Hussein Aied
Georgie Vlamdimirove
Brendan Gallagher
Fan Yu
Case Study Presentation
History of the Building
A 60 storey (241) landmark
skyscraper
 Is the tallest building in Boston
and 166th in the world.
 Built for the John Hancock
Insurance group
 Designed by Pei and Cobb
and was completed in 1976.

History of the Building
Highly reflective window glass
is tinted slightly blue, resulting in
the Tower having only a slight
contrast with the sky.
 It had flaws and its opening
was delayed from 1971 to 1976.
 Its cost is rumoured to have rocketed
from $75M to $175M.

Construction and Design Errors
Caving in of temporary
retaining walls causing damage to
surrounding buildings
 The structure was swaying to an
unacceptable degree
 The most dangerous flaw was
its faulty glass windows
 I.M. Pei and partners announced
that it will be replaced by a
heat-treated variety.

Possible causes of failure
Swaying motion causing
excessive loads to the glass
causing the glass to break and fall
to the ground.
 Sharp rhomboidal shape of the
building caused wind forces to
produce “hot-spots”
 Another hypothesis was that the
settlement of the structure caused
the glass to crack.

The Cause of Facade Failure
After tests carried out by MIT in a wind
tunnel.
 They found that the cause of the failure
was due to the insulated units which
were defectively manufactured.
 The chromium bond was performing so
well that it would not allow for any
expansion or contraction of the glass.

The Cause of Facade Failure
The cracking propagated resulting in
some of the panes falling off.
 This disaster resulted in all 10,344
window units being replaced.
 Replaced by a heat treated variety at a
cost of $5m to $7m.

Conclusion
The Building Facade is associated with
both Human and managerial problems.
 Some of the materials used were
relatively new in the construction
industry
 More time was needed to investigate
their properties.

Conclusion
We now realize that the face of the
building is affected by due to the
buildings movement.
 In order to construct a large-scale
building, we must obtain sound technical
fundamentals and lessons from this
case study.

Conclusion
Thank
you