15 Biggest Architectural Fails

architects are responsible for designing buildings and must ensure above all else that the building is safe and structurally sound one slight error one slight miscalculation and everything can come tumbling down here are the top 15 biggest architectural mistakes number 15 the death ray hotel located in las vegas nevada the vadara hotel and spa has gained fame not just for his luxury accommodations but also its horrible death ray this death ray has been created thanks to the building's curved glass exterior that when hit at a certain angle by the sun causes extremely hot rays of heat to burn parts of the pool area and while no one has actually died from this quote unquote death ray it's been the cause of a number of serious burns and melted plastic bags over the years as a result the hotel was eventually forced to address this problem opting to use large blue umbrellas over the pool deck to protect bathers and while this simple fix hasn't totally stopped the efforts of the death ray it certainly helped alleviate many of the complaints surrounding it number 14 the quebec bridge the quebec bridge stands alone for not only collapsing once but twice due to faulty architectural design construction of the bridge first began in 1887 when it was made across the saint lawrence river in order to connect quebec city with levis quebec however tragedy struck when in 1907 the entire bridge came crashing down due to the weight of it being far greater than its carrying capacity killing 75 workers in the process construction resumed shortly after however in 1916 the bridge experienced a tragedy once again when the re-hoisting devices being used on the bridge failed causing the center part of it to fall into the river this time killing 13 workers who were on site yet it seems like the third time was a charm as in 1919 the bridge was finally completed number 13 the dubai aquarium dubai is known for being just a little over the top and its shopping spaces are certainly no exception in particular the dubai mall went a step above the rest when it decided to place a two and a half million gallon aquarium smack dab in the middle of the building however in february of 2010 disaster struck when water began to leak out of the tank causing the entire central mall to be evacuated six divers and an army of moppers worked around the clock to try to remedy the situation eventually sealing the leak and opening the shopping center shortly after this was certainly quite the embarrassment for the mall's owners number 12 the walt disney concert hall located at los angeles disneyland the walt disney concert hall was designed by the famed architect frank gehry and completed in 2003 however the concert hall had both a curved and shiny exterior of stainless steel panels and this soon became problematic when light glaring off the building began to cause traffic accidents in the street below boil nearby apartment buildings and heat up the nearby sidewalks to as much as 60 degrees celsius as a result garrett quickly had to come up with a solution and him and his firm eventually lightly sanded the most reflective parts of the building in order to reduce the light that glared off of them number 11 the second narrows bridge when construction of the second narrows bridge began in vancouver canada in 1957 it was already clear there were going to be some major problems after all not only was the steel quality poor and the engineering practice is being used questionable but the temporary arms used to support the structure were not capable of holding the amount of weight that they were being expected to carry as a result on june 17th of 1958 much of the bridge came crashing down killing 19 workers in the process it is to date the worst industrial disaster in vancouver's history number 10 the waukee scorchi after the office building at 22 fence church street in london was completed in april of 2014 it was quickly nicknamed the walkie-talkie due to it being shaped like the two-way radio however the nickname walkie scorchi was soon added to this list due to the building giving off extremely hot rays you see architect rafael van oli designed the building so that it would be concave in the middle which ended up being a massive error due to it reflecting light rays on the street below malvinoli admitted that the design team originally thought that the heat of this ray would be about 36 degrees celsius they were surprised when they found that instead it comes in at about 72 degrees celsius on very hot days as a result it's been a cause of widespread damage on the street and has gained notoriety for doing everything from frying eggs and baguettes placed on the sidewalk to burning the top of a park jaguar convertible when you then further consider that the walking scorchie has even caused wind funnels on the street below that have knocked both people and street signs over on multiple occasions it's clear that this building was pretty badly built number nine the rey and morita's data center built to house several of mit's lecture halls offices and auditoriums the rey and maria's data center is nothing if not unique after all it features a number of curved walls sharp angles and slanted windows that appear to defy the laws of physics yet while such a design may look trendy it certainly isn't practical this is evident because just three years after its 2004 opening mit filed a negligence suit against architect frank gehry due to a number of major structural issues with the building in particular they cited that among other things poor drainage was causing cracks to appear on the walls large icicles were being formed across the rooftop and mold was growing on the brick exterior costing the school more than one and a half million dollars in repairs on a building that already cost them about 300 million dollars we're sure that mit regretted giving gary this project we are constantly adding more people to the top fives production team to bring you all the best content be sure to subscribe with notifications on and hit the like button number eight lotus riverside typically speaking mud is not exactly the best material to build an apartment on top of however thanks to the carelessness of the architects the base of block 7 of the lotus riverside apartment complex in shanghai china ended up being made of exactly that this predicament started when the builders of the block decided to dig out a 4.6 meter deep underground parking garage for the complex it rather than move the dirt to a secure location it was brought to a landfill beside a creek the weight of this dirt then caused the riverbank of the creek to collapse and as a result water began to seep into the ground beneath block 7 making the dirt surrounding the apartment block wet soft and ultimately muddy this was not stable enough to hold its weight in place as a result on june 27th of 2009 the entire building came tumbling down trapping and killing one unfortunate worker who was left inside number seven the standard oil building completed in chicago in 1973 at the time of its construction the standard oil building which is today known as the aeon center was the third largest skyscraper in the city impressively once completed it was officially the world's tallest marble clad building as it was sheathed entirely with 43 000 slabs of italian carrera marble however it was this foreign marble that ended up causing a lot more trouble than it was worth that's because it was soon apparent that the carrera marble was far too thin to be used as a building material as it took only one year for a massive 160 kilogram slab to fall from the building smashing into the roof of the nearby prudential center and while nothing was done immediately as a result a 1985 investigation found that the marble was cracking and bowing across the exterior thus between 1990 and 1992 the entire building was refaced with mount airy white granite at an estimated cost of over 80 million dollars when you consider that this was more than half of what it cost to build the skyscraper in the first place it goes without saying that this was a pretty costly mistake [Music] number six the pier one playground while a playground may seem like an odd addition to this list it turns out that faulty engineering can leak its way even into the simplest of projects that's because in june of 2010 a new york playground was forced to tarp up and later remove several metal play domes from pier 1 playground after they've been scorching toddlers you see the shiny metal on the dome made them hot to the touch and thus when children ran to play on them they would get burned by the extreme heat with many receiving blisters on their hands and knees as a result it was only a matter of time until they were eventually dropped since then they have now been replaced with more suitable alternatives number five the leaning tower of pisa easily one of the most famous additions to this list is the leaning tower of pisa construction of the tower began in 1173 after a donation of 60 gold coins from a widow by the name of donna berta de bernardo and although there's a disagreement as to whether guillermo or bonanno posano or dior salvi was the tower's architect in either case their design was flawed from the start that's because despite the tower being built on soft ground composed mostly of clay fine sand and shells the architect in charge only made the foundation of the building three meters deep as a result once construction of the tower began on the second floor in 1178 it began to sink it was shortly after this that a hundred year hiatus in the building began due to a number of battles being fought between pisa and the nearby city-states of genoa luca and florence however this ended up being a blessing in disguise because it allowed the soil to around the tower settle interestingly if this hundred year settling period had not occurred then the tower would have almost certainly collapsed regardless by 1372 the entirety of the structure was officially completed now while the leaning tower of pisa was structurally sound at first every year would lean slightly more so that by 1990 it had to be closed to the public due to it being on the verge of collapse thus in order to get it back in action from 1990 until 2001 38 cubic meters of dirt were removed from underneath the raised end of the tower helping to reduce its tilt by 45 centimeters and return it to the position it was in in the year 1838 since then the tower has been under constant maintenance to ensure its stability and by 2008 engineers working on the site publicly stated that the tower will be structurally sound for at least the next 200 years however considering that it's still sinking by a rate of about one millimeter annually it will likely one day come a time that the tower will completely collapse number four the tacoma narrows bridge after being opened on july 1st of 1940 the tacoma narrows bridge was supposed to be a proud yet useful piece of infrastructure for those living in the area after all its price tag of 6 million or approximately 1 billion in today's dollars certainly wasn't cheap and the bridge was supposed to provide a route across the strait of washington state's puget sound for the foreseeable future however the bridge was faulty designed in several ways one of the most egregious eras was that the shape of the bridge was aerodynamically unstable this was because the bridge's vertical girders allowed for flow separation when wind was applied to them providing the vortices with enough energy to push the girders out of their position this caused the bridge to wildly wave up and down even in slight wind leading to it being given the nickname galloping gertie by its builders and while the bridge's materials were strong enough to keep it intact for a small period of time on november 7th of 1940 just four months after it was built the bridge succumbed to 70 kilometer per hour winds which had given the bridge so much torsional vibration that it crashed down into the water below now while no human lives were lost a dog by the name of tubby did unfortunately lose his life after refusing to evacuate the car he was in before the bridges collapse and while the loss of this poor pupper's life was not regarded as too big of a deal by many the loss of six million dollars was and that's a commission formed by the federal works agency was made to study the collapse of the bridge determined to be either caused by aerodynamic instability eddy formations or random effects of turbulence the true reasoning behind the bridges collapse remains a mystery to this day regardless with a new bridge being built just 10 years later based on the lessons learned from the last one's collapse it wasn't long until the tacoma narrows bridge was back in action number three kemper arena going by the name hyvee arena as of 2018 the old kemper arena gained widespread infamy in 1979 when its roof collapsed due to a structural error the kemper arena had been the home court of the nba's kansas city kings when on june 4th of 1979 a major storm with heavy rainfall and 110 kilometer per hour winds caused much of the roof to collapse luckily no one was inside at the time although the entire disaster could have been avoided had two architectural mistakes not been made the first was that the roof was designed to only gradually let out rain water so the local sewer systems would never be overwhelmed however this caused water to pool up on top of the stadium adding a lot more weight and pressure to it than anticipated the second was that a miscalculation on the strength of the bolts on the hangers meant that in 110 kilometer per hour winds or more the roof would sway back and forth which with the weight of the pooled water would put even further pressure on the structure thus once enough pressure mounted a 66 by 61 meter portion of the roof collapsed blowing out some of the arena's walls and ultimately damaging the entire building yet in just as an impressive feat the stadium was quickly refurbished and within a year it was reopened to the public as a result it has since been host to thousands of events and as of now the roof seems to be in perfect working order number two the john hancock tower after being completed in 1976 the john hancock tower which is more widely known as the hancock became one of the marvels of boston skyline after all its striking minimalist and modern appearance makes it one of the most visually appealing structures in the entire city however since its inception it has had several design problems with two of them standing out amongst the rest the first major issue was that the hancock's foundations were not as secure as they should have been this is because even in rather modest winds the hancock would sway back and forth at intervals of between five to eight inches causing motion sickness at best and at worst making the tower in danger of falling over as a result in order to remedy this the owners of the tower had no choice but to place 1500 tons of diagonal steel bracing on the 58th floor with this acting as a counterweight whenever the building twisted however a just as dangerous issue with the building was its glass windows that's because the kilogram blue reflective glass panels would often crash into the street below with this being directly caused by both the aforementioned swaying of the building and the repeated thermal stresses on the glass caused by the expansion and contraction of the air between the inner and outer glass panels luckily the owners of the building caught this mistake before construction was completed and hence in 1973 they replaced all the existing blue reflective glass panels with single pane heat-treated windows yet considering that this all came at a cost of between 30 to 40 million and 20 20 dollars we're sure said owners weren't all too happy with this mishap number one the cna tower while chicago's bright red cna tower may be an interesting sight to look at for one unlucky passer by by the name of anna flores this building ended up being her undoing that's because on october 8th of 1999 a jagged shard of glass fell from the 29th floor of the building smashing her in the head and ultimately killing her while she walked by with her three-year-old daughter yet what perhaps the most unfortunate about this episode is that it certainly could have been avoided after all the building's windows have been cracking ever since it was first built in 1975. in short this cracking phenomenon was primarily caused because the windows glass could not withstand thermal stress which occurs when a warm area of glass expands against a cooler area creating a pressure that can cause it to crack and what was perhaps the most worrisome about this thermal stress is that the building's owners had been made aware of the issues with the cna towers window panes after someone was injured by falling glass in 1994 at least one study suggested that the owners pay for the building's windows to either be replaced or reinforced with their strength system that would hold cracked glass in place until it could be fixed however they opted to not follow this advice ultimately leading to anna flores death on one of these damaged windows which had already been cracked for four months inevitably fell from its place yet this type of negligence didn't go unpunished as the owners were then sued by both the city of chicago and the flores family eventually being forced to pay out 537 thousand dollars to the city and 18 million dollars to flores while also being ordered to replace the windows at a cost of around 9 million it shouldn't come as a surprise that to this day the cna tower has now each of its windows checked on a monthly basis that's all we have for you today everyone and thank you all for watching let us know in the comments down below which architectural mistake you thought was the most devastating and if you enjoyed this video don't forget to like subscribe and smash the notification button so that you never miss out on any of our latest content until next time

Channel: Top Fives

Views: 640,294

Rating: 4.6775637 out of 5

Keywords: Biggest Architectural Fails

Id: -VMl6_aJfeY

Length: 17min 36sec (1056 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 25 2020