why buildings fail are we learning from our mistakes我们从我们的错误中学习建筑失败的原因.pdf

Buildings 2012, 2, 326-331; doi:10.3390/buildings2030326 OPEN ACCESS buildings ISSN 2075-5309 /journal/buildings/ Editorial Why Buildings Fail: Are We Learning From Our Mistakes? M. Kevin Parfitt Department of Architectural Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA; E-Mail: mkp@; Tel: +1 814 863 3244; Fax: +1 814 863 4789 Received: 30 August 2012 / Accepted: 31 August 2012 / Published: 5 September 2012 1. Introduction Most building professionals have investigated or performed remedial designs for at least one architectural or engineering system failure during their careers. Other practitioners, especially those who work for forensic consultants or firms specializing in disaster response and repair, are more familiar with the variety and extent of building failures as they assist their clients in restoring damaged or deficient buildings. The advent of social medial and twenty-four-hour news channels along with the general ease of finding more examples of failures in the Internet have made us realize that building failures in the broad sense are much more common than we may have realized. Relatively recent events leading to building failures such as the Christchurch, New Zealand earthquakes, the roof/parking deck of the Algo Centre mall in the northern Ontario, Canada city of Elliot Lake and the Indiana State Fairground stage collapse in the US are just a few reminders that much more work needs to