The Empire State Building

PM595: Project Risk Management By Yvone Hobbs

Monisha Somji
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Table of Contents

Introduction

Construction Risk

Construction Risk Avoidance / Mitigation

Catastrophic Failure Fault Tree

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Discussion of Catastrophic Failure

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Space Issue Fault Tree

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Conclusion

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Introduction The Empire State Building was the tallest man-made occupied structure on the planet for more than 40 years until the construction of the World Trade Center in 1972. On St. Patrick's Day 1930, construction is to begin on the Empire state building in spite of the nation struggling with the great depression. When completed, the buildings overall height was 1472 feet (448 meters) with a cost of whopping cost of over 40 million dollars(1). It is said that design of the building changed 16 times during planning, but the 3,000 workers managed to pull it off in a record timing, 1 year and 45 days that included weekends and holidays. It is made of 60,000 tons of steel, over 10 million bricks, 200,000 cubic feet of limestone and granite, and 750 tons of stainless steel and aluminum. The architects, Shreve, Lamb and Harmon Associates, were given the brief of creating the tallest building in the world. To achieve this they decided to use a steel frame as the basic construction technique. The builders, Starrett Brothers and Eken Incorporated were skilled in using this construction method

In addition to the steel frame, construction materials included 62,000 cubic yards of concrete; 200,000 cubic feet of Indiana limestone and granite, which comprised most of the exterior; 10,000 square feet of Rose Famosa and Estrallante marble; 6,500 windows, whose spandrels were sandblasted to blend their color into the tone of the windows; and 300,000 square feet of Hauteville and Rocheron marble for the elevator lobbies and the corridors on the office floors.

Construction Risks Building the Empire State Building and what would be the tallest building in the world, would bring many new risks and challenges. We will be going over some of those risks here in this paper. The first risk is getting the land to build these building on. The Port Authority used Eminent Domain to acquire some of land for this project. Many were upset and did not like this project. This could lead to an injunction against the building project. Court cases could delay this project for many years. Plans will have to be made to defend against this. The second risk is the project is the schedule. No clear information is available on how long it will take to complete these building. A project cannot function without a proper schedule. Therefore this needs to be looked at closely. The third risk is the budget. The architect has requested a $350 million dollar budget. The Port Authority has granted a budget just under $500 million dollars. It is important that this project does not go over budget. The fourth risk we will look at is making the space requirement the Port Authority is asking for.. This could cause some design issues that need to be taken care of. The fifth risk also deals with the building design. This being such a tall building sway and wind could be a serious issue. These are five key risks that need to be carefully looked into and integrated into a Risk Management Plan. To acquire the land, the Port Authority in some cases had to use Eminent Domain. Eminent Domain is covered under the 5th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States .This allows a government authority to take land away from private owners for public use. Just
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compensation must be paid to the private owners. Many small businesses, property owners, industrial and commercial tenants could resist forced relocation. With this much opposition it could easily lead to an injunction being filed to prevent the eminent domain. These cases could potentially have to go before the Supreme Court to be decided and could delay the project for years. This risk is likely to happen and carries major consequences relating to extending costs and project delays, making it a high risk. The Schedule for this project has been set to be open ended with no exact end date. This is due to the fact that no building like this have ever been constructed before. It would be nearly impossible to gage how long this project will take. This is also due to many construction limitations, like lack of space to store steel onsite for construction. Having no exact schedule brings many risks to cost overruns and delays to construction. Risk here is possible to happen and will be moderate in consequences making it a medium risk. The budget for this project is just under $500 million dollars. The architect has requested a budget of $350 million dollars . Due to some of the unknown factors in this project, budget could be an issue moving forward. Many unique methods maybe needed to solve problems during construction. These unique methods may cause budget issues. Also the need for 60,000 tons of steel to complete this project could become an issue if steel prices rise during construction. Risk here is unlikely with the planned budget and would be minor in consequences, making it a low risk. The Port Authoritys requirement of 12,000,000 square feet of office space is going to be difficult to meet. The original building plan called for 80 story building. The reason for that is that building over 80 stories, before 1970, where difficult to design because elevator systems had

problems servicing that many floors. They took up a great deal of space and getting to the upper floors was not quick. The Empire State Building uses 74 elevators and with its 103 stories it has 1453-footsquare feet of floor space (Empire). Meaning that Empire State Building would fall over 4 million square feet short of the Port Authoritys requirement for 10 million square feet of office space.Risk here is almost certain with the current requirement and carries major consequences, making this a high risk. Building designrequires that a hazard analyses be performed. This hazard analyses would look at, fire safety, construction safety and general building safety (Cooper). Currently we will focus on Wind and Sway risks. Currently the project is looking to use a lightweight design for the building. With the building being 110 stories this would mean a constant wind and sway. Sway would make life very difficult for the inhabitance of the building. It could case dizziness or ill effects. Wind is a constant threat to a tall building. High wind storms would mean the building would have to be able to stand against high sway. If the building cannot stand up to heavy winds it could topple. Risk here is almost certain and carries catastrophic consequences, making this a high risk. Construction Risk Avoidance / Mitigation In this section of the paper we will be discussing risk avoidance and mitigation. Once risks have been identified and graded we must examine each risk and find the best method for avoiding the risk all together, sharing it with another party or mitigating it as much as possible. We have identified five risks that we must now find a way to deal with. The first risk we looked was the risk of injunctions by unhappy private owners that where forced off of their property by using Eminent Domain. This risk was rated as likely to happen and carries major

consequences relating to extending costs and project delays, making it a high risk. This can be a difficult and time consuming risk to deal with. The main way to deal with the risk of litigation is to be prepared. Since the risk is rated as likely to happen. Preparations should be made in advance to insure that any delays are minimized by having all documentation, legal forms, and proof that the laws of Eminent Domain where followed to the letter. This will make the process of going through trials faster and easier. Legal teams should begin research and be prepared to start arguments as soon as any injunctions are filed with the state. It would also help to mitigate delays if motions were prewritten to show the courts that delays in the process would cost tax payers unnecessary funds and push to have all appeals heard with the greatest possible haste. If these actions are taken it should mitigate the risk to the project as much as possible if an injunction is filed. These types of steps are used in risk plans to reduce impact of a risk on a project In reality an injunction was filed challenging the Port Authoritys power of Eminent Domain by a group of small businesses from Radio Row. Their case went through the court system up to the United States Supreme Court. However, the Supreme Court refused to accept the case and the Port Authority won the battle. The next risk we need to look at monitoring closely is the schedule. Risk here is possible to happen and will be moderate in consequences making, it a medium risk. Being that this project has an open schedule with no firm end date but has 18 months as an estimate. Means that to insure that money and time is not wasted, constant monitoring of all processes is going to need to be organized. A normal project would have a firm end date and milestones would be set to insure that a project is on task. In this case monitoring of the building process is going to have to be monitored closely. Regular inspections and audits of work being done should be planned and executed to insure that funds and time are being used efficiently. Even
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though no end date has been set, a sense of urgency should be pushed to all managing and supervisor levels to help move the project along. The sense of urgency should be pushed, but not so hard as to rush personnel into making mistakes. If these steps are taken it should minimize the risk of over spending and unneeded delays of this project. The Budget, even if well thought out, must also be listed as a risk. Many unknown factors like change in prices or delays can cause budgets to get out of hand quickly. Even though the current authorized budget is well over the amount requested by the architect, this budget should be monitored closely. Risk here is unlikely with the planned budget and would be minor in consequences, making it a low risk. With no exact date for completion of this project, the budget must be even more of a concern. The plans call for 60.000 tons of steel (manufactured in Pittsburg) and since there is not enough room to store the steel on the construction site or be purchased in advanced, rising prices could inflate the budget. Regular reviews and audits of money being spent should be planned and executed to insure that funds are being used effectively. It is estimated that cost overruns will most likely come from the length of the project. To mitigate the risk, money should be set aside or invested and ready to use if the project needs another infusion of funds to continue the project. Many unknown factors dictate that with an unknown schedule, the cost of this project could run over. In reality, this project faced massive cost overruns due to work stoppages and the length of the project. The final cost was $24.7 million instead of the estimated $43 million. The requirement of 12,000,000 square feet of office space from the Port Authority provides our architect with some difficult challenges that equal to a number of risks, such as not meeting the customers requirements and tenant dissatisfaction with the building. Risk here is almost certain with the current requirement and carries major consequences, making this a high
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risk. Something had to be done to save space in these new building and still be able to move people around the building quickly and efficiently. Inspired by the New York Subway system the Empire State Building designers created an entirely new elevator system that uses 73 elevators for this tall buiding. These elevators also had doors on both sides so you would go in one door and exit from the other so you could keep your place in line. This innovative new elevator system was so successful, that it is now used in most super skyscrapers and uses 62% less space than a standard elevator system.. Along with a new space saving elevator system,a lightweight perimeter tube design was used for the building. Steel columns and beams
form a stable 3-D grid throughout the entire structure. But since such closely spaced column grids obstruct open spaces in buildings, there are virtually no open spans, or column-free spaces, on each floor of the Empire State Building. . These new

designs should enable the building to avoid this risk entirely. With the building being 102 stories this would mean a constant wind and sway. Sway would make life very difficult for the inhabitance of the building. It could case dizziness or ill effects. Wind is a constant threat to a tall building. If the building cannot stand up to heavy winds it could topple. Risk here is almost certain and carries catastrophic consequences, making this a high risk. Mitigation of this risk had to be designed into the building. During hazard analysis the question would be asked. What are the worst winds that could be thrown against these building? A 225km/h hurricane wind is the answer to that question. Therefore, One of the
challenges in designing the Empire State Building was making sure it could withstand the wind loads. The building is supported by 210 steel and concrete columns, 12 of which run from the foundation to the very top. It is said it would take a wind blowing at 4,500,000 pounds pressure to knock the building over.. Simply put the building was designed to withstand the most 9

powerful hurricane that nature could throw at it. In conjunction with the wind resistance, wind tunnel tests were done to establish structural responses to those wind forces. Experiments were also done to evaluate how much sway occupants could comfortably tolerate. The dampers are used throughout the building at joints between floors to reduce the building sway to an acceptable. These steps eliminated sway as a building issue and made the building resistant to the most devastating of winds. Through solid design work these building withstood direct hits from large passenger airplanes that would have instantly toppled most building, even though many lives would be lost on that terrible day, many more where saved by these very resilient building.

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Catastrophic Failure Fault Tree

ESB Collapse

Floors Collapse

And
Core Steel Stress Failure Damage to exterior Columns

And
Fire breakout Sprinkler System & Fire alarm Failure

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Discussion of Catastrophic Failure Catastrophic failure for a building is its collapse. As shown in the fault tree above (Fault tree is meant to be assumptions prior to the building construction) many things would have to work in conjunction to collapse a building of this type (Cooper). he Empire State Building is composed of 60,000 tons of steel, 200,000 cubic feet of Indiana limestone and granite, 10 million bricks, and 730 tons of aluminum and stainless steel. Steel columns and beams form a stable 3-D grid throughout the entire structure. But since such closely spaced column grids obstruct open spaces in buildings, there are virtually no open spans, or column-free . spaces, on each floor of the Empire State Building.

Damage to outside columns, could be caused by many factors including fire, bomb, airplane crash, or extreme weather. To cover these risks the building was designed to handle a lateral load of 5,000 tons or a 225km/h hurricane (Eagar). So it could stand up to outside column damage alone, minus an entire side of the building being torn off, which is very unlikely. During structural damage like this, other columns would simple take over the load of lost columns. Fires are a real danger for skyscrapers. Building are designed to stand up in a normal fire for at least 3 hours so that everyone can be evacuated. A fire lasting 3 or more hours would be caused by a failure of or damage to the fire sprinkler system. Furthermore, the fire could have been set using an accelerant making extinguishing the fire very difficult. A long term fire would eventually cause structural damage or in the case of the ESB, it could cause structural weakness in the steel columns.. Each ESB floor is designed to hold 1,300 tons
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beyond its own weight. A floor collapse would cause the weight from the above floors to be added to the load of catching the collapsed floor. This would cause what is called the pancake effect where a building would completely collapse from floors falling on each other. If you combine the above listed affects, you could be looking at the catastrophic failure of a building collapse.In the end this fault tree would come into play when terrorists crashed 2 heavily fueled passenger airplanes into both ESB building. Although the real fault tree would be slightly different, this would be a close approximation that no one could imagine happening. The best solution for this issue is to create newer safety features that could insure everyone can safely escape from such an incident. That is the only risk mitigation strategy currently available if such an incident were to happen again.

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Second Fault Tree

Closure of Site for Construction

Stoppage of work And

Lack of meeting the code requirements
Fall protection devices not worn properly

And
Failed material Inspection Missing material inspections

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Not all risk comes from a catastrophic failure. Some come in the form of not meeting a customers requirement.
To further illustrate the effect of the closure of the site temporarily we need to look at the second fault tree and thereby propose a new scenario. In the second fault tree we can see that closure of the site could evolve from either safety violations or failed material inspections. First we will examine the effect of the safety violations on the site; this could be perpetuated by the lack of meeting the code requirements for safety rails around the perimeter to prevent possible falls and personnel working close to that same perimeter without fall protection devices being worn appropriately. Either of these events would trigger an automatic stoppage of work until the issue had been remedied. (Swann, 2003)

Second issue that would trigger a stoppage of work would be failed or missing material inspections. The inspections of materials used in the building of this structure must pass many tests to be able to be incorporated into the structure. The AISC code of construction provides the amount and location of these inspections and also provides the tolerances for acceptance or rejection. The use of unapproved materials or the lack of complete reports would bring all work to a halt until the issue can be corrected. n looking at all of these risk events we need to look at planning methods that could either prevent to minimize the impact of these risks. First and foremost I believe that communication is the key to unraveling most of these events. As I earlier listed the communication with the leaders of the
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union would mitigate the response by the union. Communication with the field hands to relay safety concerns would eliminate the work stoppage due to unsafe work practices. Then we need to look at proper documentation packages, the absence of the clear project leadership in this area will doom many construction projects to a premature death. This again is listed in the contract documents, but must be managed as all parts of the project are necessary to complete the project. The lack of follow-up on contract requirements will allow for the inspection of materials and reports to not get the proper attention and thereby make a mess of the contract schedule. Furthermore, the catastrophic nature of these risks makes them of viable importance to not only the project team but all of the stakeholders in the project, we must continue to monitor the activities and designs for the building to avoid or minimize the probability of these catastrophic risks. The basis of these risks is the total breakdown in communication between the inspection agencies and the engineering design team that are on record as the chief designing agency. This breakdown will allow for many items to go without correction and possibly lead to a failure that mean catastrophic results the project. Increasing awareness and process control will be paramount to success for this project throughout the risk management cycle. Finally all materials used in a construction project must be approved prior to being implemented into the fabrication. Under these rules several times companies will procure materials that are inferior and cost less, and without the proper check of the documentation the materials would be incorporated into the structure thereby potentially causing a catastrophic event later into the project. If a contractor is found to have used the wrong materials in the project the project will be stopped until the materials can either be replaced or the engineer accepts the materials in lieu of the materials required in the original contract documents. (AISC, 2000)

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. Risks can come in many forms from catastrophic failures leading possibly to the death of many people or to simply not being able to complete a requirement of a project. Project managers can come up with creative solutions to solve risky problems such as the elevators in the ESB or mitigate risks by trying not to prevent a catastrophic failure, but insuring everyone can safely get away from one. We looked at all of these risk events that may have catastrophic impact on the project and its objectives. Once identified and analyzed we looked at how those risk are prioritized using the quantitative method for both likelihood and impact. We also looked at planning methods that could either prevent to minimize the impact of these risks. I firmly believe that planning and communication are the keys to unraveling most of these events. Communication with the field hands to relay safety concerns would eliminate the work stoppage due to unsafe work practices. Instead of the looking at the top level risk event it is easy if we are tracing back to simpler events that can be easily estimated. Fault trees enable to continue tracing back until reach a point where the contributing causes are reached. Furthermore, the catastrophic nature of these risks discussed in the paper makes them of viable not only to the project team but also to all of the stakeholders in the project. The project manager and the team must continue to monitor the activities and designs for the building to avoid or minimize the probability of these catastrophic risks. The major artifacts like the risk allocation matrix, fault tree and risk register bring the importance of the risk management plan on projects. Construction of the Empire state
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building is very large project and detailed risk management process is inevitable to the success of the project.

References

1) http://www.technologystudent.com/culture1/empire1.htm

2) Empire Rising (Brief Article) (Book Review). MBR Bookwatch (April 2005)(298 words)

3) http://kaidi-thinctank.blogspot.com/2008/09/empire-state-building-worker-1950.html

4) Project Risk Management Guidelines - Managing Risk in Large Projects and Complex Procurements by Author(s) Dale Cooper, Stephen Grey, Geoffrey Raymond, Phil Walker

5) Guide to Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK) 4th Edition

6) Risk Management in Construction Project Networks by Anna Klemett. Helsinki University of Technology - Laboratory of Industrial Management Report 2006/2 (Espoo 2006)

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7) Allocation of Risks in Construction Projects by Mr. Ho Pun-hing (http://www.hkeca.org/English/html/t_paper/html/Special%20Topic%20E.pdf)

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