Hang On! It's Not Even Finished Yet...
Harmon Hotel, Las Vegas, United States of America. Foster + Partners (2008). (Illia, 2011)
From the outside, it is almost impossible to tell that this building is unfinished, or indeed structurally unsound.
It would seem that sin city has added a new sin to its catalogue, continuing and furthering waste and damage to a resource limited world. It was for me perhaps somewhat heart breaking to find that Foster + Partners, a firm which has in many ways been at the forefront of ecologically sustainable buildings, balanced with delicate steel systems and wonderful repetition and logic and design should be involved. Caught in legal limbo since 2008, when construction defects were discovered, ensuing legal battles between different parties revealed falsification of engineering reports and negligence by contractors and other members of the construction team (Illia, 2014).
It has been reported that the steel reinforcement for the Harmon Hotel was improperly installed in 15 building floors, meaning that the building had the potential for collapse in this earthquake prone city (Illia, 2011). Structural stability however was not the only concern, the fact that “safety regulators had failed to prevent accidents that killed 12 workers in 18 months” (Nagourney, 2014) reveals to us the other issue of morality in the building industry. In the face of financial gain, is “working 24/7 [and] cutting corners” (Engineering News Record) truly the way to go? In many ways, this project echoes the issues of morality I raised with Zaha Hadid’s Qatar project and for architects, I believe we must be partly responsible, ethically, if not necessarily legally. Construction safety is as significant a part of sustainability as low-embodied materials and carbon neutral buildings.
The Harmon Hotel during construction. Sadly, through poor management and negligence, the building will now have to be demolished. (Knightley, 2009)
The building's temporary use: as Las Vegas' most expensive billboard.
(Illia, 2011)
The second issue I have with this project and its reports is that sadly, like many of our day-to-day concerns, there has not been any identification of the environmental cost of demolishing an in-complete building. While everyone is aware that construction cost US$ 279 million (Illia, 2014) and that demolition will cost US$ 400 million (Nagourney, 2014), there is little interest in the environmental implications. Twenty-six reinforced concrete floors, complete with aluminium framed glass façade is to be removed and at this stage, we have no news of reuse or indeed any plan for recycling. I can only hope that greater care will be taken to deconstruct this building and preserve what can, for future building projects on this site.
While it is true that retrofitting is impossible, as engineers have declared that The building is unusable and beyond repair (Illia, 2011; Nagourney, 2014), it nonetheless raises the question of how wasteful our society has become, in the rush for generating money. It is possible that in the race to complete this project, proper practice was discarded and money was passed under the table. Arguing that demolition may have saved potential wastes from actually running a casino-hotel would also not be the answer. While sin city is not necessarily the place for moral high ground, it should still recognise a need for good environmental practice, something which in this instance, has failed spectacularly.
References
Engineering News Record. “Harmon Tower Drama Set To End As Dismantling Start Nears”. (13 April 2014). Retrieved online on 8 May 2014 via:
http://enr.construction.com/yb/enr/article.aspx?story_id=id:Qi0AVTNMOv24vrB5xT2CBZOaiq6n7DvJw7BQIH5J-8-M35BViWfMw0uHnDrm8I70
Tony Illia. “Court Approves Demolition of Foster + Partners’ Harmon Hotel in Las Vegas”. (7 May 2014). Architectura; Record. Retrieved online on 8 May 2014 via:
http://archrecord.construction.com/news/2014/05/140507-Court-Approves-Demolition-of-Foster--Partners-Harmon-Hotel-in-Vegas.asp
Tony Illia. “Foster’s Half-Built Harmon Hotel in Vegas Beyond Repair, Says Report”. (14 July 2011). Architectural Record. Retrieved online on 8 May 2014 via: http://archrecord.construction.com/news/2011/07/110714-Vegas-Hotel.asp
Aronld M. Knightly. “Harmon inspectors blame breakdowns in communications for problems”. (30 June 2009). Las Vegas Review Journal. Retrieved online on 8 May 2014 via:
http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/harmon-inspectors-blame-breakdowns-communications-problems
Adam Nagourney. “Unfinished Luxury Tower is Stark Reminder of Las Vegas’s Economic Reversal”. (22 January 2014). The New York Times. Retrieved online on 8 May 2014 via:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/23/us/unfinished-tower-in-las-vegas-is-symbol-of-a-reversal.html?_r=0