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Major outlets report on the passing of I. M. Pei, known for spectacular buildings around the world, The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/may/17/im-pei-architect-audacious-daredevil-who-built-the-impossible mentions some of his better known successes like the pyramid Louvre extension in Paris and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Old gray lady is similar, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/16/arts/design/im-pei-buildings.html
Since I was in college in Boston in the 1970s, I'm more inclined to comment on his ego, which let him (and his firm) ignore their engineers and build the Hancock tower in downtown Copley Square. The first time the wind came up, large glass panes fell to the plaza below. For several years it was the "plywood tower" until multiple engineering fixes were applied. This Wiki article describes some of the work required: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hancock_Tower#Engineering_flaws Pieces of fallen glass were kept as souvenirs by many Bostonians.
I believe that Pei's engineers knew in advance that the vertical "blade" shape of the tower was close enough to an airfoil shape that it was going to have large twisting forces in the wind, but the architect convinced the customer (John Hancock Insurance) to go ahead without a full study in advance. Some of your submitting AC's back story came from a detailed personal conversation with the lead engineer for the retro-fitted dynamic dampers added at the top of the building--just one part of the repair process. He recalled carrying lead bricks up the elevators (on low wind days) to fill the two 300 ton weight boxes of the damping mechanism.
This building is rumored to have gone well over double the original budget.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 19 2019, @06:26PM (2 children)
> nature is the best architect.
nature doesn't do many straight lines or right angles.
Have you ever watched a carpenter try to make a curved surface or shape? A few of them are up to it, but not many imo. I asked some good finish carps to make me an elliptical hole, to pass a tube through at an oblique angle. They didn't have a clue, I had to draw the ellipse on paper (two pins & a string) and tack it to the surface, so they could cut the hole with a scroll/saber saw.
Architect Frank Gehry has made a career out of using 3D CAD (from auto and aero industry) and surfacing software to design "organic shaped" and otherwise not-rectilinear buildings. They all leak and have other construction problems (lawyers delight!) This seem pretty easy to trace to the use of curves instead of straight/square building components.
Want natural shapes? Expect to get wet inside (or only build in deserts?)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday May 20 2019, @03:07AM (1 child)
It is surprisingly difficult to design around curved shapes, even simple ones. I once had to design some internal sections that were elliptical shaped as well (using the same two pins and string method to trace out) and then determine the circumference for a wrap. Fortunately, there exist simple formulas for the latter that are reasonably accurate because the exact solution requires elliptical functions to describe.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 20 2019, @11:46PM
Surfacing software in conjunction with 3D CAD makes these "organic" curved things relatively easy to design, but unless you are using CAM to make them (CNC cutting molds, 3D print, etc), they are still as hard to make as ever.
The only craftspeople I know that could deal with curved/warped surfaces easily were pattern makers, and that is because they had to learn how to make curved things from drawings. Having your building built by pattern makers (instead of regular carpenters and other construction workers) could get pretty expensive!
Amazing, khallow and I mostly agree on this...