but now we’re being told it was experimentation,” Papa Omotayo, a Lagos-based architect and friend of Adeyemi’s, said of the floating school a few days after the collapse. “The issue is, can you experiment in a community like [Makoko] [...] ?” — magazine.atavist.com
Kunlé Adeyemi's floating school was built in 2013 and collapsed in 2016. The structured was meant to served 100 elementary students in Makoko, a heavily populated slum on Lagos' waterfront. Classes were only held for about 4 months in the 3 years it stood. Now two years later, Allyn... View full entry
One of architect Frank Gehry’s earliest public buildings collapsed this month as it was nearing the end of a five-year, $55 million renovation, forcing the owners to revise their plans.
The roof of the Merriweather Post Pavilion, a 19,000-seat open-air concert venue in Columbia, Maryland, crashed down in the middle of the night on Saturday, January 13, burying the seating below. No one was injured.
— archpaper.com
The concert pavilion was designed by Frank Gehry, Walsh, and O'Malley in 1967 and is being renovated to maintain presence among other performing arts centers. The design team opted to keep the original roof seeing it as the defining element of Gehry's design and were in the process of raising it... View full entry
The wildly swinging booms of three cranes at under-construction residential buildings in South Florida bent and collapsed in Hurricane Irma’s heavy winds Sunday. [...]
The cranes are a symbol of the luxury real estate development that drives South Florida’s economy, attracting millions of dollars in foreign investment, even as home prices soar out of reach for locals. The construction industry has fought against stricter regulation of the towering cranes.
— Miami Herald
While the whole extent of destruction that Hurricane Irma caused throughout Florida, Georgia, and various islands of the northern Caribbean in the past few days is still not entirely clear, the strength of the storm can be adumbrated by the three construction cranes that collapsed in the greater... View full entry
Transportation officials in Georgia are scrambling to cope with a crisis, after a huge fire caused a bridge on Interstate 85 to collapse in Atlanta on Thursday night. Gov. Nathan Deal has declared a state of emergency, and with the heavily used road closed in both directions, drivers are being told to find other options — from detours to mass transit.
Friday morning, officials said they don't yet know what caused the fire or how long repairs will take.
— NPR
Atlanta's Interstate 85 was first built in 1953 and reconstructed in 1985 to accommodate increased traffic. The closure affects a crucial 3-mile portion, which carries up to 400,000 vehicles a day. U.S. DOT Secretary Elaine Chow directed Federal Highway Administration officials to grant $... View full entry
The cooling tower was being built in the city of Fengcheng in Jiangxi province when the scaffolding tumbled down [...]
Chinese President Xi Jinping urged local governments to learn from the accident and hold those responsible accountable. [...]
China has suffered several major work-safety accidents in recent years blamed on weak regulatory oversight, systemic corruption and pressure to boost production amid a slowing economy.
— ap.org
According to the Associated Press, the collapse is "the country's worst work-safety accident in over two years." The cause is currently under investigation.Related on Archinect:Five dead after eight metre concrete wall collapses in Birmingham, EnglandBerkeley balcony collapse investigation: no... View full entry
