> it’s not just the Millennium tower. Problems with settlement have long plagued projects built on reclaimed land...There are similar projects being built all over the world...Taking these costs into account, it may not make sense to build the building on that reclaimed land, opting instead for more steady ground in a less prime location...For these reasons, I think that we should adjust our priors and temper our expectations of land reclamation...I think that especially in the face of climate change and sea level rise, we ought to shift from the fanatic ideal of dense megastructures built on reclaimed areas...
Can you be more quantitative about these broad claims? My prior is that
(1) For every construction project on reclaimed land you hear about incurring large surprise costs due to poor handling of soil settlement, there are many similar projects that handle the issue safely and profitably, i.e., the big mistakes are outliers.
(2) As the number of such projects grows, the rate of costly errors will *fall* because builders learn and share best practices.
Are there any numbers that might pull me away from this prior?
This is certainly an interesting topic and is worthy of consideration to developers contemplating these projects. The issues related to dewatering impacting nearby properties also seems like an an important consideration in the planning of such developments.
I am curious, did your research find any interesting lessons learned from Japan, other than the discussion of the problems at the Osaka Kansai Airport? Both Osaka and Tokyo have reclaimed hundreds of square kilometers of their waterfronts (see this article for some interesting graphics: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/fdc02295fe7c4dce87a4b0926ecd6d95 ).
Tokyo definitely had plenty of examples of structural problems caused by soil liquification in the 2011 earthquake, but that was a huge earthquake, and most examples of structural failure that are easy to find are from smaller residential structures. Not large projects like the Millennium Tower.
I worked on an architectural team for a project built on reclaimed land in Osaka a few years back, but I didn't pay much attention to this sort of issue since that was the structural engineers responsibility. I kind of wish I had tried to learn more about it now.
Practical Engineering has done a few videos about these issues. I really recommend his YT channel to anyone interested in problems like this.
Great write-up!
> it’s not just the Millennium tower. Problems with settlement have long plagued projects built on reclaimed land...There are similar projects being built all over the world...Taking these costs into account, it may not make sense to build the building on that reclaimed land, opting instead for more steady ground in a less prime location...For these reasons, I think that we should adjust our priors and temper our expectations of land reclamation...I think that especially in the face of climate change and sea level rise, we ought to shift from the fanatic ideal of dense megastructures built on reclaimed areas...
Can you be more quantitative about these broad claims? My prior is that
(1) For every construction project on reclaimed land you hear about incurring large surprise costs due to poor handling of soil settlement, there are many similar projects that handle the issue safely and profitably, i.e., the big mistakes are outliers.
(2) As the number of such projects grows, the rate of costly errors will *fall* because builders learn and share best practices.
Are there any numbers that might pull me away from this prior?
This is certainly an interesting topic and is worthy of consideration to developers contemplating these projects. The issues related to dewatering impacting nearby properties also seems like an an important consideration in the planning of such developments.
I am curious, did your research find any interesting lessons learned from Japan, other than the discussion of the problems at the Osaka Kansai Airport? Both Osaka and Tokyo have reclaimed hundreds of square kilometers of their waterfronts (see this article for some interesting graphics: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/fdc02295fe7c4dce87a4b0926ecd6d95 ).
Tokyo definitely had plenty of examples of structural problems caused by soil liquification in the 2011 earthquake, but that was a huge earthquake, and most examples of structural failure that are easy to find are from smaller residential structures. Not large projects like the Millennium Tower.
I worked on an architectural team for a project built on reclaimed land in Osaka a few years back, but I didn't pay much attention to this sort of issue since that was the structural engineers responsibility. I kind of wish I had tried to learn more about it now.
Very interesting! Gives the folks in Colorado some peace of mind, yes?
Very interesting! Gives the folks in Colorado some peace of mind, yes?