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2007-11-07 -Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
When bad designs go really, really bad
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Posted by Seafarious 2007-11-07 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11135 views ]  Top

#1 If they had know that the building was flawed during its construction, why didn't they stop it? Of course, Boston had the window-shedding John Hancock building too.

I understand Frank LLoyd Wright's Falling Water house was Hell to live in too.
Posted by Eric Jablow">Eric Jablow  2007-11-07 00:16||   2007-11-07 00:16|| Front Page Top

#2 Boston had the window-shedding John Hancock building

But wait, there's more! Not just any "window shedding building". The John Hancock building was designed with two-story tall panes of glass covering its façade. Once the odd low pressure storm-front hit this environmentally sealed structure, these massive sheets of glass molted like an ailing robin's plumage.

Now for the good part. Since these massive pains panes in the glass were two stories tall, entire floors had to be torn out in order that the internally placed glass sheets could be re-installed.

As to Strata Center, this is what happens when you hire PCP addicts masquerading as architects.
Posted by Zenster">Zenster  2007-11-07 01:38||   2007-11-07 01:38|| Front Page Top

#3 
As to Strata Center, this is what happens when you hire PCP addicts masquerading as architects.

Don't forget, someone at MIT actually approved of the design for it to be built.
Posted by Chuck 2007-11-07 02:26||   2007-11-07 02:26|| Front Page Top

#4 ANANOVA > German Church steeple has taken over from the Leaning Tower of Pisa/Pizza as Europe's most off-leaning structure.

OTOH, IMO there's no such thing as "not a contruction issue".
Posted by JosephMendiola 2007-11-07 03:56||   2007-11-07 03:56|| Front Page Top

#5 Chomsky, on the other hand, spent decades in the beloved Building 20, MIT's ''Magical Incubator." He would go back in a minute. In Chomsky's eighth-floor office, the walls slant in. ''If you look in the corner, you get vertigo," he says.

''The first time he came in, he almost passed out," says his assistant, Bev Stohl, who has loaded the office with plants to minimize the effect.

Chomsky finds the space not very usable. ''It is hard to get a blackboard up," he says. Responds Brooks, the CSAIL director: ''He hates the US government, too. He hates this country. Have you ever read anything he has written?"

Worth every penny.
Posted by trailing wife">trailing wife  2007-11-07 04:03||   2007-11-07 04:03|| Front Page Top

#6 a metaphor for the age - the desire to be different no matter what the cost or how ridiculous.
Posted by Unutle McGurque8861 2007-11-07 05:01||   2007-11-07 05:01|| Front Page Top

#7 There's a reason prior generations built buildings with straight walls.
Posted by gorb 2007-11-07 05:06||   2007-11-07 05:06|| Front Page Top

#8 tw, Brooks came to us from Canada. His lab's work has been very influential in robotics - iRobot is essentially a spinoff of his lab, for instance, bringing the Packbot and other ground robots to Iraq for things like IED detection/detonation.

When even HE has scorn for Chomsky .....
Posted by lotp 2007-11-07 05:08||   2007-11-07 05:08|| Front Page Top

#9 The engineering dept at Lehigh Univ in Bethlehem Pa designed a bridge over a river for the city. One cold night it fell down. The PHDs forgot to take into account thermal contraction and one cold evening a bridge section shrunk, sheared a couple pins and the section went into the water. Even the best and brightest aren't always perfect.
Posted by BrerRabbit 2007-11-07 05:20||   2007-11-07 05:20|| Front Page Top

#10 Chomsky, on the other hand, spent decades in the beloved Building 20, MIT's ''Magical Incubator." He would go back in a minute. In Chomsky's eighth-floor office, the walls slant in. ''If you look in the corner, you get vertigo," he says.

Now he can appreciate how he affects me. I hope he lives in that office a long time.

"The first time he came in, he almost passed out," says his assistant, Bev Stohl, who has loaded the office with plants to minimize the effect.

Chomsky finds the space not very usable. "It is hard to get a blackboard up," he says. Responds Brooks, the CSAIL director: "He hates the US government, too. He hates this country. Have you ever read anything he has written?"

No. Have you?

Gehry, the world's most famous architect, is concerned about Chomsky's unhappiness, but not surprised, either. He knew Chomsky would miss feeding the squirrels as he did from the window of his old office. "I am a big Chomsky fan," says Gehry, ''and I will come to Boston to fix it in a minute."

So whaddaya waitin' for?

In the meantime, Chomsky can always go downstairs and feed the rats outside the day-care center.
Posted by Bobby 2007-11-07 06:40||   2007-11-07 06:40|| Front Page Top

#11 Professor Brooks sounds like a charming man, lotp. Canada has produced a great many charming and useful people over the years (some of whom now post at Rantburg!). Perhaps one day I'll have the exceedingly selfish pleasure of being introduced to him.
Posted by trailing wife">trailing wife  2007-11-07 07:10||   2007-11-07 07:10|| Front Page Top

#12 The University of Cincinnati has its "Design, Architecture, And Planning" (or some such nonsense) building, which features gypsum board on the exterior:


Posted by Rob Crawford">Rob Crawford  2007-11-07 07:30|| http://www.kloognome.com/]">[http://www.kloognome.com/]  2007-11-07 07:30|| Front Page Top

#13 Are we sure this whole story isn't a MIT student prank, like putting a police car atop the MIT Great Dome, or giving out buzzword bingo cards for an Al Gore speech?
Posted by Eric Jablow">Eric Jablow  2007-11-07 07:37||   2007-11-07 07:37|| Front Page Top

#14 If you want a piece of art for people to admire, build a piece of art.
If you want an office building for people to work in, build an office building.

Ferraris look nice, but most people commute in Civics.

All other is ego - LOOK AT ME[tm]

The suit says MIT paid Los Angeles-based Gehry Partners $15 million to design the Stata Center, which cost $300 million to build. It houses labs, offices, classrooms and meeting rooms.

I wonder how many student scholarships/aide programs* went overboard for that display of egocentric self worship.

* You know in the name of the Poor[tm] and the Children[tm]. :)
Posted by Procopius2k 2007-11-07 08:42||   2007-11-07 08:42|| Front Page Top

#15 " He would go back in a minute. In Chomsky's eighth-floor office, the walls slant in. ''If you look in the corner, you get vertigo," he says.

I HAS A NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY. LET ME SHOW YOU IT.

CTHULHU FHTAGN CHEEZBURGER!
Posted by anonymous5089 2007-11-07 08:56||   2007-11-07 08:56|| Front Page Top

#16 I’M IN UR CORNRZ, COMIN THRU UR ANGLZ

Also,

I MEK UR EYYS GO FUNY

and the building is very cold, too, you've got to wear sweaters!

I KNITTED U A NONEUCLIDEAN SWEATR - OMG IM SORRY IT EATED U

but, at least, the pest control has been done well

ITS SAFE NAU, THERE ISNT NO MORE RATS IN UR WALLS
Posted by anonymous5089 2007-11-07 09:00||   2007-11-07 09:00|| Front Page Top

#17 I understand Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water house was Hell to live in too.

Now, now, now, don't go doggin' Daddy Frank's best work. Fallingwater has needed some restoration work because of age (it is about 70 years old, after all) and because the concrete cantilevers turned out not to be as stiff as intended--but it still remains the all-time Coolest House Ever Built.

This thing, on the other hand . . . it's just creepy.
Posted by Mike 2007-11-07 09:05||   2007-11-07 09:05|| Front Page Top

#18 A well-known university eye institute in my area has a bunch of inward-sloping walls, including in the main lobby. More than one vision-impaired person has struck their head on the wall while walking into the adjacent rest rooms.
Posted by Darrell 2007-11-07 09:11||   2007-11-07 09:11|| Front Page Top

#19 When we get to the bottom of this I suspect we'll find the fingerprints of a Harvard graduate.
Posted by Nimble Spemble 2007-11-07 09:15||   2007-11-07 09:15|| Front Page Top

#20 Or, as I suspect (see above), a Miskatonic one.
Posted by anonymous5089 2007-11-07 09:23||   2007-11-07 09:23|| Front Page Top

#21 That is one butt-ygly building. The things that pass for good architecture and art these days. Looks like something from Dr. Zeus.
Posted by Deacon Blues">Deacon Blues  2007-11-07 10:03||   2007-11-07 10:03|| Front Page Top

#22 I pilgrimaged to God's Country, western Pennsylvania to see Fallingwater a few years ago. Took me totally by surprise when I discovered... I hated it. It was too cramped, too dark, and WAY too hot. I felt no charm there, only the overwhelming presence of FLW's ego.

Fast forward to last year, when I went to Barcelona and experienced the work of Antonin Gaudi. I was skeptical of flamboyant architcture after my intro to FLW, but came away as a true believer. Gaudi's designs were approachable, flexible, airy and fun. He added zillions of little details, like staircase railings carved to exactly the shape of your hand as you sweep down the stairs. His designs were a little cartoony, to be sure, but at least they don't cascade ice and snow onto passers-by.

And everything Gehry has done since Bilbao has been a disaster. His Disney Performing Arts Center in LA had to be netted and dulled with steel wool because the sunlight reflected off the polished steel exterior was (a) blinding drivers and pilots, and (b) raising the temperature inside the surrounding apartments by 15 degrees.
Posted by Seafarious">Seafarious  2007-11-07 11:00||   2007-11-07 11:00|| Front Page Top

#23 Next time go to Kentuck Knob. These houses are also statements of the past. Going in them did make me feel very much like I was in the 40's. It's sort of like visiting castles in Europe; it's not so much about me living there as about thinking of the people who thought it was the height of luxury, taste and opulence to live their.
Posted by Nimble Spemble 2007-11-07 11:13||   2007-11-07 11:13|| Front Page Top

#24 Frank Lloyd Wright's designs photograph beautifully, but apparently were very difficult to live in. The tenant had to adjust to Mr. Wright's vision, not vice versa. Also, because he kept everything in his head until the last moment, construction details were frequently incomplete, leading to leaking roofs and such. That the concrete cantilevers weren't stiff enough because he never investigated the real world properties of the materials is typical. But the photographs, and the details, are gorgeous.
Posted by trailing wife">trailing wife  2007-11-07 11:19||   2007-11-07 11:19|| Front Page Top

#25 another case of rich alumni (and others, e.g., Bill Gates) being conned by University fund raisers.
Posted by mhw">mhw  2007-11-07 11:49|| http://hypocrisy-incorporated.blogspot.com/]">[http://hypocrisy-incorporated.blogspot.com/]  2007-11-07 11:49|| Front Page Top

#26 a metaphor for the age - the desire to be different no matter what the cost or how ridiculous.

Welcome to the "Fountain", "Piss Christ" and "My Bed". Modern "art" embraced this notion decades ago. I cannot find the quote but it read something like, "... mistaking novelty for innovation and primitiveness for authenticity." It was certainly most applicable to this topic.
Posted by Zenster">Zenster  2007-11-07 12:04||   2007-11-07 12:04|| Front Page Top

#27 Speaking of ice falls, the Zakim bridge (part of the Big Dig) has suspension cables which cross the roadway as they pass to the top of the two towers. While spectacular, one wonders if anyone considered that these cables would acquire thick coatings of ice during Boston's frequent ice storms.

The ice falls off, and windshields have been broken. Big Dig officials called it a 'fluke' of the weather and are 'keeping an eye on it'.
Posted by KBK 2007-11-07 13:26||   2007-11-07 13:26|| Front Page Top

#28 My respect for Brooks went up a notch.

He did some very important work in robotic AI, basically reinventing the field. His robotic intelligence is based on competing processes (e.g. 'hunger' (recharge) and 'target' (move towards some point) whose goals are weighted and layered to determine the overall actions of the robot. A very accessible and amusing paper (pdf) is available.

His group also developed 'L', a tiny variant of Lisp which controls hardware directly. The language has never been open-sourced, but I suspect it's used to program iRobot's products, and provides significant competitive advantage.
Posted by KBK 2007-11-07 13:55||   2007-11-07 13:55|| Front Page Top

#29 Here's a fairly recent article on the Journey Robot, which is pretty close to state-of-the-art for amateur robotics. It uses subsumption architecture in its programming.
Posted by KBK 2007-11-07 14:07||   2007-11-07 14:07|| Front Page Top

#30 When I worked in construction, the second tool they gave us and expected us to use was a level. a square was number 3.
Posted by USN,Ret. 2007-11-07 14:38||   2007-11-07 14:38|| Front Page Top

#31 Yes, that Brooks paper is a classic KBK. But there are significant limits to the behavioral robotics paradigm as we press forward.

A broader version is NIST's 4D-RCS control architecture, which both DARPA and NASA have adopted as their standard. Jim Albus is a pretty amazing guy and his work with Alex Meystel has produced a much richer robotics architecture than Brooks'. If you're not familiar with them, check out their Engineering of Mind for the theory and Intelligent Systems: Architecture, Design, Control for the details.

The NIST architecture has been used by at least one and I believe several of the DARPA Grand Challenge winners, btw.
Posted by lotp 2007-11-07 14:45||   2007-11-07 14:45|| Front Page Top

#32 And for hobbyists, the Microsoft Robotics Studio components provide a visual programming interface for a lot of inexpensive hardware like the Lego bots.

Carnegie Mellon, who won the DARPA challenge this year, did so with a cognitive robotics approach which went well beyond the MIT mainly-behavioral one. Serious techies can check out their Tekkotsu software library, originally developed for the Sony AIBOs but now available for at least one other platform too. I occasionally look at some of the vision processing for my own work.
Posted by lotp 2007-11-07 14:49||   2007-11-07 14:49|| Front Page Top

#33 lotp, thanks very much for those links. I found both books available used at Amazon for $17 and $40 and grabbed them. Looks like a lot of dense information there. I'll be checking out your other links!

Can I assume that 'cognitive robotics' is layered on top of the behavioural approach, rather like the human mind? (I'm away for a couple of hours.)
Posted by KBK 2007-11-07 15:08||   2007-11-07 15:08|| Front Page Top

#34 Roughly, yes.
Posted by lotp 2007-11-07 15:28||   2007-11-07 15:28|| Front Page Top

#35 I just looked at the pictures of the building in question (and it is questionable).

Good God. How drunk was he?
Posted by Barbara Skolaut">Barbara Skolaut  2007-11-07 18:46|| http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/]">[http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/]  2007-11-07 18:46|| Front Page Top

#36 Good God. How drunk was he?

Not as drunk as whoever signed the check.
Posted by Sninter Gonque1597 2007-11-07 22:20||   2007-11-07 22:20|| Front Page Top

#37 The Air Force Academy Chapel is a beautiful building, and they've never been able to stop the roof from leaking. Not all problems are all bad design or bad construction - some are caused by trying to do something that the technology just isn't "there" yet.
Posted by Old Patriot">Old Patriot  2007-11-07 22:41|| http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/]">[http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/]  2007-11-07 22:41|| Front Page Top

#38 Wow, ANOTHER thread over 20 entries long and no trolling!

I grew up in Oak Park, IL and have lived most of my adult life in the Madison area. I got heartily sick of hearing about Rank Lloyd Fright. However, if you come to Madison, Monona Terrace, as built with the correct materials, is a very pleasant building. Take the tour. The tour guide said that if Monona Terrace had been built in Wright's day, it would have been torn down within 10 years. The adapted design works very well.

One more architectural note: In the 70s, somebody designed an energy efficient building for Southern Illinois University. It featured solar panels and strips built into the walls, carefully laid out to follow the sun, for efficient heating and cooling.
When they discovered that they hadn't planned properly for parking, some genius rotated the building 90 degrees, without changing the solar strip design. So it was an energy hog, impossible to heat or cool properly.
Posted by mom">mom  2007-11-07 23:31|| http://idontknowbut.blogspot.com]">[http://idontknowbut.blogspot.com]  2007-11-07 23:31|| Front Page Top

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