If someone has posted this story before, my apologies. I'm not sure which is the more amazing: (a) that this could have happened or (b) that it could have happened undetected while the 70cm layout error is so serious as to require dismantling six months of work.
"An £8million cinema and leisure complex residents of a market town campaigned to get built is to be completely dismantled six months into the project because it is less than a metre out of place.
"The new Cineworld Cinema in St Neots, Cambridgeshire, will be torn down and rebuilt after an embarrassing design error left it too close to existing houses."
wouldn't it be cheaper to buy out the neighbors?
Or apply for a building line relaxation ? But i am sure there is much more to it than the headline reads.
sounds like an engineering draftsperson was the cause (hopefully)
give the neighbors a life time pass to the cinema?
> sounds like an engineering draftsperson was the cause (hopefully)
Even if it was, it's ultimately the responsibility of the Engineer designing the building. I hear this excuse all the time 'it's the draftman's fault'. NO! It's the one in responsible charges fault.
Or, they didn't want to spend $ on a boundary survey? Or, the control was off, or.... it could be a variety of things that caused this. Either way, no one on the design team apparently caught it which is surprising to me.
> give the neighbors a life time pass to the cinema?
At current ticket prices I think it'd be cheaper to rebuild in the correct location!
i just don't want the follow up article to state that the layout surveyor messed up by 70 cm.
we prepared the control for a $40 million wastewater plant
i got the call that a benchmark was off and i needed a crew out ASAP
i went out with my data, reviewed the design plans and found that a drafter mislabeled a benchmark.
ultimately it was the contractor's fault as they were supposed to check the 3 site benchmarks before proceeding. they held the wrong one, adjusted the second one and skipped the third.
The Building Will Not Be Torn Down
Only the offending area will be adjusted:
"'We have taken the unprecedented step of halting the existing work and having parts rebuilt to assuage any concerns that adjoining landowners may have,' Chris Goldsmith, of Turnstone, said."
It would be interesting to know if it is just the outside columns or if the change pushes well into the interior. It may mean a whole wall has to be moved or a simple as trimming a corner.
Paul in PA
Absurd...
First comment below the article that I read:
"How can building it in the wrong place be a "design" error - that's a surveying error, surely?
- Teresa , Cape Town, 16/5/2013 12:42"
Did you know if you rearrange the letters in "Land Surveyor" you get "Scapegoat". Ok maybe not.
A Design Error Can Put The Building In The Wrong Place
I built 4 crane column foundations in the wrong place because the designer used a column reference line rather than the column center line. When my boss came out to yell at me that it was in the wrong place all I could say was "Yeh, but that it was exactly 14" off". Anyhow the column bases were 12'x14' so we had room to add extra concrete to the stem to get the steelwork in the right place.
Learning from that I caught errors in some school construction plans that required adding all the N E S and W dimensions around the exterior to not end up at the same place. The contractor was directed to build it in that order due to access reasons. Had it been built without my checking the steel roof beams would have been too short when they showed up, thus delaying the project. Had the error been in the other direction, it only takes a few minutes and a blow torch for steel that is too long. Better though to get everything right early on.
In another project the three buildings were to be laid out from a construction baseline used to build three matching buildings. We reiterated that the base line did not match the rock boring plan. The architect said "build it where we say", and the contractor asked for it all in writing. We got paid for the extra work to document all the extra rock excavation. The contractor made a ton extra per his "rock clause" got a write off for donating large rock to a stream stabilization project across the street and brought in a rock crusher to use the rest in the new site parking lot sub-base. We got paid to write an after construction report and provide testimony in the contract arbitration.
Paul in PA
