The Building Built on Stilts
summary
A 59‑story Citicorp Center sits on four ten‑story stilts using chevron braces and a 410 ton tuned mass damper to halve sway; wind‑tunnel rechecks show quartering winds load braces 40% more and, if the damper loses power, convert a modeled one in 55 failure into about a one in 16 chance of catastrophic toppling. The fix is welded two‑inch steel plates at critical joints done overnight, costing a few million to $4–8M; engineers repair it successfully and settle for $2M.
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chapters (44)
- 0:00Intro
- 1:21The 1970s
- 1:57Municipal Assistance Corporations
- 2:42The 1970s Citibank
- 2:58Walter Wriston
- 3:42The City Block
- 4:02City Corp
- 6:28Napkin Sketch
- 6:41The Problem
- 7:05The Design
- 8:06Construction
- 10:05Tuned Mass Damper
- 10:24In Action
- 11:48Diane Hartley
- 12:10Primary Force
- 13:06Quartering Winds
- 14:17US Steel
- 15:19Stanley Goldstein
- 16:06The conceptual error
- 17:18The measurements
- 18:32The most critical joint
- 19:31The worst case scenario
- 19:41The best case scenario
- 19:51A 55 year storm
- 20:30Tropical storm strength
- 20:51Nickolas choice
- 21:38Hugh Stubbins
- 22:09John Read
- 22:36The Solution
- 23:43Walter
- 24:42Backup Generators
- 25:50New Drawings
- 26:38Neal Morton
- 27:21Evacuation Plan
- 27:56Red Cross
- 28:13Hurricane Ella
- 29:30The Settlement
- 30:23The Student
- 32:24Transparency
- 33:50SolutionOriented
- 34:23The Receiving End
- 34:43Keep the Conversation Blameless
- 35:32Build Trust
- 36:57Mistakes are inevitable
