In architecture, we do not laugh with security. However, that does not prevent us from ending up with deadly construction sites or these examples of constructions that have done a lot of shit at the risk of the lives of residents or passers-by. A dirty business I tell you.
1. This 47-story Spanish building (no elevator)
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It’s good for the cardio, and it makes a well-muscled ass, but hitting 47 flights of stairs every day to get to the office is painful. Yet this is what could have happened with this building in Benidorm in Spain since 4 months from the end of the work, the guys realized that after the 20th floor they had to continue on foot. Undoubtedly one of the most beautiful blunders in the history of Hispanic architecture.
2. The Lotus Riverside Collapse
Of course, digging like idiots under a building without being too careful can lead to some unfriendly developments. In Shanghai, architects decided to make an underground car park under a 13-storey building, without paying attention to the unstable ground, made marshy by the presence of the river right next to it. After a few days, the Lotus Riverside simply tipped over and lay on its side. A “little blunder” which still cost the life of a worker.
3. Playgrounds made of steel
Making children’s playgrounds a little design is quite commendable but the architects of Brooklyn did not think of everything, in particular by building steel modules. In the summer, the temperature of these modules could reach more than 50°, depriving the poor kids of the slightest game under penalty of 2nd degree burns. Truly the worst playgrounds in history.
4. Vdara Hotel Las Vegas
To be pretty, the Vdara hotel is pretty, all curved as it should be, all shiny. Shortly after it opened, however, customers started complaining that when they went to the pool their hair would catch fire and the bags would melt. Why ? Because the large glazed surface of the building had a magnifying effect and burnt everything up a bit. If you go there, remember to take a good sunscreen.
5. Tacoma Narrows Bridge
Opened to the public on July 1, 1940, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsed 4 months later but had been badly barred from the start. Poorly built with shitty gear, it rippled and warped even before the work was completed, with some workers even suffering from seasickness. The rest was filmed:
6. Walt Disney Concert Hall
It seems like it’s a little mania to make “modern” “design” or “ouuuh future” among architects to use steel to make tall buildings, each time forgetting the effect of the sun on its large reflective panels. The neighbors of the Walt Disney Concert Hall realized this quite quickly since the temperature of their apartments increased by around ten degrees. To avoid lawsuits, certain places of the structure were quickly covered with synthetic fabric, which is a little less futuristic, it must be admitted.
7. A giant swastika-shaped NAVY building
Google Earth is a great tool, especially when it allows you to find a huge American NAVY SEALS building in the shape of a giant swastika in Coronado near San Diego. Some claim that the architects knew very well what they were doing, they totally deny that we will have to spend $600,000 to fix it.
8. The Tower of Pisa
When one of the most famous symbols of your country is a rickety tower, you have to ask yourself questions, this is however the case of Italy, quite proud of its very pretty leaning tower. The architects had forgotten to test a little the very soft ground in which the building began to sink very quickly after its construction. The public authorities have implemented numerous works to straighten it and prevent it from collapsing. For the moment we are at more than 28 million euros injected into the torre di Pisa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Pisa#mediaviewer/File:Leaning_tower_of_pisa_2.jpg
9. The dark affair of the planed platforms of the SNCF
1300 platforms which had to be planed to allow the new TER wagons to enter the station. A blunder a bit stupid because easily avoidable which would be due according to the SNCF and the French Rail Network to “the collapse of certain old platforms”. Not sure that the excuse helps to pass the 50 million euros necessary to plan the ends of the quays in excess.