• only me (unregistered) in reply to Drone
    Drone:
    I remember the story of a library once built without consideration for the fact that it would contain books... books made of PAPER. U of Cincinnati maybe? Anyway, they got the weight requirements correct, but neglected to account for the fact that paper oxidizes slowly over time. Without adequate ventilation, the cumulative effect of all of the books in a confined space was to remove a rather large amount of oxygen from the air.

    They finally commissioned a proper air quality study after noticing how many students were falling asleep. If you’ve spent much time in campus libraries, I think you’ll know that this would have to be a rather large number of students to be noticed…

    Reminds me of when they switch from Guilders to Euros in the Netherlands. The Dutch had to build a build large enough to hold all their coinage. Most of the land is sand and they pound beams down meters until they hit bedrock. The <bold>did </bold> calculate the weight of the building and the coins. It was an engineering marvel. Sorry, I can't find a link, but I saw the show on TV about building it while I lived there.

  • Mike (unregistered) in reply to Jay

    Pretty sure that boat you're talking about was designed pretty well, right up until some bean counter decided to cut a few corners.

  • The Nerve (unregistered) in reply to Quietust
    Quietust:
    The Nerve:
    Jason:
    The liberal arts school in my home town installed what was supposed to be an olympic sized swimming pool. They intended it both for training their athletes and had hopes of hosting qualifying events.

    Somebody did their math wrong. Forgot to calculate the thickness of the pool lining or something, and it wasn't until the building was half-complete that they realized the finished pool was going to be about a foot short of regulation length. Oops.

    Kevin:
    Nope, sorry. http://www.snopes.com/college/halls/sinking.asp

    Umm, learn to read? Jason's story has nothing to do with a sinking swimming pool, but with incorrect measurements that resulted in the pool not being long enough.

    Well, to be fair, the snopes article doesn't debunk the swimming pool myth mentioned above either.

  • ping floyd (unregistered) in reply to Mike
    Mike:
    That's funny. I did the same thing.

    And: Captcha = saluto. An Italian Salute?

    You designed a CS department building without a freight elevator?

  • MP (real) (unregistered)

    Who would have guessed that architects make up a large percentage of TDWTF commentators?

    It amazes me how sensitive some of you are about criticism of another architect.

    Artists are so worthless.

  • (cs)
    The winter had left a full pack of snow and ice on the roof of the building. When the weather finally warmed, it melted, and attempted to run off the roof. Unfortunately, the easiest route downwards was through the hastily installed and poorly sealed "Suicide Door", and was trapped on the upper floor by the tightly sealed fire doors.

    That should be "hastily installed, poorly sealed and aptly named", I suppose.

  • Mark J. (unregistered) in reply to ParkinT
    ParkinT:
    I am reminded of Heinlein's And He Built a Crooked House Hypercube.
    Heinlein's hypercube was at least livable - as long as you were really careful about what windows you open...

    CAPTCHA: populus - This may actually be a latin word (the people)!

  • Dr Know (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    GettinSadda:
    Anonymous:
    Why the hell did nobody explain to the architect that this was a flood prone area? You can't second-guess acts of God but if it's a common problem then there is absolutely no excuse for this momentous design oversight. I don't even know who was at fault, it's hard to tell from the write-up, but any professional architect would fully consider the repercussions of building in a flood prone area. I'm quite sceptical about today's article, I'd like to hear it from the architect's perspective.
    Original Article:
    "I'm not sure that's a good idea," Diogo said. He explained the unique geography of the region.

    This says absolutely nothing about whether the regular flooding was explicitly outlined to the architect. There's unique geography around here too but that's no indication of the annual rainfall. Clearly there is a lot of room for interpetation here which is exactly why I said I'd like to hear it from the architect's perspective.

    Small homes are nothing like buildings, and there's no way you're going to build any building that has an empty basement to just let flooding happen, or was this a school in Venice?

    Like someone else said, if it was such a known issue, then every building on campus would have pumps that would be monitored by maintenance. I'm pretty certain maintenance would have piped up long before a server was installed, and would be asking why there were no pump and water monitors....

    Think of the Netherlands for Ford's sake. The entire country is pretty much under sea level, and continuous pumping occurs in pretty much all buildings, train tunnels, car tunnels, etc.

    Usually it's only third world countries that take the cheap option of not having a ground floor when they live in flood plains, or if they live on the water (like the residents of the Tonle Sap lake in Cambodia)

  • (cs) in reply to Robert
    Robert:
    Anybody able to identify the university? A bit of Googling found this: http://www.ece.umn.edu/ECENEWSARCHIVES.html, seems the University of Minnesota had water damage in their EE/CSci biulding Feb 09
    A similar incident occurred at my Alma Mater, Case Western Reserve University... except for the detail that the building in question was the new Management/Business building, designed by architectural eccentric Frank Gehry. The first time a Cleveland Winter rolled around, the entire (expansive) basement of the building was quite underwater.
  • (cs) in reply to Dr Know
    Small homes are nothing like buildings, and there's no way you're going to build any building that has an empty basement to just let flooding happen, or was this a school in Venice?
    No, but you can build a basement that is intended to withstand a rising water table, or you can cheap out and focus on showy architectural aspects above ground. The Peter B. Lewis (Weatherhead School of Managment) building is an example of this. Frank Gehry was not used to designing in winter climes, built his exploding Kleenex box of a building, and then watched as the basement flooded the first winter it was up.

    No other building on campus has this issue--even the decades-old structures--and other buildings run up to 3 stories below ground. We even have a network of maintenance and access tunnels beneath the entire campus. Everything but Weatherhead, you see, is waterproof.

  • DavidN (unregistered) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    I immediately pictured this: [image]

    It was a surprise to see that, because that building's right round the corner from where I work - I've often thought that that entire area of the street looks like the architects were in direct competition for Stupidest-Looking Building.

  • Huzzah! (unregistered) in reply to DavidN
    DavidN:
    Anon:
    I immediately pictured this: [image]

    It was a surprise to see that, because that building's right round the corner from where I work - I've often thought that that entire area of the street looks like the architects were in direct competition for Stupidest-Looking Building.

    I think they were just making an "earthquake-proof" building [in that it will look normal after an earthquake hits].

  • Cure for the Doctor (unregistered) in reply to Dr Know
    Dr Know:
    Usually it's only third world countries that take the cheap option of not having a ground floor when they live in flood plains, or if they live on the water (like the residents of the Tonle Sap lake in Cambodia)

    Guess again Dr. Know(Nothing). There are a lot of flood-prone residential areas where I live, and ya know what? Most houses in those neighborhoods don't have basements. And I'm not talking about a dirt-poor poverty-stricken area, this is affluent suburbia where I live. So get a clue.

  • ClaudeSuck.de (unregistered) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    B:
    TRWTF is the name Diogo.

    Very common name in some countries... (eg Portugal)

    TRWTF is Portugal...

  • Peter (unregistered) in reply to Dude
    Dude:
    catchpa: Enim: What a architect really understand when asked to design a mine (whatever it is, is actually irrelevant).
    No, irrelevant is a big grey animal with floppy ears and a trunk.

    Badum-tish. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

  • Peter (unregistered) in reply to Cure for the Doctor
    Cure for the Doctor:
    Dr Know:
    Usually it's only third world countries that take the cheap option of not having a ground floor
    Most houses in those neighborhoods don't have basements.
    Okay, I know that the US uses "first floor" for what we in England call "ground floor", "second floor" for what we call "first floor", and so on up. Do the terms used in this little spat mean that there's a similar displacement working down too? Is "ground floor" in the US another term for "basement"?
  • sheldon (unregistered) in reply to Steve
    Steve:
    Linking to one example of a failed architecture project proves absolutely nothing - this website alone contains thousands of examples of failed software projects.
    I don't think it's a good argument. This site is, after all, mostly about IT. The fact that even within this thread people came up with three failed projects by Gehry alone (not to mention several more by other architects) would suggest that incompetent architectural decisions are not that rare after all.
  • sheldon (unregistered) in reply to hatterson
    hatterson:
    And lets face it, a modern looking "cool" building that is almost impossible to function in attracts more grants than a solid brick cube that's perfectly functional.
    From my experience, most of the buildings that look modern on the outside are actually quite normal inside. There are exceptions, of course, but mostly I think they are normal buildings, somewhat decorated on the outside.
  • Michael Andrew Baldelli (unregistered)

    Jeez, this sounds like Brown Univeristy.

  • bluebearr (unregistered) in reply to Robert

    I did a bit of Googling too, and my guess is the University of New South Wales. Not all the details fit, but if you do this search, at the moment the second result with a title of "UNSW pix" has a photo and notes that the library has a Suicide Door (search for the word "suicide" and look two photos up) with a comment that the purpose was to install mainframes. (The link to the above mentioned page doesn't work, but the Google cache does work. Unfortunately, I can't directly post the link because Akismet flags it as spam.) This page notes that the library does indeed house a data center, and the Wikipedia article on Kensington, where UNSW has its main campus, notes that the area is prone to flooding.

    Hmm, apparently my comment is spam. Why oh why?

  • PRMan (unregistered) in reply to galgorah
    galgorah:
    I work somewhat near the john hancock tower, in boston, which was designed by the famous Henry N. Cobb, who worked for the most well known and respected architecture firm in the country at the time. The building actually became known more for its flaws than anything else. In fact it was widely considered an embarrasment of modern architecture and the architecture industry itself.

    Some of the issues included:

    Panes of glass popping off and falling to the street

    Nauseating sway. If you worked on the upper floors vomit was not a concern. It was a daily occurence.

    Foundation breaking and causes damage to utilities and the historic trinity church.

    The best part of this story is that Henry Cobb was insured by John Hancock...

  • PRMan (unregistered) in reply to Peter
    Peter:
    Cure for the Doctor:
    Dr Know:
    Usually it's only third world countries that take the cheap option of not having a ground floor
    Most houses in those neighborhoods don't have basements.
    Okay, I know that the US uses "first floor" for what we in England call "ground floor", "second floor" for what we call "first floor", and so on up. Do the terms used in this little spat mean that there's a similar displacement working down too? Is "ground floor" in the US another term for "basement"?

    No. Here basements are either called basement or garage or parking. Only hotels might have a Ground floor followed by a 1st floor, but even that is rare here.

  • sheldon (unregistered) in reply to bluebearr
    bluebearr:
    I did a bit of Googling too, and my guess is the University of New South Wales.
    I'm not sure. If you look at the building, it has these large panels at the side. These are indeed used to deal with old large mainframe computers. But the way it works is that the entire panel slides out so you can put the computer in. So they wouldn't need to cut a door in it for this; the entire panel is a door.

    Also, since modern computers are much smaller than the old mainframes, they don't build these side panels anymore. So the library is probably a very old building (rather than a modern one as in the article).

  • UNSW CSE alumni (unregistered) in reply to sheldon

    It can't be UNSW. The library building is one of the oldest over there (guessing 50s). The CSE (Computer Science & Engineering) building was only built quite recently (late 90s/early 2000s). The CSE also came in from School of Electrical Engineering in 91, as opposed to Maths mentioned in the article.

    sheldon:
    bluebearr:
    I did a bit of Googling too, and my guess is the University of New South Wales.
    I'm not sure. If you look at the building, it has these large panels at the side. These are indeed used to deal with old large mainframe computers. But the way it works is that the entire panel slides out so you can put the computer in. So they wouldn't need to cut a door in it for this; the entire panel is a door.

    Also, since modern computers are much smaller than the old mainframes, they don't build these side panels anymore. So the library is probably a very old building (rather than a modern one as in the article).

  • (cs) in reply to The Nerve
    The Nerve:
    Quietust:
    The Nerve:
    Jason:
    The liberal arts school in my home town installed what was supposed to be an olympic sized swimming pool. They intended it both for training their athletes and had hopes of hosting qualifying events.

    Somebody did their math wrong. Forgot to calculate the thickness of the pool lining or something, and it wasn't until the building was half-complete that they realized the finished pool was going to be about a foot short of regulation length. Oops.

    Kevin:
    Nope, sorry. http://www.snopes.com/college/halls/sinking.asp

    Umm, learn to read? Jason's story has nothing to do with a sinking swimming pool, but with incorrect measurements that resulted in the pool not being long enough.

    Well, to be fair, the snopes article doesn't debunk the swimming pool myth mentioned above either.

    With all the Captcha posting around here, I wouldn't be surprised if you guys are being trolled by a bot.

  • fjf (unregistered) in reply to Mark J.
    Mark J.:
    CAPTCHA: populus - This may actually be a latin word (the people)!
    In case someone hasn't noticed, all these CAPTCHAs are actual Latin words (which seem to inspire the strangest associations in non Latin speakers, again and again).
  • fjf (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    You can guess, I can guess, we can all guess but that's all it is - a guess. When I say "I'd like more information" that doesn't mean "I'd like more guesses from random strangers with no knowledge of the actual event".
    Yes, Mr. Anonymous, comments from random strangers are really not welcomed here.
  • Jeremy Friesner (unregistered) in reply to Bob
    Bob:
    it's not a case of shifting 6 square foot of water but actually lowering the water table.

    Seems to me it's really a question of making the basement walls/floor waterproof (or at least, sufficiently water-resistant that the pumps can keep ahead of the leakage).

  • Grumpy (unregistered) in reply to Steve
    Steve:
    Has anyone else noticed how this is a classic software development blunder, only made IRL? We do this shit all the time - make something that looks great on paper but when it comes to implementation we find it's full of unanticipated problems.

    The difference, of course, is that it only costs a few man days to make a software development blunder but it can cost tens of millions of dollars to make an architectural blunder. This is exactly why architects don't fuck up nearly as often as software developers and it's exactly why I don't believe today's story, at least not how it has been told. I'm not saying it didn't happen in some form but I really don't believe that a world-renouned architect would make a moronic software developer mistake like this. No way.

    They do all the time. Read "The psychology of everyday things" and you'll understand why "It won a prize" is not praise. Architects and designers are very much overrated. Try, for instance, to actually sit in some of the most famous "Danish design" furniture. It's useless or worse.

  • AJ (unregistered)

    Sounds like my old uni. They spent a lot of money on expensive stone cladding for the library, which would apparently glow in honey tones when hit by the rays of the setting sun.

    It was only when it was built they realised that because it was at the bottom of a hill the sun never came near it after 4pm...

  • undefined (unregistered)
  • KotH (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous

    It's common that star architects fuck up in their designs completely. Our local university (famous engineering school too), has so many buildings designed by star architects, that it's not funny anymore. All of those needed some major rework within one or two years. Some even sooner.

    In one (incidentaly the building of the architecture department), the architect forgot to install an air conditioning system and used a totally underpowered ventilation system, in a building that had a pure glass facade and no windows that could be opened. He even insisted that nothing might be changed for 20 years, not even small windows or anything like that. Needles to say that everyone who worked in there, didnt work in summer, when the offices went over 40 degrees. The whole situation didnt change until a professor got so pissed, that he trew his chair out of the window to get some fresh air.

    I probably dont have to mention, that all the buildings that needed to be cheap, for the lack of money and thus were designed by "normal" architects, are well designed and practical, don't need any rework or renovation for decades.

    If any deparment head of dean is reading this: Never ever hire a star architect. NEVER.

  • Stoker (unregistered)

    I just love the fact that the Moscow version of the suicide door has a safety handrail on the steps!

  • Adrian (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward:
    Reminds me of the, possibly apocryphal, story about my alma mater... They designed a new block inhouse, with a sports centre in the basement, and only when construction started was it realised that they'd forgotten to allow for the weight of the water in the pool
    You're not the only one to have heard this particular story; the same was told about my old University sports centre as well. Unless you also went to Imperial College I think it can be discounted as, as you say, apocryphal.
  • (cs) in reply to Stoker
    Stoker:
    I just love the fact that the Moscow version of the suicide door has a safety handrail on the steps!
    Well, imagine the disaster if you were about to walk through, fell over and then couldn't get up and finish the job! We can't have that happening, now can we???
  • rupee (unregistered)

    Did anyone else get unicorns appearing during that story?

    I'm feeling a little distrubed.

  • Dave (unregistered) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    I read the voice of Laurent with an Italian accent. It probably made the story better than it was.

    It's more likely to be something like Belgian. If it'd been Dutch then he would've recognised the potential flooding problem.

  • Burpy (unregistered) in reply to Drone
    Drone:
    I remember the story of a library once built without consideration for the fact that it would contain books... books made of PAPER. U of Cincinnati maybe? Anyway, they got the weight requirements correct, but neglected to account for the fact that paper oxidizes slowly over time. Without adequate ventilation, the cumulative effect of all of the books in a confined space was to remove a rather large amount of oxygen from the air.

    They finally commissioned a proper air quality study after noticing how many students were falling asleep. If you’ve spent much time in campus libraries, I think you’ll know that this would have to be a rather large number of students to be noticed…

    And was it built on an indian cemetery or something like that?

  • (cs) in reply to UNSW CSE alumni
    UNSW CSE alumni:
    It can't be UNSW

    I thought the same thing immediately... The end of the story has the servers flooded again from melting snow. Sydney hasn't seen snow that heavy since the last Ice Age.

  • Level 2 (unregistered) in reply to only me
    only me:
    Reminds me of when they switch from Guilders to Euros in the Netherlands. The Dutch had to build a build large enough to hold all their coinage. Most of the land is clay and peat and they pound beams down meters until they hit a layer of sand. The <bold>did </bold> calculate the weight of the building and the coins. It was an engineering marvel. Sorry, I can't find a link, but I saw the show on TV about building it while I lived there.
  • Sarge2009 (unregistered)

    And the motto of the story is "Beware of experts!"

  • Eaten by a Grue (unregistered)

    The architect was right about one thing: The servers in the basement had no problems with cooling.

  • Schol-R-LEA (unregistered) in reply to Manos

    Oh, come now. Balmer I see, just barely, but Jobs? Even architects don't have egos that big.

  • The Nerve (unregistered)

    Most people seem to have taken the Starchitect's side, not Diogo's. I think that's because, deep down, they know it was his fault.

    a) Not adequately warning about "local geography". He claims that he mentioned it and that "I told you so." But we all know that if he properly informed this professional building planner that an improperly built basement would get flooded during the rainy season, that this planner would have taken the proper and simple precautions. More likely he just sent a short vague email "Have you taken flooding into account?" and the Starchitect never responded as, of course he took that into account as with all buildings. In fact, he took the basement and it's use for computers MORE into consideration. He knew about the need for cooling and the obscene weight, and he PLANNED for it.

    b) Not taking proper action to save the computers. Think about it. This guy is IN CHARGE of those computers, million-dollar university investments which is his only job to take care of. Instead of getting off his lazy ass, bailing water, installing pumps, he sat at home for 4 days and the equipment under his care go to ruin. It's worse than if he pulled up an email and saw, "Oh, if I don't install the latest patch, all our data is going to be erased by the Clicker virus" and then sat at home for 4 days because he needed to complete all the achievements in Fallout 2. Now, in his own defense (if ignorance is a defense), he might not have anticipated this flood (just as he didn't anticipate the snowfall incident). However, this lumps him in with the architect in failure to plan for local conditions. To cover himself, he said "I told you so!" referring to a recommendation that could no longer be verified now that the architect was long gone.

    c) Failure to come up with a decent compromise. "Let's move the computers back to the old building with the old freight elevator, the way it was set up before I got here, because I don't have a clue how to solve this problem, and I sure as hell am not coming down here to bail water to save the new equipment." Instead, he made the Dean come up with a solution, which--surprise!--didn't pan out. Of course he didn't object to THIS solution, but he didn't have to, because the guy to blame would still be around to point the finger at.

    Diogo--or whatever your feal name is--if you are reading this: YOU SUCK. Feel free to pose as an anonymous user and contradict me.

  • Random Commentator (unregistered) in reply to Zaratustra

    People hire architects because they don't know what they don't know. Whether the customer informed the architect about the flooding is irrelevant. It is the architect's job to find these things out. Architecture isn't just about building pretty structures. It's about creating spaces that suit their inhabitants - something "Laurant" seems to have forgotten.

    How did this get past inspection anyway? Perhaps the region's building codes need revisited.

  • Schol-R-LEA (unregistered)

    The irony remains that we, as software professionals, could see the designers error ahead of time, when we so often fail to do so in our own areas of expertise.

    Unfortunately, software construction ('engineering' would be too optimistic a word for it) has not reached a level such that the absurdities of design can be overcome through competent implementation. We are, I would estimate, at the early part of the 'pyramid building' stage of development - we can build really big things that might be able to stand a long time, but only with tremendous effort and cost, and only if we stick to very simple designs and over-build the hell out of it. Even so, about half of such projects end up either collapsing under their own weight, or getting redesigned halfway through with the point where it changed being obvious from the outside.

    We are, IMAO, several generations - human generations, not computer generations - from reaching the 'Roman aqueduct' stage, and still further away from the Gothic Cathedral' stage. Anything resembling modern physical engineering is at most speculation, and in this field may not prove possible.

    CAPTCHA: saepius - a lack of sapience is clear in the architects of both fields

  • (cs) in reply to DavidN
    DavidN:
    Anon:
    I immediately pictured this: [image]

    It was a surprise to see that, because that building's right round the corner from where I work - I've often thought that that entire area of the street looks like the architects were in direct competition for Stupidest-Looking Building.

    Possibly the most amusing part of it is that this building houses (among other things) the United States offices of the World Wide Web Consortium.

  • eric76 (unregistered) in reply to Dr Know
    Dr Know:
    Usually it's only third world countries that take the cheap option of not having a ground floor when they live in flood plains, or if they live on the water (like the residents of the Tonle Sap lake in Cambodia)
    There are other reasons not to have a (British) ground floor / (American) first floor in a home besides flood problems.

    Raising it up in the air can increase your cooling in the summer. This can be quite useful in places like Hawaii.

    It can also keep bugs down or at least make it a bit easier to control certain types of bugs. If I were building a home in the Houston area, I'd be tempted to build on steel stilts to try to keep termites and the Rasberry Crazy Ant out of the house. For the ant, just spray the stilts every day with pesticide and let the ants have at it.

    I suspect that in colder areas, building on stilts would enable one to insulate the floor very well and help keep heating costs down in the winter.

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to Stoker
    Stoker:
    I just love the fact that the Moscow version of the suicide door has a safety handrail on the steps!

    Yeah, but if they built it in the states it would have to have a ramp as well so the disabled can use it too.

  • Anonymous Coward (unregistered) in reply to Adrian

    Indeed

    Here is a photo of the now demolished sports centre

    [image]

    I would believe it was apocryphal if I could think of a more logical explanation for a leaving a stump of a building in such a prime location

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