{"id":1857,"date":"2013-07-18T18:22:12","date_gmt":"2013-07-18T18:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/?p=1857"},"modified":"2013-07-18T18:22:12","modified_gmt":"2013-07-18T18:22:12","slug":"deterioration-of-our-built-environment-and-hypothesizing-on-cause","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/2013\/07\/18\/deterioration-of-our-built-environment-and-hypothesizing-on-cause\/","title":{"rendered":"Deterioration of our built environment and hypothesizing on cause"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Margaret Wente nailed it on the\u00a0head in the Globe and Mail last Saturday when she\u00a0hit on\u00a0the deterioration of\u00a0our built environment &#8211; &#8220;<em>My world is falling apart &#8211; and so is yours<\/em>.\u00a0 <em>Instead of fixing and replacing what previous generations built, we&#8217;ve been adding party rooms&#8221;.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>She speaks of\u00a0the engineering failures that I often speak about in my blog postings: Outright failure and collapse in the built environment, and also inadequate performance of a constructed facility and its infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p>I counted about 20 examples in Margaret&#8217;s litany of failures in the built environment. Everything from\u00a0leaky basements\u00a0to flooded elevator shafts and transformer stations, crumbling roads and bridges, boil municipal water advisories, deteriorating pipes and sewers,\u00a0and faulty subway signalling systems.\u00a0 Anyone of us reading this item could add\u00a0others from our personal experience and what we&#8217;ve heard.\u00a0 I could also add a good\u00a0number from my consulting practice.<\/p>\n<p>She also\u00a0aired her views on the causes of the failures: Negligence and willful blindness,\u00a0inadequate facility and system maintenance,\u00a0ignoring needed repairs, inadequate urban planning,\u00a0etc.\u00a0 She doesn&#8217;t seem to think\u00a0acts of God\u00a0has much to do with the deterioration, that\u00a0He is not\u00a0on the hook for the problems.<\/p>\n<p>Some of this deterioration is certain to be resulting in forensic engineering investigations to determine cause.\u00a0 Some will result in civil litigation.<\/p>\n<p>If I had no data at all but had to hypothesize as to the cause of any one of a number of failures in Margaret&#8217;s cataloguing\u00a0plus\u00a0our additions &#8211; yours and mine, I would have lots of places in the development process on which to focus.\u00a0 And some places would get more intuitive attention than others.<\/p>\n<p>The process starts with:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>an owner&#8217;s concept, a good idea or recognition of the need for a structure,<\/li>\n<li>goes to planner,<\/li>\n<li>maybe an architect,<\/li>\n<li>then to a design engineer,<\/li>\n<li>a builder,<\/li>\n<li>somewhere in there, construction inspection services,<\/li>\n<li>facility operators,\u00a0and,<\/li>\n<li>finally, maintenance people.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A case could be made for the premise that the farther you get from the initial good idea the less attention paid to the quality of the product.\u00a0 Not wantonly, but because of money &#8211; the need to design economically, the cost of things, making money, spending it wisely, making due with less than enough, etc.<\/p>\n<p>Designers must design an\u00a0economical structure, builders must be helped by inspectors to provide what they said they would for the contract price, facility operators must work within an annual budget, and maintenance workers must make do with their budget.<\/p>\n<p>The farther from the exciting concept and down the process to maintenance the tighter the dollar gets.\u00a0 A case\u00a0could also be made for the\u00a0premise that maintenance gets the short end of the stick.<\/p>\n<p>In forming a hypothesis as to the cause of\u00a0an engineering failure, quite a lot of attention might be given to maintenance of the\u00a0structure.\u00a0 But\u00a0its construction would be deserving of attention too, particularly if there were no inspection services during construction.<\/p>\n<p>Flawed engineering design concepts also cause problems &#8211; a foundation meant to be uniformly supported receiving only intermittent support.\u00a0 Then there&#8217;s flawed planning concepts &#8211; building on a flood plain which has been getting some press coverage lately.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s lots to choose from in forming an initial hypothesis during a forensic engineering investigation as to the cause of a problem in the built environment.\u00a0\u00a0Margaret Wente\u00a0touched on some of these in her piece\u00a0last Saturday and there are others.<\/p>\n<p><strong>References\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>The Globe and Mail, July 13, 2013, page F2, Globe Focus, <em>My world is falling apart &#8211; and so is yours<\/em>, Margaret Wente.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Margaret Wente nailed it on the\u00a0head in the Globe and Mail last Saturday when she\u00a0hit on\u00a0the deterioration of\u00a0our built environment &#8211; &#8220;My world is falling apart &#8211; and so is yours.\u00a0 Instead of fixing and replacing what previous generations built, &hellip; 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