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May 3, 2006
Engineering a Safer, More Beautiful World, One Failure at a Time
The NY Times profiles engineer, Dr. Henry Petroski, the author of a sleeper hit, "The Pencil," a 400-page thriller on the importance of chronicling and understanding failure in engineering.
Dr. Petroski's latest book "Success Through Failure," chronicles inevitable unintended consequences:
Take Frank Gehry's design for the Walt Disney Concert Hall building in Los Angeles, which Dr. Petroski describes in his latest book, "Success Through Failure," published this year by Princeton University Press. According to Dr. Petroski, the high gloss of one side of the building reflected so much light at a condo across the street that residents suffered blinding glare and 15-degree temperature increases until the offending wall was resurfaced in a matte finish. This problem is the kind of "latent failure" that emerges only when a design is in use.
NoLandGrab: Dr. Petroski could have just as easily cited Gehry's project at Case Western Reserve University where titanium panels similar to the ones used in LA melted the snow that collected on the roof panels, thus creating avalanches of sliding snow and ice over the main entrance.
The impacts of REFLECTED LIGHT are NOT being studied in the Atlantic Yards Environmental Impact Review, according to the Final Scope. How Gehry's signature titanium surfaces would affect the adjacent neighborhoods in Brooklyn is anyone's guess.
Posted by lumi at May 3, 2006 7:48 AM