How Architects And Engineers Behave When Disaster Strikes

Building failures are like detective stories. At first, no one knows who should be blamed.

1 minute read

June 18, 2003, 11:00 AM PDT

"The Waltham-based engineering firm Simpson, Gumpertz & Heger was hired to investigate the Hyatt disaster, and Glenn Bell of that firm is now the leading expert on the case. What was wrong with that steel connection is a little too complicated to explain in a newspaper. Suffice it to say that -- as with almost all architectural disasters -- the error was not the fault of any one person. It was the result of a compounding of several careless errors, the kind of mistakes all human beings are subject to. That's what makes it so scary."

Thanks to ArchNewsNow

FULL STORY: From disasters of the past, professionals learn to build the future

Sunday, June 15, 2003 in The Boston Globe

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