Architectural Greatest Failures

History's greatest failure infographic reaching back to Ancient Rome's Fidenae Ampitheatre (collapsed in 27 A.D.) all the way to the Lotus Riverside apartment complex in Shanghai (collapsed in 2009)serve as valuable lessons for students studying Civil Engineering and Architecture. Two of the famous failures are described below:

Wind: The Tacoma Narrows Bridge, 1940

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge, a suspension bridge in the U.S. State of Washington, opened to traffic on July 1, 1940, and dramatically collapsed into Puget Sound on November 7 of the same year. Construction workers giving the bridge the nickname "Galloping Gertie" because since construction, the bridge will move vertically in windy conditions. The bridge's main span finally collapsed under 40 mph (64 km/h) wind conditions the morning of November 7, 1940.

Watch the collapsed of the Tacoma NarrowsBridge.







John Hancock Tower


The John Hancock Tower is a 60-story, 790-foot (241 m) building in Boston and was completed in 1976. The structure was famous for its blue reflective glass windowpanes in a steel tower that detached from the building and crashed to the sidewalk hundreds of feet below. The failure of the glass was due to oscillations and repeated thermal stresses caused by the expansion and contraction of the air between the inner and outer glass panels which formed each window.

Petronas Twin Tower is No. 7 Tallest Building in the World for 2013

Once, it was the tallest building in the world surpassing the Sears Tower in Chicago. However, in 2003, the Petronas Twin Tower is the 7th tallest building in the world. The tallest building now is the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

The top 10 tallest buildings in 2013 are as follows:

1. Burj Khalifa Dubai; 2723 feet high - 163 floors.
2. Makkah Royal Clock Tower Hotel, Mecca, Saudi Arabia; 1.972 feet - 120 floors
3. One World Trade Center New York; 1,776 feet - 104 floors
4. Taipei 101, Taipei, Taiwan; 1,669 feet - 101 floors above ground and 5 floors below
5. Shanghai World Financial Center, Shanghai, China; 1,614 feet - 101 floors
6. International Commerce Centre, Hong Kong, China; 1,588 feet - 118 floors
7. Petronas Towers Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; 1,483 feet - 88 floors
8. Zifeng Tower, Nanjing, China; 1,480 feet - 89 floors
9. The Sears Tower, Chicago; 1,451 feet - 22 floors
10. Kungkey 199, Shenzhen, China; 1,449 feet - 22 floors

Watch the video: http://youtu.be/eK1o5lJo2ik

Too Many Bikes Also Become a Major Problem

Traffic congestion is common among major cities. Congestion is usually due to too many vehicles on the road at any given time. One way of reducing traffic congestion is to encourage people to use non-motorize vehicles such as bicycles. However, when the number of bicycles is too many, a different set of problems arising such as inadequate number of bicycles' parking space and inadequate facilities for vehicles on the roadway. Such problems occur in Amsterdam where majority of city dwellers ride their bikes. Read Amsterdam clogged up by bikes for more information.