The Nightmare of San Francisco’s Sinking Tower, Explained

it's one of the most expensive mistakes in San Francisco and they're still trying to fix it four day period last month San Francisco's Millennium Tower tilted another quarter of this morning my office filed a lawsuit against the developer of the Millennium Tower everything came to a stop in late August because the fix was actually making the tower sink even more bad to worse the Millennium Tower isn't just sinking and tilting we've now learned it's also sliding since the completion of the project in 2009 it has been a complete nightmare the tower has now sunk approximately 18 inches and is leaning toward the northwest corner of the site approximately 29 inches now this might not sound like a lot but for a tower that's 58 stories this could have damaging effects to the Building Services and experts have reported that if the Tilt continues and reaches 40 inches or more then this will have damaging effects to the elevators and plumbing as well so it's a Race Against Time to fix the issue but what exactly is causing the tower to lean and most of importantly is a tower safe well in this video I'm going to be answering those questions so let's get started [Music] first it's important for us to understand the Project's context now the tower is located in San Francisco along the Bay Area and it sits along the original Shoreline so essentially it was built on artificial fill now this plays an important role when designing the foundation of the Tower so upon reading articles I found out that the towers Foundation was only drilled down to Old Clay and it wasn't drilled all the way to bedrock now for me this was a bit shocking to learn when I first read this because typically with towers of this height at 58 stories and it being constructed out of concrete if the tower was constructed out of steel it would be a lot lighter than if it was constructed out of concrete the foundation was really designed for a lighter building and they must have decided to either risk it or convince themselves that it would work for the much heavier building but clearly they pushed it past itself so when I read that the foundations was only Built to Old Clay I was a bit surprised but at the same time I also learned that this is not uncommon for buildings in San Francisco to only be billed to Old Clay the tower right across from it is a lot taller and heavier and it's not experiencing any of the issues that the Millennium Tower is experiencing with the building tilting on one side and that specific Tower its foundations was designed all the way to bedrock so had the Millennium Towers designed the foundation to bedrock perhaps I wouldn't be here doing this video now the lead engineer Ronald hamburger on the Millennium Towers project says the issue of the towers leaning is not due to the fact that the towers Foundation did not go to bedrock but rather it's the Transportation Hub that's being built next door that's causing a lot of issues so that project had to remove and de-pump a lot of water out of the soil and that in turn affected the millennial Towers now I don't fully completely agree with this however do I think that that could have contributed to the accelerated rate of the Leaning Tower yes in my opinion I do think that did help to accelerate the Leaning but was it the main cause that caused the tower to lean in my opinion no however I'm also not an engineer but just based on my experience working on projects as an architect and my experience of just reading about the project and hearing other engineers and experts talk about the project I do think that had the project been built to bedrock similar to the tower that's just adjacent to the project then perhaps we wouldn't be having these issues so is this a big deal now this takes us into the second Point sinking buildings are common it's important to note that this is part of the building settlement into the ground and upon the building being occupied by people it it's only natural for the building to sink and settle within the ground however the sinking should be done evenly and this is something that the engineers calculate when they're designing the concept for the foundations that they do calculate that the foundation and that the building will sink a certain rate through a period of time however in case of this project the tower has been sinking at an unusual rate and it's tilting unevenly and this presents some issues because the building was never designed for this kind of movement and so all of the Building Services like the plumbing and the elevators weren't prepared for this type of movement in such a short period of time now this type of unplanned tilting isn't something new there are many buildings around the world that has been experiencing this like the Big Ben if you look at it closely within the pictures you'll notice that it has a slight tilt to it and you have the Tower of Pisa in Italy that is also leaning and there are projects that are intentionally designed to have a slight tilt and lean and it's designed as part of the Building Concept which is slightly different from a building that is unintentionally leaning I must say but there are many buildings across the world that are designed with this concept in mind and it's part of the design concept like this skyscraper that's 35 stories in Dubai that is leaning five times that of the Leaning Tower of Pisa I've also personally lived in a house that was leaning it was in a townhouse and this was during my undergrad when I was in architecture school and this townhouse was all sinking in the middle now luckily it was only two-story house it was made out of wood which is a lot more flexible than concrete and that house was sitting in the middle of a block of Townhouses which gave me some comfort every time I was living in that house and the funny thing was anytime I would drop anything all of my pencils and pens they would all roll onto one area so the nice thing about it was I always knew where everything was located and I never lost any pencils or markers because I know where to find them because they would all just roll into one point of the house but there were some challenges I have to say because I was in architecture school I would do a lot of drawing and sketching on my table on my drafting table and I would build models as well and I didn't realize this at first but then when I would go to class and I would bring my models and sketches I noticed that everything was designed on an angle and this was not intentional by the way because I didn't want it to be on an angle but even my sketches I would look at it and I'm like oh my gosh everything is on a slight lean and tilt so then I had to adapt all my furniture to accommodate that difference of that lean on my floor so that I would draw everything more intentionally and I was able to control that difference of the lean and this brings us into the third point is the tower safe it's been reported by the lead engineer on the project that the tower is safe and people continue to live in the tower as a tower is experiencing the Leaning and sinking although it is structurally safe it does present issues with the elevators for example because of that displacement and the elevators were never designed for this type of movement the gaps between the elevator and the structural core start to increase and that presents a tripping Hazard even though the building is structurally safe it was never designed to have this type of movement and this type of tilt and so all of the other building elements will start to experience issues and there were reports of cracking Windows which some say were not due to the foundation issues however it makes you think that it could potentially be related and if you look at pictures of the Foundation walls there are extreme structural cracks on those Foundation walls when I saw those photos it was extremely alarming now they are trying to fix the issue by drilling foundation piles to bedrock along the northwest corner of the site where it's leaning so they're going to be drilling piles along the portion of the tower that's leaning in order to even out the settlement of the tower now the Millennium Towers has been receiving a lot of attention for these issues but this is also something that isn't new to San Francisco a lot of their sidewalks has been sinking and cracking and displacing and I'm also surprised that the engineers didn't see this and take this into account along with the city as well when they approve the plans so this leads us into the fourth Point why is this a problem now since this went public this really affected the real estate value of some of the units because this leaning and tilting was never part of the design concept so the value of the units went drastically down and also images of the foundation cracking and all and all of the issues of some of the glass cracking and all of that really scared away a lot of people from wanting to buy units and it really decreased the value of a lot of the units as well now there has been attempts to fix the issue and that has accelerated the rate of the tilting however the last attempt seemed to stabilize the tower this was reported back in November of 2022. now I haven't heard any other reports since then but I'll keep an eye to see how the project progresses so because the value of the units was being affected this really LED them to look into ways to try to fix and resolve the issue now although sinking and settlement of buildings is normal what's not normal is for the tower to be sinking unevenly and resulting it to lean on one side more than the other and of course if this continues at this rate and if it reaches is 40 inches or more then this is going to impact all of the Building Services the elevators of Plumbing all of the materials are going to start to have all of this movement and cracks and gaps and those also present safety concerns for the residents as well and the other big question and this is perhaps not only for this project but for San Francisco overall is can the building withstand an earthquake although earthquakes are not common in San Francisco on a regular basis they did experience an earthquake back in 1906 that devastated the city after such a tragic event that the buildings would take in consideration more safety protocols and have the foundations go to bedrock because a building that is tilting on one side can it withstand an earthquake in comparison to the other buildings that are more safely secure in the ground now of course if the earthquake is at a huge magnitude then perhaps none of the buildings have a chance but we could design better are buildings to have a greater chance to withstand such an earthquake there was an expert that did a study of the buildings in San Francisco and the Millennium Towers was at a vulnerable state if there was an earthquake because it is leaning on one side this does bring up a bigger question as to how prepared San Francisco is in terms of their buildings of skyscrapers for a potential earthquake and there's been many local industry professionals that have risen red flags about this issue and how we should be preparing our buildings better for a potential earthquake moving forward it's great to see how this project has been an example and has made a lot of the newer projects change your approach to their design of their foundations and it also has made the city of aware of the issues that could potentially happen now with this project there has been a lot of finger pointing everyone is blaming everyone and so on but what I think is very important to acknowledge is that no prod project no building is ever done by one person alone and I think it's important for everyone to take ownership of the issue as well and that includes the city which to me in my opinion the city should be the most responsible in this case because there are also the ones that approve the plans and improve the structural design of the product also as a buyer when you're buying pre-construction it's important to be very careful like many of the residents in this Tower they bought pre-construction they didn't know what the quality of the construction was going to be they really didn't know what they were getting themselves into remind yourself and be mindful that you're taking on a lot of risk because you don't know what the structure is going to be like and what the quality of construction is now if you know and you have experience of working with that Builder and you've done your research on that Builder and they have a good track record then that reduces the risk a little bit when buying pre-construction but I would be very cautious when you buy pre-construction and and this is a perfect example of how you should be very Mindful and careful when you're buying a unit from a builder that you do your homework and you understand first the track record of that developer do they have experience of building Towers or buildings within that area and what is the construction quality of the buildings that they have constructed so if you are going to buy pre-construction just make sure to do your homework when you are purchasing something after pre-construction and the building is built the other thing that I would recommend you to do is to always not just look at the unit and the amenities but make sure examine the foundation walls go to the lockers look at the foundation walls look at those walls do you see structural cracks you might not have any experience to understand what is a structural crack but you will notice a red flag like if you see extreme big cracks on Foundation walls that is not normal there is something wrong with the construction quality of the build building and so I would make sure to pay attention to that especially if you're building that you're purchasing or you're looking into was built or is built along a shoreline so for example uh the building that I live in one thing that I made sure because I know this building that I'm in is built on artificial fill and I'm very close to the coastline and the shoreline that I was to be honest a little afraid even though I do trust the professionals and everyone that worked on this building when I go on the parking levels it's something that I pay very close attention is I look at all the walls so there are five parking levels in my building and I make sure to examine all of the levels but especially pay close attention to the last parking level down below so in my case it's P5 so level five and I look at those Foundation walls and I pay close attention even though I do trust the professionals that worked on the project to me that just gives me some reinsurance that everything is built fine but anyways I always make sure to check and I remember the other day there was a crack and there was water coming out and I was like oh my gosh what's happening but then I realized that's that's where the water tank is so it's not related to any structural issues but when you start seeing big cracks on the foundation walls and there's a lot of them then you know that there's something there's a rooted problem there because that's not normal it's not normal to see those kind of cracks in within my building you don't see those kind of structural cracks in the building so just make sure to do your homework and I hope to see you on the next video Until then bye everyone

Channel: Architecture with Ashley

Views: 79,248

Keywords: San Francisco, Leaning tower, San Francisco leaning tower, sinking tower, nightmare architecture, nightmare building, nightmare tower, building problems, tower sliding, tower problems, millennium tower, titled tower, sinking building, building foundation problems, tower foundation problems, San Francisco Millennium Tower, high rise sinking, high rise problems, worse building, tower repairs, tower cracking, engineering nightmare, engineering problems, foundation nightmare

Id: P2m7TC58CmU

Length: 15min 49sec (949 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 29 2023