Can we all take a moment to pay respects to Tubby? RIP

Fun fact: the architect of the Vdara seems to have a history of "death ray" buildings. The absolute mad man.

I was a first responder in the surfside building collapse as a deputy. Worst disaster I have ever bore witness to in my life.

I worked for a North American grocery chain whose head office was once based in California for all major decisions, store rebuilds and layout for example. I live in an area of Canada where the winter temps can dip to -50° for weeks on end, which should have been taken into consideration when a new store was built. Instead the Californian designers decided it wouldn't hurt to place the exit doors directly across from one checkstand and affect a couple others. Each winter we had cashiers working in 15 mins shifts on those tills, wearing parkas and boots, until the union stepped in and assisted in having them shut down. Eventually a remodel was done, and the affected checkstands were moved to the other end of the row, away from the doors.

The Oroville dam spillway did not wear thin. It was used very little in its lifetime. It was built using substandard construction methods, and did not properly deal with the weak material underlying the slope it was built on. This all caused cracks that allowed water to get under the slabs of concrete and lift them out of place, causing the spillway failure.

Every time I hear "without warning" in your videos, I yell at the screen. As a construction EHS Manager / Safety Inspector, I can assure you ... there are hundreds of warnings, in the building processes, the building itself, the inspection documents & processes, the team cultures, recordkeeping, etc etc etc. My wife knows that I absolutely hate being right in predicted industrial and construction assessments, but nonetheless, I'm at 100% "success" rate at predicting accidents and construction failures. Most teams with half a brain can identify all the leading indicators. It's just a horrible combination of greed, laziness and apathy that results in every single event. The saddest component in every tragic event is that there are ALWAYS those pointing out these indicators, they're just too often people who are not in positions of influence or authority, so they can be ignored.

The opening statement about some of America's bridges being "really old" then says "before 1970" actually made me laugh out loud. I live in the UK where we have "before 1870" suspension bridges, and I can walk to a couple of 800 year old bridges from my house.

You know I was expecting this to be one of those typical YT "content mining" channels. This is actually good. The writing and the editing is very solid. New subscriber 👍

Vdara management has considered various solutions but the challenge in overcoming the structural design problem is that the sun and its reflection are targets that constantly move during the day and as every season progresses. In the meantime, management has installed large blue umbrellas over the pool deck to protect bathers, while the hotel's glass exterior has been covered with non-reflective film.

From what you have mentioned about these projects, a lot of these mistakes could have been easily avoided but greed got in the way. As well as crappy safety regulations.

Great video, an eye opening for me. As I am always fascinated with great engineering, this video also made me think about the failures too. Thank you.

Oroville Dam is not the tallest dam in the US. It is specifically the tallest earthfill dam. I got to work in Oroville during the response and recovery projects. Was an awe inspiring experience.

Love how consistent be amazed is with its video uploads Keep it up boys Really enjoy the content 🙏🏾

How did the Vegas hotel solve that problem? It would've been nice to know. Personally, I think they should've fenced in that "hot spot" and make it a tourist attraction, complete with a digital thermometer to display its rising temperature when that "magic moment" takes place - I'd pay a dollar to see that!

I'm learning more watching UKposts than going to school

This highlights the important difference between architects and engineers- the former creates problems, the latter solves them.

Jeez! Those are some extremely costly mishaps. Any mistake for an architect could result in tragedy, both costly in money and in human life. It’s important for architects to strive to be perfect as the lives of many are in their hands.

You should make more of these! I personally love them!

With the Hancock building in boston, the windows popping out was a symptom of other issues and no fault of the windows. The architects failed to consider wind patterns. Wind would be concentrated, enter the lobby and "pressurize" the building which caused the windows to pop out. Even to this day, the entrance to the building is buffeted by strong winds 24x7. I remember at the time seeing about 30% of the windows boarded up. IIRC, they removed all the windows on a story or two as a bandaid to let the air out.

The most expensive construction mistake was the construction of humanity.

As I started watching this I was wondering if the Champlain Towers condo would be included. I was born and raised in Miami and I currently live just 15 mins from this site. I did not know anyone currently living in the building when it came down but I used to. I used to have an aquarium business. I installed and maintained aquariums all over SE Florida and between 2000 and 2003 I had a customer in that building. I have been in the building nearly every month for those 3 years to service a customers aquarium. I forgot the unit number but their condo had a perfect view of the ocean and beach so I believe it was in the section that collapsed. It was such a beautiful building inside, you would never know what was going to happen in 2021. I was never in the garage though, I would park on the side of the building and go through the service entrance and use the service elevator. Also, not just Champlain south had a parking garage under the units....nearly every condo building on the beach has the same exact parking type. The problem with Champlain south was poor maintenance. During the super high tides the garage would flood with seawater so there were big pumps. But the pumps were old and breaking down and in a few high tide floods the water (salt water) was so deep in the garage that the cars were floating around. That combined with the poor maintenance and water proofing of the pool deck which is directly over the garage caused massive water penetration into the structure. The first thing to go was the pool deck, the pool deck collapsed into the garage and when this happened it took a few of the main load supporting pillars which brought down the building.

bro, i reload after 2 seconds and there are over fifty comments, that's truly.. AMAZING-

As a native Bostonian I remember the Hancock fiasco well. Since it was situated right in the middle 4 major streets that carried traffic into the Back Bay and downtown, this meant that people and cars had to go blocks around to get through. If you have never driven in Boston remember that the original streets were cow paths and cows are not famous for walking in straight lines, so getting around meant wriggling around through streets barely wide enough for one car. When you have 50,000 daily commuters coming in from that direction, or trying to get out, you can imagine what an enormous disaster this was.

When you started with the Tacoma Narrows Bridge I couldn't help but laugh! I grew up crossing that (rebuilt) bridge regularly to visit grandparents and most people in the area know the story. Of course it was rebuilt to be better, and now two bridges exist to handle the massive increase in traffic. There is a toll to head eastbound to pay for the massive project. I wonder if that guy's car is still at the bottom of Puget Sound...

Keep up the great content. You're literally the only top 10 style channel that has great info and great narration.

They say that they destroyed glencairn tower because it would cost too much to refurbish it but the truth was that the council let all the drug addicts move in to the tower and caused mayhem in the place. They broke into nearly everyone else’s flats. I know that because I lived there for 2 years in 2004-2006. In the first 6 months my flat got broken into 3 times and everything was stolen. PC’s,games consoles, tv’s they even stole a mirror off the wall and the food out the refrigerator. It used to be an amazing place to stay before all the scum of Lanarkshire got put into it.

What's weird about the Tacoma Narrows bridge, is that the Columbia River Bridge, from Wenatchee to East Wenatchee, was built in 1908. And while it no longer caters to motor traffic, it does carry an irrigation pipeline, and is open to pedestrian traffic.

16:33 Actually in this case, the disaster started three years prior to the collapse, when three giant ventilator units were dragged on the roof to a different position. One of the supporting columns was directly hit by the mass of the three machines and it started cracking up. A process sped up by the vibrations the ventillation units created each time they were turned on. On the day of the disaster crack finally revealed themselves, and only got worse until the whole construction fell apart.

I just want to add about the Sampoong Disaster (as also seen on Seconds To Disaster), the main reason for the collapse was that on the rooftop the owner had three heavy duty commercial airconditioning unit (because their was a summer that was unbearable for the employees and the shoppers) Unfortunately, workers pushed the heavy duty commercial airconditioning units to move to the other side...instead of using a crane to move it without damaging the infrastructure. Then the manager would turn the airconditioning on and off (since the units were too noisy) until cracks slowly formed (and sunk) one of the supporting beams in a traditional Korean restaurant below where the airconditioning units were.

Thank you for your expert information ! I have always that whether it is an earthquake, a volcano eruption, or a building with defects, there are always signs of catastrophe before hand . One just needs the expertise to read the signs.

I Love your voice & could listen for hours. Great script also. Thank you.

You should make more of these! For the South Korea one my dad when he was young decided to go to that mall, but he went to the washroom. When he finally went there the building collapsed right in font of him.

How can someone make such an expensive mistake? Especially since it takes a lot of thought-out decisions (at least I thought so)

i am surprised that with some of (most) there wasn't someone else to build another structure and has the money to construct it correctly and safer

The thing that blows my mind. The human race is the most advanced that it has ever been. But because of greed and arrogance, this channel will never run out of material to post. The smarter we get, the more arrogant we get.

Pls make more of these for us we love them 🙃

"The Hancock" in Boston is 62, not 100, stories. As it was going up and the windows kept popping out and replaced with plywood , it was sarcastically known as Plywood Ranch after a lumber store in MA. Also, if you came down Huntington Ave towards the building at the "wrong" time of day, the glare was pretty blinding!

5:06 a similar issue happened on 22 Fenchurch Street. They later fixed the problem by adding anti-reflective coating.

Thank you for the constant stream of videos ❤️

You also have the Harmon tower in the same place that had to be torn down due to massive construction mistakes especially the plumbing... The plumbing moved about 6'-12' from top to bottom and that made tearing down the tower and building a new one cheaper and easier then fixing then fixing the bad plumbing and other shawdy work...

13:45 Those buildings are not in São Paulo , but in the city of Santos 🙂

The sharpest tool in the shed isn't the engineers, rather the innocent people who are the unwilling Guinea pigs of these disastrous construction mistakes.

"That's still not enough" Well, apparently Lee Joon served seven years in prison for his negligence, and the prison life/stress served kill him shortly after release from health issues. So it seems the universe agreed with you.

there is a building in london that was curved from bottom to top that had a similar affect to the vdara, the building projected heat at the ground, it was so hot, it could cook eggs, any cars parked below the building had their paint bubbling, the building was covered in a tarp for months, the design flaw was apparently fixed, and ive been to the building twice since, great videos be amazed!

The Tacoma Narrow bridge was replaced with a very similar, but stable bridge that still stands. There is now a second bridge next to it to handle the increased traffic of the area.

27:02 I remember when this happened, especially since I live in Florida. It was a pretty grim day, along the 2 weeks following the day it collapsed.

Hancock: You forgot that during the temporary plywood window replacement, those panels were declared a fire hazard, and had to be covered with flat black fireproof tarpaper !

The Tacoma bridge did not collapse. It tore in pieces. The towers were not damaged. The road was redesigned not to be affected by the wind.

Another interesting fact about the department store collapse in Seoul is that, while not evacuating the customers or staff, all the management and directors *_DID_* evacuate before the collapse.

I live in Florida, so I'm only familiar with the Champlain Towers story. If you haven't heard of this tragedy, most of the residents were asleep in their beds when suddenly, the face of the main tower collapsed. One man, who lived in one of the other towers, described being awakened by a roaring type of sound outside. He and his wife jumped up, thinking it was a storm, perhaps a hurricane, blowing through so he made his way to the sliding doors to bring in their outdoor furniture. What he saw from his balcony was the tower that his parents lived in, partially crumbled to the ground. Knowing that his parents lived on the front side of the building, he shouted to his wife, something like, 'They're gone! My parents are gone!' There were so many heartbreaking stories about those whose lives were lost in and even survived the Champlain Towers. But that man's recount of the horrific event, I will never forget.

9:56 A similar case happened in the Aeon center. It was lined with white carerra marble. Those panels of marble wore out due to thermal shocks. And when slabs of it fell, they had to redo it with granite.

I am loving your videos. Liked & subscribed keep it up

$996,000,000 mistake...but the Hancock sure is pretty. As for the MIT center...thank the good lord I've never set eyes on that monstrosity 😱

HOLY S**T !!! I've been a fan of Be Amazed for quite some time now. I was watching this with a friend She said to me near the beginning "I wonder if my old place will be featured ?" To which we both chuckled. I reply " Come on ! The Council (North Lanarkshire Council to be specific) doesn't HAVE hundreds of millions of pounds to be wasting like that" Where was this friend's former home ? You guessed it, Glencairn tower, Motherwell ! I do believe this friend is going to be subscribing to you ! 😁

The Vdara did not cost $8.5 billion dollars to build. It was just one tower in a massive development called Las Vegas City Center. The whole project is 18 million sf on 67 acres. The bigger waste of money was right next door at the Harmon tower. They built 28 floors before inspections revealed the rebar in the lower levels was inadequate. It sat unfinished for 6 years before it had to be taken down piece by piece (no big booms allowed on the strip)

"Oh you won't even feel it" Yeah, that's what they told me about the Washington Monument too. But as soon as I stepped off the elevator and nervously crept towards the window, due to my intense fear of heights, the entire building swayed so much I was like "Yeah, I don't need to look outside."

❤❤ There was a 3 or 4 story building on market st. in Corning N. Y. When it was built, it was designed for the Executives of Corning Glass and included a swimming pool on the top floor. My father once told me that the architect did not take into consideration the weight of the water to fill it. Nice pool with no water. This had to of happened in the first half of the 1900's. I lived there from 1963 on and the buildings were very old then.

So sad about the innocent people who died because of these mistakes :(

Coatsworth may have claimed $50000 but no amount of money can bring his beloved pup back 🥺

Being on the bridge while it swayed horribly in strong winds is way worse than seeing some panels drop away as you are holding onto the main structure and thats all that matters , then you carefully walk back across to safety. Still having panels "pop" out is bit worrying as they should be totally secure and even have bars under them as final line to cross.

The MIT building wasn’t just the architects fault…. The plans had to have been approved…. Right?

Interesting information but you might expand a little more on the facts. The Vdara hotel is part of the City Center complex made up of numbers of hotels. The Vdara was around 527 million by itself in construction costs with the 8.5 Billion making up the cost of the massive city center group of properties as a whole.

As an aside on the Hancock Tower had its issues… Those glass panels started to pop out (they fortunately changed colors before falling out so there was some warning) Anyways, all the glass was replaced with sheets of plywood and because of that the building got the nickname of “Plywood Ranch” which was also the name of a hardware store that was open at the time. As a kid, I remember that there were places where you could look up at the Boston skyline and see this monument to engineering incompetence…. Ah, the good old days. Eventually the bugs were ironed out and new glass was installed

Should look up "Argenta Hall UNR". It's a dorm that had been recently built for the University of Nevada, Reno. Not long after construction completed on the building, there were 2 explosions that decimated Argenta Hall and damaged Nye Hall that sits next to it. Fortunately there were only 8 people injured and none killed thanks to correct actions taken by staff within the building. The cause was a boiler explosion (1st explosion) that caused a 3 inch gas feeder line to be severed. The resulting explosion from the feeder line is what did the majority of damage to the building and is also what damaged Nye Hall next door. This happened in July 2019. Repairs took 3 years to complete and is still being investigated, but the cost was around $130M

Nice video! Thank you for giving us all fun facts to learn about, they're always so different and interesting as well!

Saw the Sampoon collapse on Brick Immortar. Just... wow. And for the Hotel of Doom, yeah. There's a SCP in there.

In your next video you need to mention the Millennium Tower in San Francisco also known as The Leaning Tower of San Francisco

BE AMAZED: "Let's hope that no tourist has to pay for these mistakes with their lives in the meantime." Me: "Let's hope no farmers have to pay for these mistakes with their jobs/positions. Since they make the food, if just one of them goes down, they could bring an entire nation with them."

The Vdara itself didn't cost $8.5 billion. That was the cost of the entire city center.

I think the "biggest mistake" has to go to the incident with the biggest loss of life. You just can't compare a building demolition with an occupied building collapse. So I would have to say the Sampoon building in South Korea was the biggest mistake.

Oh, yeah. I heard about the Surfside condo collapse after my grandma showed it to me on the news in 2021. When I saw that, I was shocked at how this happened, possibly because it was built on either sand or some of other weak terrain. I kinda thought at the time after hearing the story, and even to this day, it could’ve been improper construction of those condos.

I loved that video....of course,I also feel sorry for the small investors who put their life saved money for a quiet retirement and saw their property worthless after a short time. But there is also success stories,like the tower in taïpeh,Taïwan,wich was under construction during my first trip there,and completed at my second visit.There is a giant and heavy ball at the top inside the tower wich counterbalance the mouvement due to frequent earthquake in this country,a genial idea that show the ingenuity of the builders. A video of this success story will be welcome on your channel my friend!

Love the content man!

In human costs, it's difficult to say the Grenfell Tower doesn't deserve inclusion

If you live in a leaning building, you reconstruct the interior: new level floor, then plumb walks and level ceilings. You step off the tilted hallway floor onto your new level home.

The reason Galloping Gertie failed is because the architect said to use open braces on the bottom but the construction company used a box method (cheaper). This caused the roadway to become like a wing and produced lift when the wind blew (happens a lot in that area). That day, the wind was near 50 mph and the bridge 'flew'. Now the rubble of that bridge created a great fish habitat. They rebuilt the bridge according to the architect and there hasn't been any problem since.

I just want to add that Block A of Highland Towers in Gombak, Malaysia, collapsed. I mention it because the reason for the collapse is engineering problems and natural occurrences such as soil erosion and water clogging. But I didn't say it was too expensive compared to all of those listed in this video.

$157,000,000 gone in 45sec 🤯😢 it's not even my money but I feel so bad for whoever invested in it

16:02 the original designer of that mall is my hero. he knew it was unsafe, and he lost his job because he was trying to prevent possible casualties

I watched Glencairn Tower come down and the site is now filled with more low-cost housing. great to see a local Scottish building featured on this channel though!

What they need to do at that hotel is place a solar panel there and the concentrated energy could power that facility

Im not taking no lose. Im leaning in my apartment. Lot of money lost and not much to show for it. Could have been used for so much more. Was fun to watch. Great video

I live in down town oroville and we had to evacuate when the spillway collapsed. A decade prior to this in 1997 they also had a spillway gate get stuck and not want to open nearly causing a similar issue.

Great video to be watching when I have an interview for a construction job on Monday lol... I wish I could just be an electrician but there's just no opportunity here - beggars can't be choosers I guess. Also, I would need psychological counseling too if I had been stranded on a glass bridge that high - but I would never find myself on a bridge like that.

"A large number of bridges in the United States date from before 1970, some of them are declared inefficient". You have a problem. In France many bridges date from Roman times, and are perfectly functional.

In a 2013 interview with The Guardian, the architect of the Vdara Hotel and the "Walkie Talkie" in London, Viñoly said he anticipated the "death rays" from both buildings. So do his clients know this man is designing buildings that can kill people? Some sort of sick joke from the designer?

awe-inspiring construction projects means jaw-dropping engineering blunders.

Zaha Hadid was a legend in the 21st century in creative and excellent architecture design.

Vdara is absolutely hilarious. How could one not possibly take the hot desert sun into consideration

So I do not believe that the guy who built the death ray building did so by mistake. This man designed and built at least two different skyscrapers that do the exact same thing, one of them produces a beam so hot that it literally melts concrete. This man is training to be a real life Bond villain and nobody is doing anything to stop him.

Level the floors internally, and carry on. I had to do that in a 300 year old building with uneven floors. Made a huge difference.

Clay bearing soil has a huge problem when it rains. Most clay soil has the same consistancy of soap. When it gets a lot of rain, the clay swells and causes concrete to crack and break up. A level house would buck up and down and would destroy the home The fix is to lower the foundation, by about 5 feet and fill it in with 2" clean gravel and setting the. On it allowing the foundation to flex and move like a giant spring. The building collapse had stopped happening!!!!#

I'm brazilian and from the city of Santos. The tilted buildings are in Santos and not in São Paulo.

When you were talking about the Champlain Towers, you said "land subsistence". I believe the correct term is "land subsidence"

That last one. . . "An ugly blight upon the landscape." Yes, that's what the Council thought of it. What many rich people thought of those tower blocks. Well, the landscape sure looks much nicer now. And all it cost were the only homes that many impoverished citizens had known all their lives, and could afford. But oh my, doesn't that landscape look sooo much better now.

"Death Ray debacle" -- "evil arch-nemesis" -- "pavement pancakes" -- "hotel of doom" -- oh, you make it fun! Most of these cases are well known but you bring fresh facts and a ripe with to the subject.

The same problem as the Vdara Hotel happened in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, albeit on a smaller scale. The officebuilbing I worked in was also shaped rounded, as the hotel. Also on middays it could and did destroy car interiors. In winter, during lunchbreak You could stand there and even with freezing temperatures enjoy de warmth of the sun. It is now the Hotel Park Inn Amsterdam. They added shades and prevented parking there!

The thumbnail looked like public hair stuck in a grater or something That would be pretty expensive

29:03, I ABSITIVELY-POSILUTELY 💜 the thumbnail pic of "Stark" upper rite-hand corner!!!! Looks like he's askin, "HUH WHA??!!"

Champlain Towers - "For problems that could have been fixed with $15 million of works, that's one unforgettable mistake" - Unforgettable and unforgivable.