NYT: Building Bad Reputation:Sloppy Am.Construction(big, corp. companies)

[DeepModem Mom]

Building a Bad Reputation: Sloppy American Construction
By JULIE V. IOVINE

Published: August 8, 2004


....As more high-profile buildings by foreign architects rise in the United States, and as computers allow architects to strive for engineering, design and construction complexities never before imagined, a gathering rumble can be heard across the profession about the way America builds. The country has garnered a reputation for overlooking gaping joints, sloppy measurements and obvious blemishes, and refusing to deviate from even the most outmoded standardized practices. Having exported its expertise, in the 80's and early 90's, to destinations from Singapore to Dubai, it is now facing stiff competition from Europe and Asia, where the building traditions favor singularity, craftsmanship and durability over speed and cost.

Most recently at Seattle's new Central Library, Rem Koolhaas, the Dutch architect, set out to debunk what is perceived as an all-too-common attitude in the American construction industry: if it looks hard to build, don't, because it will be too expensive. According to Joshua Ramus — a partner at Koolhaas's firm, Office of Metropolitan Architecture, who is in charge of American projects — no American contractor wanted to take on the building's highly unusual structure, which is folded like a gigantic mesh party napkin. "They said there was no way anyone could do that on that budget," Mr. Ramus said of the $165 million library. "We said: `Invest in thinking. It may be expensive but it's a lot cheaper than bad building.' "

Construction in the United States relies on the quick fix, said Sara Hart, a senior editor at Architectural Record. "Got a gaping one-inch space between frame and window? Just fill it in with silicone and call it a day. Not perfectly flush or plumb? Who cares!" is the typical American response, she said. "While in Germany or Switzerland, they'd rather die than have a gap of more than one-eighth or even one-sixteenth of an inch." And though no one is calling Frank Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall slapdash, most American construction aspires to cookie-cutter commercial development rather than high-profile brand-name architecture. Furthermore, in Europe, buildings tend to be smaller and clients accustomed to spending more. One way or another, the conditions have made for considerable bragging rights on the part of European and Asian architects.

Dana Buntrock, an architecture professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of "Japanese Architecture as a Collaborative Process" (Spon Press, 2001), said she once believed that quality was tied to wealth. "Now I am beginning to wonder if well-built architecture occurs only at a very fragile economic moment," she said. "You need not only affluence, but a group of people who are well paid enough to remain in the crafts and building trades even though they are intelligent, and you need the overall size of an architectural project to remain relatively small." While enclaves of craftsmen and small companies cultivating specialty talents, like customized steel work or casting plaster, are growing in the United States, large corporate construction companies still rule the sites, with their supersize-me approach to building....


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/08/arts/design/08IOVI.html

[DBoon]

1. Cheap labor America loses its edge

The most telling quote for me:

"You need not only affluence, but a group of people who are well paid enough to remain in the crafts and building trades even though they are intelligent"

These are exactly the sort of people who republican America have been trying to eliminate over the last 25 years, in favor of low wage, low skill, easily outsourced work.

Once again eliminating a skilled, well paid and highly unionized workforce is coming back to haunt us.

[DeepModem Mom]

2. You're right, DBoon - I thought this from the ARTS section fascinating!

[Gman]

6. i.e. the Building Trades, AFL-CIO

[TankLV]

10. No Unions = no "craftsmen" = lousy counstruction.

We find it all the time.

But NO ONE is willing to pay for the required skills.

Everything's on the cheapest terms possible.

Gone is the system of training that unions developed and fostered over the CENTURIES, and the pride and care that the individual had when they did the work.

The repuke anti-union mindset is thoroughly ingrained now.

We had a client here in a high profile building that I was project architect for, in the shape of a famous product item, that bitched and moaned for everything we billed for, but at the same time, kept changing their mind - in reality, not on paper. Put a new elevator in, take it out, put in in - move the escalator, no move it back, no move it again - this is the actualy elevator and escalator with all the concrete and beams in place already! - It was a couple hundred thousand dollars a crack at these whims! - Yet he'd bitch at us charging him 3 or 3 thousand dollars for extra work.

The selfishness and greed of the owners is simply astounding.

[DBoon]

12. I have a friend who is a film editor

(this is Hollywood after all), and he says the same thing about unions in his industry. You can pay half as much for a crappy job, or you can get it done right the first time.

[Ernesto]

17. This is the basis of the workmans comp "crisis" in culeeforneeya

I retired last year from a career as a UNION Sheet Metal Worker. I worked as a bldg. trades journeyman, apprentice instructor, foreman & genral foreman. The companies I worked for constantly provided safety training & had award programs to prevent injuries...... Good training= good results......... Then come the hords of inexperienced fly by night contractors that don't understand that their costs for coverage grow in proportion to the frequency of accidents per hours worked. If you are a repeat drunk driver, then you have to pay more for auto insurance. If you are a contractor that allows many people to get hurt then you must pay more for worker's comp insurance. This premise makes sense to me, but not to Arnie's supporters. For them, the worker must take the hit with reduced benefits as per our recent "reforms".

[xchrom]

3. america builds ugly

just look at our suburban landscape. blech.
seems to me it's been going on for longer than the article recounts.

[Dover]

4. Thanks for posting! I am really pleased to hear this. The more Americans

travel abroad the more likely they are to return home and see American sprawl and slapped together, cheap building as the eyesore that it is. WHERE IS THE AESTHETIC IN THIS COUNTRY?! Why are we so willing to settle for this shit? It's a sad reflection of our culture and values. We need to hold beauty and craft in high esteem, along with our artists and craftsmen.

[Keirsey]

5. ever wonder?

See what you find when you do a Google search on:

WTC asbestos Halliburton Dresser

[Hotler]

7. It's all about greed.

It's about how much money per square foot the developers can get. It's not the craftsmen that were saying "screw it, that's good enough," it was management. It's happening in most of American manufacturing now. Most workers take pride in their work and want to do a good job, but management keeps cutting quality for profits. Show me a cheap product, and I'll show you an over paid fatcat at the top.

[Bullshot]

8. You're seeing fewer and fewer buildings being built for the long haul.

Where I grew up in NW Ohio, there's a school building built only about 20 years ago. They just paid off the bonds that financed the project. Now, they're already talking about tearing it down so they can participate in a state program that encourages districts to build new schools, but they must tear down their existing buildings to qualify.

Look at the sports stadiums. Stadiums that were built less than 30 years ago are being razed in favor of new stadiums all over the place. I see it as an artificial way of supporting the economy. Planned obsolescence.

[Ernesto]

19. Yes this is true

Most bldgs are designed to last the length of their mortgage or other financing scheme.

[TahitiNut]

9. Fast, Good, Cheap - pick two.

America has abdicated 'good' in every instance. Voting? We invest in fast and cheap, not good. Food? We choose fast and cheap, not good. Clothing? Housing? All the same.

Fast and cheap always lead to expensive. Always. It's called 'waste.'

[madrchsod]

11. st charles ill, built

100 million+ high school-couldn`t use it because of mold build up before it opened,another high school has no soundproofing between classroom walls. st charles il.- multi million courthouse had bad air syndrome -twice-
volkswagon builds a glass walled manufactoring plant......

[hatrack]

13. It's not just commercial buildings, either

A friend of mine is a general contractor, and a lot of what he does is backing and filling and trying to fix the fuck-ups that plague the $400K McMansions sprawling endlessly to the prairie horizons.

He's seen windows installed backwards, floor joists that crack less than two years after construction, rain gutters that detach six months after the owners move in, soffits and fascia that rot in less than a year and leaking, cracking, subsiding basements. My personal favorite remains houses (many, many of them) where insulation installed beneath exterior walls that extends about seven-eight feet up and then stops. In other words, they put the insulation in as far as they could reach while standing on the ground, and then just quit.

On top of everything else, the wood used in new houses simply can't match the wood used a generation ago. The softwoods used to frame houses these days are almost all monocultured plantation trees, goosed with enough fertilizer to add some horsepower to a pickup truck. As a result, the trees do indeed grow rapidly, but the growth rings are so far apart that the wood lacks the kind of density and strength you'd find in naturally grown wood. That's why you see a lot of warping and splitting in beams and joists in new houes after just a few years these days.

I wouldn't buy any house built after 1970.

[Logansquare]

18. Chicago is getting infested with ugly, badly constructed condos

An architect friend of mine calls them "slums of the future."

[liveoaktx]

14. Side Note about Bob Perry, builder, who spent big bucks in Texas

to limit lawsuits against builders for such things as shoddy workmanship and happens to be funding the SwiftBoat Vets.

http://www.offthekuff.com/mt/archives/002442.html

[DeepModem Mom]

16. Great "side note," Dac_76 -- perfect example! nt

[MrPrax]

15. This is What First Strikes You...

This is What First Strikes You...when you go to Continental Europe for the first time. Forget the old historic buildings and statutues, it's the everyday variety of Design and Aesthetics.

They seem to want to Design even the most mundane of objects, from trash cans to bus kiosks to bathroom fixtures and especially in public spaces.

This was even a factor in the old Soviet Union--oppressive and ideological to be sure, but at least an acknowledgement of public art and design. Can anyone really compare the Moscow subway stations to um...the Chicago L?

I have often thought that this is the underlying totalitarian underpinnings of American-style capitalism. You are never worthy enough to even have anything designed above simple utilitarian functionality--you must work for for it. Purtanical holdover perhaps?

There is also the tendency that when it comes to public spending whether it be military, urban renewel, transit schemes, public arenas, etc a enormous amount of money is spent (overruns are usually staggering)...but money that could be put aside for Design and Asthetics (Public Considerations) is usually funnelled away by the various contractors, builders, realtors, lawyers, politicians.

In fact, in most cases, the projects are proposed by these same interests simply to loot the treasury. They much rather spend the money on media handling, 'spin' and perception management of the overruns and invent public debates around non-issues. One of the common ones is arguing How much more expensive it would be IF union labor was used exclusively.

Europeans seem to be less forgiving of having a billion tossed at a project and nothing showing up in the community other than some 'white elephant' with a politician's plaque put on it just in time for an election.