• Pope Augustus (unregistered) in reply to fjf
    fjf:
    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).

    you speak latin? are you a monk?!

    captcha: modo. By the way...

  • Kelly (unregistered) in reply to Anon

    Actually I read it with a flippant French accent. Haha.

  • (cs) in reply to eric76
    eric76:
    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.
    You'd be right if it wasn't for the fact that the ground tends to be warmer than the air in winter (and cooler in summer) so increasing ground contact is better, all other things equal. Floods are proof that all things are not always equal, of course…
  • (cs) 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"?

    In the US Ground Floor and 1st/First floor are generally synonymous. Exceptions can occur, of course; if a building is trying to promote a sort of Continental air, they will use the more British style of having the first floor be above the ground floor. If a building is built on a slope, sometimes you will have a Ground floor that is situated at one entrance level, and a first floor situated at the other; in these cases either floor could be above the other - usually the main entrance is where the Ground floor is situated.

  • RBoy (unregistered) in reply to The Nerve
    The Nerve:
    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.... 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.

    You're making the entirely wrong assumption that anyone would have listened to Diogo.

    A: No, the Rock Star made up his mind, and refused to listen to anyone else. Also, I'm sure at this point in his career, the Rock Star kept a large assortment of yes-men nearby.

    B: What should he have done? Had a team of autonomous mops on standby? Ran shop-vacs 24-7? Please tell me how he would stop the flow of water by his mind.

    C: Again, this fails based on your initial assumption.

    Do you really think that "some guy" who works "with computers" is really going to trump a Mr. Name architect?

  • Jay (unregistered) in reply to Steve
    Steve:
    ... it's exactly why I don't believe today's story ...
    Steve:
    I never said it didn't happen ...

    Umm, you did say it didn't happen.

  • Stephen Cleary (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward:
    Unfortunately, spending insane amount of money on flashy but barely functional university buildings is getting rather common. Apparently, looks are more important to many university higher-ups than usability.

    I had always thought the same thing until just a few weeks ago, when I was looking into local (U.S.) laws regarding colleges and universities.

    To my surprise, they are required by law to have horrendous amounts of capital at all times - I don't remember the actual numbers, but it was on the order of hundreds of thousands of dollars for the tiniest community college, and grew quite quickly. I wouldn't be surprised if the big universities were required to keep millions upon millions just in capital.

    If you're running a business (which all educational systems are), and you were required to have all that capital just sitting around (it's illegal to invest it), what would you do? Acquiring huge, sprawling campuses and building super-fancy buildings actually sounds like a good idea at that point.

  • BSDpwns (unregistered) in reply to Remy Porter
    Remy Porter:
    db2:
    Alright, I need to see a picture of this building, because the description conjures up images of M.C. Escher.

    Flat doors, since the crane lowered the hardware down to the ledge through them- you essentially have a pit, a large empty central shaft in the middle of the building (a not uncommon design in modern buildings). The third floor then has an exposed ledge that sits out into that open shaft. Hence the suicide door.

    So what you are saying is that there IS a central column of the building large enough to use a crane for lowering the equipment into the new server room? Let me get this right here; THERE IS A HOLE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BUILDING THAT IS BIG ENOUGH TO TRANSPORT EQUIPMENT FROM THE BASEMENT TO THE TOP FLOOR.

    What you have here is the REAL WTF? WHY DIDN'T THEY INSTALL AN ELEVATOR IN THE EMPTY COLUMN THAT SPANS ALL THE FLOORS IN THE BUILDING!?!?!? Is Crane rental that cheap?

  • Prosfilaes (unregistered) in reply to dkf

    While the ground may be warmer than the air in the winter, the heat capacity of air is less than one hundredth that of ground, meaning you're much better off using the air as an insulator.

  • Steve (unregistered) in reply to Jay
    Jay:
    Steve:
    ... it's exactly why I don't believe today's story ...
    Steve:
    I never said it didn't happen ...

    Umm, you did say it didn't happen.

    Selective quoting is pretty lame.

    Steve:
    ... it's exactly why I don't believe today's story, at least not how it has been told.
  • FatGit (unregistered) in reply to UriGagarin
    UriGagarin:
    can believe this - my old Uni has a Tower that sways quite a lot in the wind visibly from view from inside), they stick ( or did) the Architecture students on the top floors to remind them to pay attention to the local conditions .

    That sounds a lot like Sheffield, UK. My experience of architects is that their focus is on a nice picture for their portfolio, but the user wants something that can be used for >30 years. They need to be kept on a short leash.

  • (cs) in reply to Steve
    Steve:
    ...quoting is pretty...
  • James (unregistered) in reply to Wheaties

    Frank Gehry is an Asshole. Period.

    captcha jumentum: really getting moving in Israel

  • slywinkle (unregistered) in reply to 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, resulting in a building with a total height of about 1m above ground. That was an engineering school too."

    EVERY university has that story. It's usually a library that doesn't account for the weight of the books.

    I think this story originated with the engineering department at the University of Pisa

  • fjf (unregistered) in reply to frits
    frits:
    Steve:
    ...is pretty...
    QFP
  • (cs) in reply to 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.

    Sounds like a lot of architects I used to work with when I did construction. I used to see a lot of genius designed that failed to account for the local geography, roads and even houses. But hey.. on paper it's perfect.

  • only me (unregistered) in reply to The Nerve
    The Nerve:
    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.

    At the risk of feeding a troll, my response

    A) "we all know that if he properly informed this professional building planner" . The guy ( or gal ) was an architect, not a building planner - two different things. And from what I read ( did you ? ) , he not only warned the architect, but he also "continued his protests, carrying his case before the dean and eventually the university president". Doesn't sound like "short vague email".

    b)"getting off his lazy ass" .."he sat at home for 4 days ". Agin, I read he "was looking into renting a gondola for his commute", which implies he was commuting to work every day, not at home. Additionally, please inform me how he was to go about "installing pumps". Sure, a decent industrial pump is going to run $500. He is suppose to pay for that out of his pocket ? And how exactly is he suppose to install the drain ?

    c) "decent compromise" . Apparently Diogo was not the only stakeholder in this. "Diogo and the other stakeholders sat down to plan a solution that would minimize downtime and get servers running for the CS labs before the fall semester ". Diogo's plan sounded like it would be the solution to this problem. Sometime one has to go for short-term while a more permanent solution is being worked on. At that point, the problem was not "how can we stop the server room from flooding" but rather "how do we recover as fast as possible" ?

    Apparently you have never lived in a place where the water table is a factor, but (hopefully) you have been to the beach. Ever dig a hole as the tide is coming in? As fast as you bail, the same amount of water rushes in. Additionally, as someone else pointed out, where do you put the bailed water ? Outside ? Then it just comes back in.

  • wtf (unregistered) in reply to Jay
    Jay:
    Steve:
    ... it's exactly why I don't believe today's story ...
    Steve:
    I never said it didn't happen ...

    Umm, you did say it didn't happen.

    Not necessarily. I don't believe the story that George Bush was a frequent sexual partner of his vice president, but I don't say it didn't happen.

    I don't believe that it did happen != I believe that it didn't happen.

    (You should read more Raymond Smullyan - his examples are much nicer than mine)

    Captcha: tristique. Not Latin, you'll notice. Possibly an abridged edition of a Levi-Strauss book?

  • NotThereAnymore (unregistered)

    this reminds me of my experience in setting up an HPC datacenter in the basement of a Frank Gehry building. They installed a sump pump meant for a large house, and of course it flooded. thankfully, NJ springs are wet enough that it happened before we moved the expensive equipment and it was fixed.

    But still, who builds a leaky, all glass exterior building as a Library? Books hate water and sun.

  • NobodySpecial (unregistered)

    We had a suicide door. Top secret government lab (hint E=mc^2), the site management was being handed over to a private contractor who suddenly had to obey safety legislation that the government doesn't. The rules said that extra fire exit doors were required on all labs.

    Unfortunately our building was on the edge of a hill - ground floor on one side was a 2 story drop to a loading bay on the other.

    The plans didn't call for any sort of stairway outside and there was no way to fit one.

    But the door was installed anyway.

    We nailed a bar across it.

    Site safety came back and removed the bar, then they fitted a large illuminated EXIT sign over the door.

    Then they came back and fixed a thin piece of yellow tape across the door to mark that it wasn't to be used!

    And these were the people responsible for stopping us turning the surrounding 10 miles of countryside into a large crater!

  • wtf (unregistered) in reply to NobodySpecial
    NobodySpecial:

    And these were the people responsible for stopping us turning the surrounding 10 miles of countryside into a large crater!

    Did it work?

  • SuperDave (unregistered)

    Great article, thanks for the laughs.

  • (cs) in reply to Rick
    Rick:
    yeah, architects are pretty smart folks, but that doesn't mean they know everything. When they designed our new datacenter here in Missouri, the architect (from Texas of all places), was somehow convinced that it never gets above 95 degrees. So all of our heat exchangers were placed outside, in half-wall areas (very little cross ventilation), and in the direct sunlight.

    Our methods to compensate for his bad design have ranged from running sprinklers on the heat exchangers to installing an aluminum monstrosity over them for shade.

    My main concern is that those are pretty much student-caliber mistakes -- things for which professors take off points in various architecture program classes. That there is an architecture company that does such a sloppy job, with credentialed, highly-paid employees, is almost hard to imagine. Maybe time to start TDA[rchitectural]WTF sub-category?

    As hard as it may be to admit, to me it seems that the folks who design WalMart buildings do a better job. And it costs a heck of a lot less.

  • (cs) in reply to Don
    Don:
    Actually, they are smart folks indeed; capable of incredible feats of both beauty and design. But they suck at data room design - by nature it has certain requirements which architects do not get: the need for temperature regulation regardless of weather; the need for hermetic sealing.. etc.
    Architects don't do that. They have HVAC engineers on the team to design all that. Shitty ones, that is.
  • (cs) 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…

    This sounds rather implausible.

    Unless it was a very outdated building, the commercial HVAC system would have built-in ventilation and would replace building air with fresh air -- a few times per hour, IIRC.

    Paper in books has very small exposed surface areas. By closing a book, you drive the air out from between the pages. So the only exposed surfaces are the edges of the pages. Imagine hanging large paper sheets to cover the front areas of each bookshelf -- that's not a whole lot of paper area to get oxidized.

    Besides, if you remove oxygen from the air by a chemical reaction that binds it to a solid, you have local pressure drop and air gets sucked in from outside. Of course the oxygen concentration drops, but ventilation should take care of it.

    I think that if anything, the lowered oxygen concentration was maybe a small part of the problem. We are way more affected by other things that would get added to the interior air -- think of various smells. You can have a very "stuffy" feeling inside air that has perfectly good oxygen content, it just smells bad.

    In all likelihood, the building's HVAC was simply inadequate for the occupancy, and the books had nothing to do with it.

  • Maxi TB (unregistered)

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundertwasserhaus

    ^^

    At least our architects had a basic understanding for fundamental needs; most of the time.

    However, I experienced that much fails from architects, I doubt they are awarded for anything else than ... well design ?

  • Vermis (unregistered) in reply to sheldon
    sheldon:
    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.
    Yeah, it's not like you can't google "bad architectural design" and them spend a couple of months just hitting the high lights. (About 3,370,000 results (0.22 seconds), that enough examples for you Steve?)
  • Dan (unregistered) in reply to Chelloveck

    [quote user="Chelloveck"][quote user="Brian LaPierre"]I can only presume that this

    I don't know. The story never says what was explained about the unique geography. A floodplain isn't exactly "unique", so I must assume something else was said to the architect. [/quote]

    Question, shouldn't an architect not from that area do a little research for a project of this scale as to the local weather conditions year round? The whole argument of what was "said" to the architect is pointless. If he failed to take into account the location and longevity of the design and just blindly designed a building then he failed. Maybe its just me, but I thought architects liked knowing they designed a building that lasts, stands the test of time if you will.

  • Pete (unregistered) in reply to Kevin
    Kevin:
    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, resulting in a building with a total height of about 1m above ground. That was an engineering school too.

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

    You must have very soggy books if you can't tell the difference between libraries and swimming pools. The failed swimming pool on stilts was pointed out on the tour given to prospective students of Birmingham University, UK, in 1988, but I don't know if it's still there; it's mentioned in wikipedia but I can't find it on Google maps. So it does happen.

    The first time there was a heavy rain storm at the current University of York computer science building, the roof water flowed down a service shaft into the server room. That was an oversight and fairly easily sealed, but the real problem with that building was it was designed without air-conditioning and on the assumption that the inhabitants wouldn't have computers on their desks. I can remember falling asleep in the heat a few times before they retro-fitted aircon. Hopefully their new one won't be so bad.

  • Grant (unregistered) in reply to nasch
    nasch:
    The other difference is this one is full of anticipated problems.

    in every project we do, there are problems anticipated by the technical staff and raised to management (along with alternatives to mitigate). They overrule us, and we're proven right. They have not learned yet to trust the experts they hired.

  • Sir Robin the Not-Quite-So-Brave-As-Sir-Lancelot (unregistered) in reply to bjolling
    bjolling:
    Leigh:
    Architects aren't engineers.
    That's not necessarily true. I for instance hold a "Master of Science in Architectural Engineering" degree. Which is a 5-year curriculum in Belgium that is somewhere in between an Architects degree and a Civil Engineering degree
    Hey, you had math classes together with us (bio engineers) in the first year. That is, if you studied in Gent, I don't know about the other universities.

    There are indeed 2 kinds of architects in Belgium: architectural engineers like bjolling, and architects that did some artsy-fartsy curriculum. (bjolling: for example those from Sint-Lucas)

    Best captcha so far: eros

  • Sir Robin the Not-Quite-So-Brave-As-Sir-Lancelot (unregistered) in reply to The Nerve
    The Nerve:
    Most people seem to have taken the Starchitect's side, not Diogo's.
    I disagree, the numbers say otherwise. There are more comments saying that architect sucked.

    Captcha: the Latin word for green

  • Sir Robin the Not-Quite-So-Brave-As-Sir-Lancelot (unregistered) in reply to BSDpwns
    BSDpwns:
    Remy Porter:
    db2:
    Alright, I need to see a picture of this building, because the description conjures up images of M.C. Escher.

    Flat doors, since the crane lowered the hardware down to the ledge through them- you essentially have a pit, a large empty central shaft in the middle of the building (a not uncommon design in modern buildings). The third floor then has an exposed ledge that sits out into that open shaft. Hence the suicide door.

    So what you are saying is that there IS a central column of the building large enough to use a crane for lowering the equipment into the new server room? Let me get this right here; THERE IS A HOLE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BUILDING THAT IS BIG ENOUGH TO TRANSPORT EQUIPMENT FROM THE BASEMENT TO THE TOP FLOOR.

    What you have here is the REAL WTF? WHY DIDN'T THEY INSTALL AN ELEVATOR IN THE EMPTY COLUMN THAT SPANS ALL THE FLOORS IN THE BUILDING!?!?!? Is Crane rental that cheap?

    Yes, renting a crane for one day or even for one week to move all the servers is actually a lot cheaper than retrofitting a building with an elevator.

  • Koos (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous coward
    Anonymous coward:
    Have you ever worked or lived in a building of such an architect? If you had, you would believe the story to the letter.

    I have worked in buildings designed by famous architects and that makes this story hard to believe: the kind of architect I hear about would never allow for any changes to his precious design even when the building is unusable as it is. You don't win architecture prizes with usable buildings, it seems.

  • Jay (unregistered) in reply to wtf
    wtf:
    Jay:
    Steve:
    ... it's exactly why I don't believe today's story ...
    Steve:
    I never said it didn't happen ...

    Umm, you did say it didn't happen.

    Not necessarily. I don't believe the story that George Bush was a frequent sexual partner of his vice president, but I don't say it didn't happen.

    I don't believe that it did happen != I believe that it didn't happen.

    (You should read more Raymond Smullyan - his examples are much nicer than mine)

    If someone tells me, "I am not convinced that X is true", yes, I don't assume that he is convinced that X is false. Such a statement indicates uncertainly.

    But if someone says, "I don't believe that X is true", I take that to be pretty much synonymous with "I believe that X is false".

    Are you a politician? This sounds like something a lot of those politicians say. "Now, when I said that I have never accepted campaign contributions from Mr Jones, I didn't mean that I did not receive the money and deposit it to my bank account, rather, I meant that I did not feel a sense of 'acceptance' about the money ..."

  • North Shore Beach Bum (unregistered) in reply to Anon
    TRWTF is the name Diogo.
    Very common name in some countries... (eg Portugal)

    I was in Brazil for two years and ran into a few people with the name Diego, but never Diogo.

  • tB (unregistered) in reply to Kuba
    Kuba:
    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…

    This sounds rather implausible [... snipped unnecessary and long winded rebuttal ...]

    Please god tell me I'm not the only one who thought that was a joke. Or did my lack of sleep contribute to me not being able to spot the troll.

  • Calli Arcale (unregistered) in reply to Prosfilaes
    Prosfilaes:
    While the ground may be warmer than the air in the winter, the heat capacity of air is less than one hundredth that of ground, meaning you're much better off using the air as an insulator.

    You must not live in a place with cold winters. Experiment: try standing around, naked, in subzero (Fahrenheit) temperatures. Now try standing around in a down-filled parka, snowpants, and mask which you've just taken out of a refrigerator. In which case do you think you will die first? Air is a better insulator, right?

    The air underneath a house on stilts is not insulating the house at all. It's flowing past, and if it's colder than the house (which, in the winter, it is, often by quite a bit), then the air is pulling heat away from the house.

    Contrast that with the ground. In most areas, the ground will be 45-50 degrees Fahrenheit year around. And while it too will pull heat away from a warm building inserted into it, the ground isn't moving. (If it is, the heating bill is probably the least of your concerns.) You have to heat up all the ground touching your house before you can heat up ground a mile away -- heck, you'll never put heat into that ground a mile away. It's too far. But the wind howling under your house on stilts will travel hundreds or even thousands of miles across the frozen prairies before getting to your house. It's constantly being replaced. It's a big difference. The best effect comes if you can get your basement down below frost line, which a full sized basement will do. Down where the ground never gets cold enough to freeze, it's much better than having subzero wind whipping around the walls and under the floor.

  • Calli Arcale (unregistered) in reply to only me
    only me:
    When I visited Falling Waters, the tour guides told a story of how Frank Lloyd Write had designed a beautiful house with a stained glass window above the dining room table. The owner had a house warming dinner and it was raining. The rain was pouring through the window onto the table. The woman called Frank Lloyd Wright and asked "What should I do ?". His response : "move the table"

    I would not be surprised. Wright was an artistic genius, but not so great an engineer. He was good at finding things that would look good (to a certain asthetic). I've also heard that Fallingwater has serious mold issues, which really shouldn't be surprising considering that the design incorporates a natural body of water inside the actual house. It must be fun for the preservationists to deal with it.

  • Calli Arcale (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    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.

    There is that, but there is a very common tendency among people of all expertises to underestimate (sometimes fatally) the power of water. The guy's last job was supposedly in Dubai; I expect a rising water table is not a particularly big concern there, on the edge of the Rub' al Khali. He would not be the first architect to make such a mistake, nor will he be the last.

  • (cs) 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, resulting in a building with a total height of about 1m above ground. That was an engineering school too.
    I'm no engineer, but what the hell does the weight of the water have to do with the height of the building?
  • publiclurker (unregistered) in reply to Calli Arcale

    Wasn't he also known for building some of the furniture into the house so that it couldn't be moved by the people who owned and actually lived there? From what I hear, Mr. Wright was one of the sew people who's ego was greater that Steve Jobs'

  • db (unregistered) in reply to Prosfilaes

    On the other hand the compressive strength of air is dissappointingly low so it's difficult to use as a building material :)

  • (cs) in reply to amischiefr
    amischiefr:
    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, resulting in a building with a total height of about 1m above ground. That was an engineering school too.
    I'm no engineer, but what the hell does the weight of the water have to do with the height of the building?

    The building was original X meters high. The pool was filled. Then BIG BADA BOOM building is 1 meter tall.

  • dave (unregistered)

    My alma mater has a dorm that was designed for hot, humid Florida. It has a ground floor that is smaller than the floors above it, with a large open area under the first floor that lets the wind blow through, cooling the first floor.

    Unfortunately, this college is in Minnesota.

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to only me
    only me:
    The owner had a house warming dinner and it was raining. The rain was pouring through the window onto the table. The woman called Frank Lloyd Wright and asked "What should I do ?". His response : "move the table"
    Oh wow, that sounds very familiar:
    Steve Jobs:
    Just avoid holding it that way.
  • Ralph (unregistered) in reply to Steve
    .. it only costs a few man days to make a software development blunder

    This must be from the "you can do anything in 3 days" camp of system development...

    but I'm intrigued - if a blunder can be made in a few days, then why do so many high-profile software projects waste millions before they're finally cancelled or fixed.

    It must be a flaw in the teamwork processes.

  • Justin (unregistered) in reply to wtf
    wtf:
    The Nerve:

    It certainly seems that the majority is choosing sides against Diogo here.

    Well, it seems pretty clear that he did in fact foresee the problem and try to bring it to the attention of the decision makers, and was overruled. That is, he told 'em so, and then when the thing went tits up, he told 'em he'd told 'em so. And then he told us. So?

    I award you an internets!

    captcha: valetudo. Having the attitude of a valet

  • (cs) in reply to Anon

    The photo in 315872 is the Stata Center at MIT, for those who are curious. It replaced a 50 year old wooden structure.

    And yes, it's a Gehry product.

    And as ugly as it might seem from the outside, it actually works for its intended purpose inside. It does require some work to find someone for the first time, but it has spaces designed to encourage interaction between researchers.

  • Miguel (unregistered)

    Ok, can this be the suicide door?

    http://media.heavy.com/media/2010/07/Door-in-the-Air.jpg

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