Kansas City awaits report on night $12M roof fell in

Press, 13 July 1979, Page 13

Kansas City awaits report on night $12M roof fell in

By

WILLIAM SCOBIE in

Kansas City

A report that could jolt the architectural world and prompt a string of multimillion dollar lawsuits is due to land this week on the desk of the Mayor of Kansas City (Mr Richard Berkley).

It is the result of a month-long official inquiry into the night the roof fell in at the city’s prizewinning Kemper Arena, a 17,000-seat sports and convention “showcase” built only five years ago for $l2 million.

No-one was injured in the spectacular 7 p.m. failure of the futuristic building during a storm last June 14. “But I still have nightmares,” said one city official. “Suppose that roof had gone a few days later, at the big Rod Stewart rock concert?”

Embarrassingly, Kansas City was hosting the American Institute of Architects’ annual convention when the collapse occurred. Kemper’s designer. Helmut Jahn, was to receive a citation. Instead, he found himself picking through the debris with the city fathers, while the arena supervisor, Mr Art LaMaster, explained he had about five seconds warning: “I heard this terrible groaning of steel beams and ran for my life.” Down roared tons of steel, glass, insulation, and

the 18-tonne, $250,000 scoreboard on to rows of seating. “There are,” said Mr Jahn, “such things as acts of Nature.” City officials noted, however, that Nature on the night of June 4 was not in her ugliest mood. “We have seen worse than that in Kansas,” said one. “This is tornado country. The storm caused no other major damage.”

Clean-up work is still under way at the arena, site of the 1976 Republican Presidential convention. The vast interior space is open to the sky. A Californian civil engineer, James Stratta, a leading expert in constructiondisaster analysis, has sifted the ruins for clues and completed his report. Mr Stratta says he has been sworn to secrecy by city fathers, who are still debating whether to release his findings, pending epic litigation. “If some basic design or construction flaw is revealed, the lawsuits could start falling like dominoes,” said a city hall source.

For architects around the country, it will be back to the drawing-board to reappraise the more unconventional modern designs. The Kemper case is the latest in a string of failures, including last year’s big cave-in. at the $l5 million civic centre at Hartford, Connecticut.

Some American architects feel that the profession’s good name is at stake in Kansas City. “It’s a symptom of a much larger problem than most professionals will admit to,” says Professor Harold Kardestuncer, an engineer who headed one Hartford inquiry. “We simply do not know enough about how large ‘span’ structures will react to critical weather pressures. We are seeing more of them every year.” Mr Kardestuncer is calling for a nation-wide investigation into new coliseum arena roofs. He wants improvement of American building specifications, test procedures, and electronic warning systems. “Right now,” he says, “there isn’t much difference between the codes for a coliseum and a chicken coop.”

Within Kemper arena’s sweeping, airy 130 m by 99m interior there are no supporting columns. The roof, in effect, is hung from what the industry calls a “space frame” — three enormous girder - like beams, made up of interlocking steel tubes, that rise up the sides and cross the top of the building. Partly for the way it eliminates sight-obstructing interior supports, the design won Mr Jahn a coveted American Institute of Architects award in 1976.

What went wrong? Mr Stratta has looked into four main possibilities: that 110 km/h winds caused the roof to lift up and slam down until overhead supports broke; that tonnes of rain failed to drain off properly; that winds caused a sharp drop in outside pressure — almost a vacuum — so that the higher pressure inside the stadium literally blew the roof out; and that faulty workmanship was to blame.

Arena records, released this week, indicate frequent problems with steel supports during construction, together with heavy pressure on contractors to meet a 1974 deadline.

Whatever the cause, says Professor Kardestuncer, modern arenas of unusual design are “extremely vulnerable to unexpected loading (by snow or wind). When failure starts it spreads very rapidly. The hard truth may be that Kemper’s design was not best-suited to withstand such conditions.” For Kansas City, the hard truth is that it has lost $300,000 in revenues and faces a repair bill of millions. Officials also worry that people may be afraid to attend the rebuilt arena. “Everyone asks me,” says a councilwoman, Kay Waldo, “what we are doing to see that this doesn’t happen again.” — 0.F.N.5., copyright.