The Fifth & Columbia building is now providing a textbook example of decoration that makes a building look even more sturdy than it really is.
Look at those diagonals on the twisty building. In this picture, we see at top the actual structural steel diagonal, about the same size and strength as the horizontals and verticals.
Coming up from the bottom are the glass panels which are set in those white horizontal tracks. The glass is outside of all that structural steel.
Now observe the bigger diagonal coming up to mimick the enclosed diagonal. It is tacked on outside the glass and simply decorative so far as I can tell. It is much bigger and so conceals the actual dimensions of the diagonal steel which you can see where the outer diagonal ends.
Now if this were a poor country without any way to enforce building codes, I’d worry that this was deception in aid of cheating on the steel specified and paid for. Not a chance here.
Why do developers use such “decoration” that could be misused if the plans were pirated?
