StructureHub

Peer hard enough into the (cultural) darkness of the Las Vegas Strip pictured above, and you may be able to make out the rising hulk of the future Harmon Hotel & Spa.  The Foster + Partners-designed project is just a small component of the enormous, embattled CityCenter development but lately, it has produced a dispute of litigious dimensions worthy of CityCenter’s girth, which will make Norman Foster’s vision even smaller.

To recap the Harmon Hotel’s long, bumpy road: one of the project’s subcontractors (no surprise there) improperly installed steel reinforcing members on 15 floors (nos. 6-20); naturally, the error escaped detection because another subcontractor (no surprise there) falsified 62 inspection reports, declaring them a.o.k.

The flaws were discovered before there was a risk of collapse (i.e., before all 49 stories were constructed) but not before it was too late (i.e., too expensive) to finish construction as intended.  As a result, the hotel will go no higher than 28 stories, dramatically altering the development’s desired silhouette and ensuring that the (reputed) largest private development in United States history will instead be remembered only as a private sector Big Dig.

The other day Tony Illia pondered who is to blame for this mess.  Notwithstanding the ongoing litigation, allow me to predict: not Norman Foster.

Perini Building Company President Craig Shaw disagrees, which is to be expected since his company’s subsidiary is responsible for the misplaced reinforcements.  The problem, so says Mr. Shaw, was that the steel members “could not be installed as drawn.”

Assuming Mr. Shaw is right, wouldn’t the natural response to such a dilemma be to confer with the architect and wait until a method could be devised to do everything properly?  Apparently, no, since Mr. Shaw’s subsidiary installed the steel anyway, looming disaster be damned.

As for the 62 falsified inspection reports, the “quality assurance” company responsible for them blames a “shortfall in communication.”  Predictably, the company’s attorney excuses their inability to show exactly where the communication breakdowns occurred, because he claims the necessary evidence is in the hands of CityCenter’s owner, MGM Mirage, among others.

Unless “shortfall in communication” is a new euphemism for “lie,” I remained baffled as to how mis-communication causes an inspector - whose sole task is to compare on-site construction progress with construction drawings approved by the county - to file 62 consecutive daily reports stating that steel reinforcements were correctly installed in accordance with the relevant drawings.

Barring a surprise disclosure from litigation, Norman Foster only seems at fault for employing an apparently extra-complex structural system that made life hell for the builders.  But you can’t blame him for not be notified when the builder first encountered problems.  That is a shortfall in communication.

Images courtesy of fensterbme and criminalintent