Manchester council have announced plans to dismantle the art work "B of the Bang". This statue takes the form of an exploding star some 56m high and designed to appear tilted over at 30 degrees. Unfortunately some of the spikes from the star have fallen off which has resulted in safety concerns. Though this is a work of art, it is highly structural and needed to be designed carefully in order to withstand static loads together with the direct and cumulative impact of wind loading.
The design failures which caused the spikes to fall off have resulted in the designer, Thomas Heatherwick, having to pay £1.7 million back to the council (ie. the cost of the artwork), in an out of court settlement. Lesson - if things aren't designed well don't expect to absolve yourself of responsibility once you've sold your product.
In some ways this is a shame. The B of the Bang is an interesting structure and Heatherwick is a very creative designer - see his design for a retractable canal bridge.
The design failures which caused the spikes to fall off have resulted in the designer, Thomas Heatherwick, having to pay £1.7 million back to the council (ie. the cost of the artwork), in an out of court settlement. Lesson - if things aren't designed well don't expect to absolve yourself of responsibility once you've sold your product.
In some ways this is a shame. The B of the Bang is an interesting structure and Heatherwick is a very creative designer - see his design for a retractable canal bridge.
They are taking it down? No way! I did an essay last year on my favourite designer for my industrial design modue and I chose Heatherwick, mainly because I saw an article years ago about the rolling bridge and just thought to myself "wow".
ReplyDeleteIt is quite suprising that they are taking it down but too be fair they have had problems with since 2001 or whenever, things were falling off it here, there and everywhere. It took them ages to complete the construction. The Engineers at Heatherwick Sutdio have really put Tom's design to shame with this one, especially with him paying 1.7m of his own money, pretty harsh considering recession and all. Lets hope he gets lots of dosh for his new project - a temple in Japan. The design looks stir fry crazy, lets hope it doesn't collapse inwards or anything.
Take a look at it, it's been in development for a good couple of years so I'm anticipating this one to be a beast.
http://www.heatherwick.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid=7
Nice to see someone else interested in Heatherwick.
Cheers Jon Hughes
That statue is an amazing piece of work , after your post on this piece i looked at some pf hois other works and they seem to be just incrediable.
ReplyDeletesonal