Wow! It's been a long time since I've written a Slabs That Look Like Things post. It only took 2 months of social isolation boredom for me to do it, but here it is! You can take a look at the About page as a refresher of the premise, and my first post, Monster's Inc. is short and sweet. But in order to appreciate the "gorilla incident" story, you should first understand what I do as a structural engineer.
What I do:
If you think of a building as a human form, the architect would be God - the ultimate creator. Most people think architects are only in charge of the skin/flesh of the building (that's what I thought). But they have to make sure EVERYTHING works holistically. But they can't possibly know EVERYTHING so they assemble a team of consultants to help them design the building. And there are consultants for - you guessed it - EVERYTHING! I'm still discovering new consultants.
Here are the heavy hitting consultants: Mechanical engineers are in charge of the lungs. Electrical engineers are in charge of the nerves. Plumbing and Civil engineers tag team the digestion system. Us structural engineers? We're the bones/skeleton consultants; we're pretty important. We're kinda like God's right hand man.
<<You: "Did he just compare himself to Jesus?!">>
Several years ago, I found myself wanting more from my job. Don't get me wrong. I loved designing slabs that looked like things, but I wanted to expand my horizons. The natural next step was "construction administration." That means I'd be the engineer who made sure the skeleton would be constructed as the original design engineers intended it to be built. For example, if our structural drawings called for a 36 inch deep beam, and the contractor was trying to skimp and build a 35.75 inch deep beam, I'd have to make direct phone calls and write concise emails to set them straight.
You know... real hero shit.
And I got my wish! I was moved to a new project; the Burke Museum here in Seattle. Because it was in Seattle, it meant that I could go to the construction meetings via a quick train ride, and a relaxing walk through the beautiful University of Washington campus. This was welcome news since all of my jobs up to that point were in Hawaii or Miami, and as a young engineer, I never got to go there to interact with my clients face-to-face.
A little bit about the Burke:
According to my Wikipedia research, the Burke Museum has existed in one form or another on the University of Washington campus since 1899. We were constructing its new digs right next to its previous building. It's a really cool museum; for a time it housed one of the oldest human skeletons ever discovered in North America (which is a great story in itself).
The architect on the team is a homegrown Seattle super star architecture firm called Olson Kundig. When your local millionaires complain that a new billionaire bought and bulldozed 3 of the homes nearby and built a sleek manor in their place, chances are Olson Kundig designed that new home. Most of their clients are wrapped up in NDAs so I can't be sure who they are, but I bet some of their clients' names may rhyme with Jates, Vallmer, or Vezos.
The new Burke Museum is now built, and it has been a great success. It was even featured in Architectural Record! Here are some fancy images "borrowed" from that article and its photographer Aaron Leitz:
Check out that giant swinging door/wall at the cafe! It's one of the coolest designs I've been part of.
One of the many glass-walled rooms. This one peeks into storage.
The architects re-imagined how natural museums should be experienced. Normally, all the scientists are hidden away in basements and dark rooms doing all their fun research while the patrons are being guided through carefully programmed tours above. Where's the fun in that?! Our architects recognized the missed opportunity and flipped it. Now the scientists do their research in glass rooms that are visible to the curious eyes and minds of passing children (and adults) who are adventuring throughout the museum.
And don't worry. We made sure the glass rooms are very secure; one room is the home to flesh eating beetles that the scientists use to "skeletonize" corpses. As the museum receives a specimen that still has flesh on its bones, the scientists give the specimen to the beetles who go to town on the flesh for dinner while leaving the bones unscathed for the scientists to research later. Pretty cool huh? Could you imagine what would happen if those suckers got loose?
Back to construction administration:
So there I was, representing MKA in a face-to-face construction meeting. And this was a big one too! Construction was about to kick off in earnest and all the consultants were in the room reporting to ownership - representatives of the Burke Museum - about the status of their designs.
This is how the meeting went:
Consultant: "Here are a few discussion points I'll talk about."
Ownership: "Here are a couple softball questions for you."
Consultant: "Here are convincing answers to your softball questions."
Ownership: "I'm convinced you know what you're doing."
Next consultant.
There were A LOT of consultants. And frankly at that point in my career, I didn't understand most of what they were saying, so naturally my thoughts would drift away to lunch.
<<Me: "I wonder what the lunch special is today at Melange? It'd be cool if they changed their name to Melange-a-trois.">>
But then my attention was brought back to the room when I realized one consultant wasn't following the meeting's script. Ownership was grilling the waterproofing guys. Weird.
Ownership: "Tell me about the waterproofing strategy in this room."
Waterproofing: "We are using [BLAH BLAH BLAH] product in there. It'll be fine."
Ownership: "And what about the strategy in this room?"
Waterproofing: "We're also using the [BLAH BLAH BLAH] system in there as well."
Ownership: "And in this room?"
And so it continued. The owners were asking in-depth questions about waterproofing in every storage room in the building. Eventually they were satisfied with responses.
Ownership: "Phew. It sounds like you guys know what you're doing. The last thing we want is a repeat of the gorilla incident."
.........
The room paused.
........
Waterproofing: "Don't worry sir. You're getting the best of the best."
And then the next consultant dove into their discussion points and the meeting continued.
Um.... EXCUSE ME?! The "GORILLA INCIDENT?!" My mind is screaming with follow up questions, but everyone in the room is pretending like this guy didn't just allude to an incident that involved a freaking gorilla!!
<<Me: "First flesh-eating beetles, and now a gorilla?! And what happened with the gorilla that made this guy so worried about waterproofing?! It doesn't make sense! No one else is curious about this?!">>
I'm looking around the table to gauge the shock of my fellow consultants. Everyone's got their 'no-time-for-nonsense' engineer face on, and I'm clearly the youngest, least experienced person in this room. There's no way I'm gonna be the person to interrupt this meeting to ask him to explain the "gorilla incident."
And so the meeting continued. I gave my structural spiel. I was hoping to field a gorilla inspired question...
<<Ownership: "So if a 500 lb gorilla got loose and started doing pull-ups on this beam, would the structure hold?"
Me: "Good question. Yes, it would hold. In fact, that gorilla's entire CrossFit clan could do pull-ups on that same beam without a problem."
Ownership: "Phew! Glad to hear it. The last we want is a repeat of the gorilla incident."
Me: "Happy to help."
Ownership: "You're pretty heroic!"
Me: "Not at all sir. I'm just doing my job as a construction administrator.">>
...but sadly, I didn't. Ownership liked my answers to their boring questions. Next consultant.
The meeting ended and everyone started leaving. Ownership started leaving. I started leaving. But I just couldn't handle it anymore; the tease was traumatizing. I scooted by a couple other consultants to be able to walk next to Ownership.
Me: "I'm sorry, but I couldn't help but hear you mention a 'gorilla incident' in that meeting. What happened?"
Ownership: "Ah yes. Bobo."
<<Me: "The gorilla has a name! Was Bobo doing pull-ups on the structure leading to a partial collapse?">>
Ownership: "Bobo was a very beloved gorilla at the local zoo who passed away in the 60s. The Burke Museum has a reluctant contract with the zoo to bring in all of their animals that pass away. When Bobo passed away, we received his body, but we weren't exactly sure what to do with him."
Me: "Interesting. So what DID you do with him?"
Ownership: "Well...while we were trying to figure that out, we put him in a giant freezer down in storage. And frankly, as the years passed, we kinda forgot about him down there."
<<Me: "Soon with your glass window work rooms, you'll be able to display him to the public a la Han Solo frozen in carbonite.">>
Ownership: "In 1975 there was a really bad windstorm that caused a lot of damage. The museum was without power for 3 days! When the power came back online, we went down to the storage room to inspect our artifacts in storage. And once we got to the bottom of the stairs, we stepped in a few inches of goo on the floor. It smelled awful."
<<Me: "ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod.....">>
Ownership: "As we sloshed through the room we were rescuing damaged artifacts that were stored low near the ground. The damage was tragic. We couldn't figure out where the goo came from until we opened a door to another room and saw Bobo's freezer in the corner - but only Bobo's skeleton was in the freezer. Bobo's everything else was everywhere else."
<<Me: "Oh. My. God.">>
Ownership: "That's why we want to make sure our waterproofing in our storage rooms are top-notch. I really don't want a repeat of the gorilla incident."
A waterproofed storage room in the new building.
Wow. What a start to construction administration!
While doing my research on Bobo I came across this great article written in 2000 that talks about Bobo's story. Turns out, there was a 1950s version of Joe Exotic - but less crazy and cruel - who raised Bobo as part of his family. As Bobo grew up though, he became a danger to the family, so he was given to the local zoo. After having lived with humans over the years, Bobo inevitably picked up a lot of human behavior/skills (think reverse Tarzan). And thus, Bobo became incredibly popular at the zoo.
"Before the Space Needle went up or the Pike Place market was redeveloped, before the Sonics or the Seahawks, Bobo WAS Seattle, and Seattle was infected by a mad passion, Bobomania."
The research also corrected my story that this freezer failure happened in the 1975. I could have sworn Ownership told me that it happened in the mid-2000s. If I indeed heard him correctly, he simply confused his gorilla incidents. In 2006, Bobo's skull was returned to the Burke after decades of being stolen! Bobo's had a few of incidents. Hard to keep 'em straight I guess. My favorite sentence from the article:
"When the Burke's freezer broke down in 1975, Bobo's remains were quickly 'skeletonized' and his flesh discarded."
Haha. You and I know the truth. Bobo's body skeletonized itself and his flesh was discarded down the drain. No flesh eating beetles required.
If you're ever in Seattle. You should definitely check out the Burke Museum. It's a brilliant space. And, you can even check in on Bobo! Who knows what he's up to these days.
And lastly, here's a slab that looks like a thing. This slab comes from a building called North Edge here in Seattle. It's now the global headquarters of Brooks running shoes. This was my friend Andy's first project ever as a structural engineer.
