ASSIGNMENT-2

Rao Sheraz Saleem

133502
Background
Le Messurier was the architect of the famous Citicorp Towers building. The
Manhattan building was completed in 1977. In its design, the building was
somehow different as its columns were placed instead at the corners in the
middle of the building. The building land was purchased from St. Peters
Lutheran Church and it was previously agreed that there is no structural
connection between the building and the church. Therefore, the
unconventional design of the column has been adopted. Passing through the
building's interior was provided to enhance the structural strength diagonal
struts (chevrons). Diane Hartley, a student of civil engineering undergraduate,
identified in 1978 that the structure cannot withstand quartering winds and is
therefore weak in the direction of lateral wind and seismic loading.
Investigations revealed that the chevrons were joined by bolts rather than weld
joints. Bolt joints can increase moments and, if there is lateral load, movement
is possible. Because the wind speed in Manhattan is about 70 km/h, not only
the Citicorp Tower, but also the adjacent buildings, can cause huge disaster.

After the issue was identified, it was decided to sort out the matter instead of
the games of blame. It was a social and moral responsibility to make some
remedial and security measures on Le Messurier as the design engineer. The
decision was therefore made to insert long steel plates at the joints for
increased structural strength. All building activities were planned at night to
hide this public flaw. It took a week to complete the steel work.

Ethical Responsibility
Whether or not Le Messurier was ethical is a dilemma. Well, one thing is for
sure in this case, and that is, in the whole scenario there was no blame game.
There was a problem and it was taken as a serious problem by every
stakeholder and nobody blamed anyone and everyone worked and cooperated
with each other to solve the problem. If the structural engineer is responsible
for ensuring structural health of a building, it is the responsibility. So yes, the
structural flaw was responsible for Le Messurier in this case. He ought to have
effectively designed and monitored the construction because it puts a lot of life
at risk. On the contrary, not only did the engineer admit his mistake in this
case, but he also sorted the matter out. So I guess the structural engineer was
a responsible engineer who effectively fulfilled his duty. It was also a wise
decision to hide the construction work from the public. If it was not kept secret
then the scenario could have created havoc and would have completely
destroyed the reputation of the company. So I suppose Le Messurier acted in
this situation very ethically, he not only acknowledged his fault, but he also
corrected himself. And all was fine at the end.