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How to Build a Skyscraper - RailsConf 2016

How to Build a Skyscraper - RailsConf 2016

Since 1884, humans have been building skyscrapers. This means that we had 6 decades of skyscraper-building experience before we started building software (depending on your definition of "software"). Maybe there are some lessons we can learn from past experience?

This talk won't make you an expert skyscraper-builder, but you might just come away with a different perspective on how you build software.

Ernie Miller

May 06, 2016
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  1. 5 (The number of times more likely you are to

    receive stickers and/or hugs if you sit up front!)
  2. This is my most popular tweet. I am really proud

    of it. You should follow me @erniemiller for more useful content like this. ♥♥♥PLEASE SIT UP FRONT OR I WILL FEEL LONELY UP HERE!♥♥♥
  3. “The problems posed in skyscraper design are considered among the

    most complex encountered given the balances required between economics, engineering, and construction management. — Wikipedia: Skyscraper Design and Construction
  4. “ The American Skyscraper, 1850-1940: A Celebration of Height CC

    BY-NC-ND 3.0 No nineteenth-century skyscraper caused more controversy than did Chicago’s Home Insurance Building. Many claimed it was the Americas’ first skyscraper, others, of course, disagreed. Much depended upon whom you asked and much depended upon where they were from.
  5. “It wouldn’t have mattered what I decided to do —

    doctor or lawyer. I would have done them all as well. — H. Craig Severance, on becoming an architect
  6. 40 Wall Street Walter P. Chrysler William Van Alen Chrysler

    Building Yasuo Matsui Richmond Shreve William Lamb H. Craig Severance - vs -
  7. 40 Wall Street Walter P. Chrysler William Van Alen Chrysler

    Building Yasuo Matsui Richmond Shreve William Lamb H. Craig Severance Announced: April, 1929 Announced height: 840 ft Announced: March, 1929 Announced height: 808 ft - vs -
  8. 40 Wall Street Walter P. Chrysler William Van Alen Chrysler

    Building Yasuo Matsui Richmond Shreve William Lamb H. Craig Severance Announced: April, 1929 Announced height: 840 ft Height in October: < 850 ft Announced: March, 1929 Announced height: 808 ft Height in October: > 850 ft - vs -
  9. New Skyscraper Race is Won by Bank of Manhattan Building

    Plans Altered Twice to Beat Out Chrysler […] The Chrysler construction is so far advanced that further changes are impossible. […] — New York Evening Telegram, October 18th, 1929
  10. The World’s Tallest Building Raises the Stars and Stripes to

    the New York Heavens — The New York World, November 12th, 1929
  11. “ — Dow Service's Daily Building Report, November 16th, 1929

    This is the story of how two architects, formerly partners, vied with each other to erect two of the world's tallest man-made structures, and how one of them [...] finally succeeded in passing the hitherto thousand-foot pinnacle of the Eiffel Tower [...]
  12. 40 Wall Street Walter P. Chrysler William Van Alen Chrysler

    Building Yasuo Matsui Richmond Shreve William Lamb H. Craig Severance Announced: April, 1929 Announced height: 840 ft Height in October: < 850 ft 927 ft
 (70 stories) Announced: March, 1929 Announced height: 808 ft Height in October: > 850 ft 1,046 ft (77 stories) Cost: $14,000,000 Cost: $13,091,416 - vs -
  13. “ — American Architect and Architecture, volume 138 This case

    should be a lesson to other architects who are inclined to depend on their artistic rather than on their business ability, for no client wants to start an operation which may wind up in a law suit.
  14. “ — William Lamb, on designing the Empire State Building

    The program was short enough — a fixed budget, no space more than 38 feet from window to corridor, as many stories of as much space as possible, an exterior of limestone, and completion by May 1, 1931 […] The first three of these requirements produced the mass of the building and the latter two the characteristics of the design.
  15. Her

  16. Him

  17. Him

  18. November 18th, 1929 “The determination of the height of the

    building will be based on the sound development of useable space. As we proceed with the plans the owners will be in a better position to determine what the height of the building is to be. — Richmond Shreve
  19. “Building with an eye to the future, we have determined

    to build a mooring tower 200 feet high on top of the new Empire State Building. […] the Zeppelin would be anchored more than 1,300 feet in the air, with elevator facilities throughout the tower to land passengers downstairs seven minutes after the ship is anchored. — Al Smith, December 11th, 1929
  20. You might be able to design from top down, but

    you should build from bottom up.
  21. Demolition order for 'mountain villa' built on China rooftop A

    medicine mogul who spent six years building his own private mountain peak and luxury villa atop a high-rise apartment block in China's capital has been given 15 days to tear it down. — The Telegraph, August 13, 2013
  22. OK, this one isn’t at Empire State. “Lunch Atop a

    Skyscraper”, taken at Rockafeller Center, September 20, 1932
  23. Empire State Building David Shankbone CC BY-SA 3.0 1,250 ft

    102 stories 1,454 ft Opened: May 1st, 1931
  24. “[…] the only way to assure a lack of failure

    is to test for all modes of failure, in both the laboratory and the real world. But the only way to know of all modes of failure is to learn from previous failures. — Wikipedia: Skyscraper Design and Construction
  25. “Thus, no engineer can be absolutely sure that a given

    structure will resist all loadings that could cause failure, but can only have large enough margins of safety such that a failure is acceptably unlikely. — Wikipedia: Skyscraper Design and Construction
  26. THANK YOU! Ernie Miller erniemiller Watch and read more: Big,

    Bigger, Biggest: Skyscraper National Geographic https://youtu.be/eigBF19aYmA Higher: A Historic Race to the Sky and the Making of a City Neal Bascomb http://amzn.to/1KoDRFt The Flatiron: The New York Landmark and the Incomparable City that Arose with It Alice Sparburg Alexiou http://amzn.to/1Ju1dDQ
  27. THANK YOU! ❤ Ernie Miller erniemiller Watch and read more:

    Big, Bigger, Biggest: Skyscraper National Geographic https://youtu.be/eigBF19aYmA Higher: A Historic Race to the Sky and the Making of a City Neal Bascomb http://amzn.to/1KoDRFt The Flatiron: The New York Landmark and the Incomparable City that Arose with It Alice Sparburg Alexiou http://amzn.to/1Ju1dDQ ZOMG STICKERS!!!