The courage to raise a design flaw, listen and act, saved the Citicorp Building
I was working on a training session for our team presentation on psychological safety and why providing the space for people to speak up matters.
I’d found loads of examples about when people hadn’t spoken up and tragedy struck. For example the case of the junior pilot not wanting to tell the Captain that he had a made mistake, resulting in many people losing their lives. But to really make the point, to encourage action, I wanted to find the inverse — when somebody HAD spoken up and it made all the difference.
Then it hit me.
Around two years back, sitting on the couch with my partner watching this show that referenced the Citibank Building . It was a story of a student calling an famous engineer to warn them of a design flaw. The story telling was brief, but the story was so impactful that it outshone any other examples that I had found. I researched the story in detail and tell it here, as there are varying accounts. I absolutely love this story as I believe it provides a brilliant case study about the need for psychological safety in teams and how being open to people’s input and opinions can make the difference on our projects and in our lives.
Can you imagine when you were a student and having the courage/confidence (or seemingly arrogance) to call someone in the industry that you are studying and tell them that they have made a mistake in their job that could cause a catastrophe and cost lives? In 1978 Diane Hartley called the structural engineer (William LeMessurier) of the recently completed Citicorp (Citibank) Building on Lexington Ave in Manhattan to tell him that the building had a major flaw.
The 59 storey building was built adjacent to a church whose entrance limited the footprint that the building could occupy. LeMessurier designed the building to allow for the St Peter’s Church and the subway entrance. An enormous building that seems to defy physics as there are no columns at the corners, leaving the building from some vantage points, seemingly hanging in mid air.
It was an engineering marvel that was to be studied by architectural students for years to come.
When Hartley didn’t speak directly to the structural engineer, William LeMessurier, instead talking to a member of his team, Joel Weinstein. Diane said that the building was at risk of collapse in a major storm, such as a hurricane.
Obviously LeMessurier had allowed for high winds in a storm. Joel was junior at the firm and would likely have been nervous in sharing the information with the building’s architect. Hartley’s thesis was that the building was susceptible to quarterly winds, which in a freak storm could impact the stability of the building.
Quarterly winds (according the Chicago Tribune) are: Winds that blow from such a direction that they flow diagonally across a building, therefore blowing across two sides of the building at once rather than hitting just one side “face on.”
These winds hit the building at the corners and normally do not pose an threat as buildings are usually strongest at their corners. With the supporting columns moved to the middle, the building was not strongest at its corners and LeMessurier had not done the math to account for quarterly winds.
The lightweight chevron load bearing bracing structure (the v shapes you see in the diagram above) allowed the building to move with the wind. A tuned mass damper that weighed 400 tonne sits at the top of the building which acts to steady the building against the wind gusts.
The building had so many mathematical equations accounting for the perpendicular winds, but not the quartering winds which hit the building at its corners and would impact the sturdiness of the bolts used to secure the chevrons.
The wind velocity needed to compromise the building was calculated and compared with New York’s weather patterns and LeMessurier identified that building was susceptible every 16 years. In a major storm event it was likely that a there would be a power blackout, which meant that the tuned mass damper would be rendered inoperable.
In secret, the building was retrofitted with welded steel bracing to support the joints in the event of a freak storm.
In August 1978 (same year!), Hurricane Ella hit Manhattan and the building’s sturdiness was tested. Thankfully the retrofit worked and the building stood tall.
People often fear criticism for being wrong or are ‘made’ to feel stupid or look bad. The threat of this, even if it’s imagined, can have a profound impact on people’s willingness to participate, learn and ultimately listen.
The courage of Hartley, a student, to contact the firm to put forward her thesis was extraordinary. The fact that Weinstein, a junior at his firm, approached LeMessurier with Hartley’s equations, also took a lot of courage. What is most astonishing is that LeMessurier set aside any fear he may of had in looking bad and entertained the notion that the building could have a design flaw. This building he designed was extraordinary and to be questioned by a student and a junior would have been potentially embarrassing, confronting and even career ending.
The courage of all 3 of them to raise the issue, to listen and then to act, potentially saved many lives.
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