Monday June 25, 2007 | Re: “How to Take Down the Sunroad Building:” I have driven by the Sunroad building many, many times without knowing which building was at the heart of the issue. Saturday, when again driving by, a friend pointed the building out and suddenly I realized exactly which building all the commotion has been about.
I liked the article. Now I am trying to refresh my mind with the background information that is crucial to this story. Driving by made me want to revisit just how the FAA requirements can be justified in light of how far away the building seems to be from the airport. If the FAA requirements are so well founded in reason, then why was the issue not obvious to the architects from the beginning?
It seems to me like the background articles I have seen leading to the exposure of this story were focused pointedly on the politics involved and not on the engineering, not on the science of airports. Is politics just more “sexy” than science and fact in your business? A mere rhetorical question, I imagine.
In contrast, your article caused me to focus on the actual facts, the engineering issues.
Being a product of the erector-set generation, I appreciated your article’s focus upon some of the basic science involved. The economics involved is always predictable: real people generally do not put real buildings together unless there is money to be made by all involved (including lawyers, builders, lobbyists, owners … the full gamut). And so much of politics is posturing and preening. An adult fascination with the economics and the politics involved probably sells lots of media, but a review of erector-set facts of how things like buildings go together (and come apart) engenders a child-like flame of enthusiasm in the soul.