The architect even won an Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects. During the time it took to identify and fix the problem, sheets of plywood replaced many of the missing panes, earning the nickname "Plywood Palace."Īs the new home of the Kansas City Kings, the arena was hailed as an innovative design that featured a seamless design. The reflective material caused the glass to be stiffer than expected, and instead of absorbing motion, it transferred it and simply shook out of place.Īll 10,344 window panes were replaced by single-paned, heat-treated panels, helping inflate the cost of the project. The real issue, though, was that the building expanded and contracted wildly due to differences in temperature inside and outside of the building.
Subsequent research in wind tunnels identified additional integrity issues, such as twisting in high-power winds. Despite this effort, the building continued to trouble the public.ĭuring construction, the blue reflective glass used for the building started to fall off from various heights, forcing police to close off the area around the building. Initial plans showed that it would cast a shadow over Trinity Church, leading to public outcry and a quick redesign of the building. Issue: Flexibility and poor glass integrityĪs the tallest building in Boston, the John Hancock Tower (now simply known as 200 Clarendon Street) was mired in controversy even before it was built. Caron said it was "the worst disaster" in his 25 years as a police officer.īoston's John Hancock Tower needed thousands of window panes replaced because of poor glass integrity. The collapse occurred during a Friday night "tea dance" in the lobby. The design was incapable of meeting the minimum safety requirements, but had gone unnoticed in the building process.
The walkways were anchored by 1.5-inch steel rods, but the real issue lay in the change from a single set of hanger rods threaded through the upper walkways to a double-rod system that was anchored to the upper walkways themselves, adding immense and undue stress. When the hotel opened in 1980, it boasted a sleek and elegant design, which included a multi-story atrium with three suspended walkways running through it. On July 17, 1981, 114 people were killed and an additional 200 people injured when the fourth-floor elevated walkway collapsed, falling onto another walkway two floors down, and eventually into the lounge below. While most structural failures are noticed in time, the Hyatt Regency in Kansas City, Missouri, wasn't so fortunate. The bridge finally gave way, snapping the support cables and dropping into the river below. When a 40 mph wind struck on November 7, 1940, the bridge started to twist and buck wildly. As a result, the bridge was extremely flexible and vulnerable to high-speed winds. The girders, though, were only one-third the height of the originally proposed trusses, which resulted in a disproportionate depth-to-width ratio. Instead, a cheaper option using plate girders gained approval. While the original designer intended to create greater stability with a more standard design, the cost was exorbitant, around $200 million in today's money.
Construction workers noticed problematic bucking even while building the bridge, leading to its famous nickname. It was that under even moderate wind speeds, the bridge would undulate like a sine wave. The bridge spanned the nearly mile-wide Puget River, making it the third longest suspension bridge in the world, behind the Golden Gate Bridge and the George Washington Bridge.īut its length was not what made the bridge so famous that it continues to fascinate engineers and physics professors to this day. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge twisted and bucked in the wind before collapsing in 1940.Īlso known as "Galloping Gertie," the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington collapsed only four months after opening for public use. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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