Live and Learn

Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied.

Is it only Honestly Lay Bare that has noticed the recent trend towards statement ferris / observation wheels?

The Ferris wheel is named after George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr.

He was a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania bridge-builder. He began his career in the railroad industry and then pursued an interest in bridge building. Ferris understood the growing need for structural steel and founded G.W.G. Ferris & Co. in Pittsburgh, a firm that tested and inspected metals for railroads and bridge builders.

Ferris designed and built the first 264 foot (80 m) wheel for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago 1893.

The wheel was intended as a rival to the Eiffel Tower, the centerpiece of the 1889 Paris Exposition. This first wheel could carry 2,160 persons. The Ferris wheel was the largest attraction at the Columbian Exposition, standing over 250' tall and powered by two steam engines. There were 36 cars, accommodating 60 people each (40 seated, 20 standing). It took 20 minutes for the wheel to make two revolutions—the first to make six stops to allow passengers to exit and enter; the 2nd, a single non-stop revolution—and for that, the ticket holder paid 50 cents.

When the Exposition ended, the wheel was moved to north side, next to an exclusive neighborhood.

It was then used at the St. Louis 1904 World's Fair and eventually destroyed by controlled demolition in 1906.

As much as we would love to take you on a ride around the various historical thumbtacks of a ferris wheel, today’s Honestly Lay Bare is about projects that don’t factor in extreme events.

And one such project just happens to involve a ferris wheel … sorry … an observation wheel (we are yet to work out the difference!).

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The Southern Star is an observation wheel in the Waterfront City precinct at Melbourne Docklands in Melbourne, the state capital of Victoria, Australia. It is the only permanent observation wheel in the Southern Hemisphere and is 120 m (390 ft) high, the equivalent of a forty storey building.

The wheel is similar in concept to the London Eye, which is 135 m (440 ft) high.

The project cost A$100 million to construct and was expected to attract 1.5 million visitors each year.

That was until the 2009 heatwave hit.

The 2009 southeastern Australia heat wave was a heat wave that commenced in late January and led to record-breaking prolonged high temperatures in the region. Adelaide and Melbourne broke records for the most consecutive days over 40°C (104°F), with Melbourne surpassing 46°C (114°F) and Adelaide reaching over 45°C (113°F). Many locations through the region reached all-time high temperatures. Adelaide reached its third-highest temperature, while Melbourne reached its highest temperature on record.

Just a month after opening, the Southern Star started to crack with at least 12 to 14 fractures in a section of the wheel.

Victorian Premier John Brumby told reporters at a press conference announcing that the Wheel would be now shut for six months that structures like it were not built to cope with temperatures in the high 40 degrees.

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More than perhaps any sentence that Honestly Lay Bare has read in recent years this last sentence neatly articulates the failings of modern day project risk assessment.

How could a structure costing $100 million and – more importantly – being a transport vehicle for its human cargo NOT factor in extreme events.

The 2009 heatwave was extreme but it WASN’T outside the boundaries of possibility.

One could – and should – condemn the building approvers but to do so masks a failing of greater significance.

How is it that a major structure was allowed to be built that didn’t address all the eventualities that were within the boundaries of possibilities?

Surely the boundaries of assessment of the Wheel’s resilience should have been at least the hottest temperature ever recorded (57.8 c – Libya – 1922).

That it wasn’t strikes another blow to the already damaged credibility of modern day risk assessment methodologies.