I am going to discuss a “back to the drawing board ” design from Kansas City Missouri. It was constructed in 1972- 1974. The Kemper arena in 1979 during a heavy rainstorm had a major infrastructure compromise when the roof collapsed due to inadequate drainage infrastructure and poor bolting techniques. Thankfully the building was unoccupied at the time of the roof collapse. The roof had been designed to release rainwater slowly to keep from flooding the nearby areas. This design allowed rain to collect and forms heavy pools of water. As the roof sagged it collected more water than anticipated in design. This roof system was suspended from hangers by design and had no interior columns. Also, the bolt placement design was also miscalculated. The construction system was large, exposed trusses suspending tons of concrete. The building cost was $23 million.
The architect on the project was Jahn Helmut a German American, and this was his first major project. The arena also won architectural awards before the collapse and Jahn Helmut later goes on to design the Sony Center in Berlin and many more major buildings worldwide earning dozens of awards in his lifetime of being an influential architect in American History.
References:
McFadden, C. (2020, October 31). These 25 architectural failures really could have been avoided. IE. Retrieved May 3, 2023, from https://interestingengineering.com/culture/25-extremely-embarrassing-architectural-failures
Newill, C. (2014, July 11). TIMELINE: A Look Back At 40 Years of Kansas City’s Kemper Arena. kcur.org. Retrieved 2023, from kcur.org
Wikipedia. (2023, March 21). Helmut Jahn. Wikipedia. Retrieved May 3, 2023, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmut_Jahn