To Forgive Design: Understanding Failure - Softcover

Petroski, Henry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0674416821 ISBN 13: 9780674416826

Publisher: Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press, 2014

Synopsis

When planes crash, bridges collapse, and automobile gas tanks explode, we are quick to blame poor design. But Henry Petroski says we must look beyond design for causes and corrections. Known for his masterly explanations of engineering successes and failures, Petroski here takes his analysis a step further, to consider the larger context in which accidents occur.

In To Forgive Design he surveys some of the most infamous failures of our time, from the 2007 Minneapolis bridge collapse and the toppling of a massive Shanghai apartment building in 2009 to Boston's prolonged Big Dig and the 2010 Gulf oil spill. These avoidable disasters reveal the interdependency of people and machines within systems whose complex behavior was undreamt of by their designers, until it was too late. Petroski shows that even the simplest technology is embedded in cultural and socioeconomic constraints, complications, and contradictions.

Failure to imagine the possibility of failure is the most profound mistake engineers can make. Software developers realized this early on and looked outside their young field, to structural engineering, as they sought a historical perspective to help them identify their own potential mistakes. By explaining the interconnectedness of technology and culture and the dangers that can emerge from complexity, Petroski demonstrates that we would all do well to follow their lead.

About this title

About the Author

Henry Petroski is the Aleksandar S. Vesic Professor of Civil Engineering and Professor of History at Duke University.

Review

“[An] engaging book... Reading these pages reminds us of how many spectacular failures have occupied the news pages for a week or two in our lifetimes... If Petroski’s account proves anything, it’s that the forces of the real world may eventually prevail on even the mightiest structures.”―Bill McKibben, New York Review of Books

“A book that is at once an absorbing love letter to engineering and a paean to its breakdowns... This book is a litany of failure, including falling concrete in the Big Dig in Boston, the loss of the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia, the rupture of New Orleans levees, collapsing buildings in the Haitian earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon blowout, the sinking of the Titanic, the metal fatigue that doomed 1950s-era de Havilland Comet jets―and swaying, crumpling bridges from Britain to Cambodia... [Readers will encounter] a moving discussion of the responsibility of the engineer to the public and the ways young engineers can be helped to grasp them.”―Cornelia Dean, New York Times

“[A] fascinating and occasionally unnerving history of engineering failures... After reading this book, one might be tempted never to venture across a bridge again. But of course that would miss Petroski’s goal: to show how engineers learn from failure and improve their designs... For those who enjoy reading about girders and trusses, To Forgive Design is, yes, riveting... [Petroski] amply shows the wisdom of the proverb that failure is a good teacher. Even a collapsed bridge leads somewhere.”―Matt Ridley, Wall Street Journal

“Americans are encouraged to believe that failure is not an option, but author Henry Petroski regards it as just about inevitable. A professor of civil engineering and history at Duke University, Petroski began his writing career with To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design, an influential work that deals with mechanical and engineering failures. This huge sequel devotes much more attention to the interplay between human beings, machines, buildings and disaster. It’s exhaustive, relentless, often exhilarating―and given its technical nature, surprisingly readable... If you’re already a bit phobic about flying in a plane, crossing a suspension bridge, or even driving a car, To Forgive Design is probably not for you... Petroski chronicles the story of failure with a measure of affection reminiscent of a biographer of Attila the Hun who develops a grudging fondness for his subject. But whether or not the latter had redeeming qualities, the former surely does: Failure reminds us to avoid the sin of pride. I thoroughly enjoyed To Forgive Design, even down to the gloomy quote from the famously gloomy writer Samuel Beckett: ‘Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.’”―Joe Queenan, Barron’s

“Non-engineers needn’t worry that the book will be too dense with details; Petroski makes the science easily understandable... [This is] a book that satisfactorily explains why our determination to push the boundaries guarantees both failure and triumph.”―James F. Sweeney, Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Engineering is interesting when it works, but much more compelling when it doesn’t. Petroski may be one of his profession’s establishment figures, but his key finding is highly critical: because most engineers don’t know much about the history of engineering, complacency and gee-whizz design software is likely to foment a fairly regular incidence of potentially catastrophic structural failures... Much of the information will be of great interest to engineers and designers... The most brilliantly explained engineering failure concerns the ocean-bed blowout involving the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in 2010. Petroski’s exposition is immensely detailed and benefits from being linear in its narrative. This section of the book is exemplary in its remorseless exfoliation of the technical and commercial reasons for the incident.”―Jay Merrick, The Independent

“Mustering a truly staggering array of examples of past engineering failures, Petroski makes the case that failure is a necessary component of technological development, and that structures, machines and other engineered devices do not exist in isolation, but instead are designed and used within a tangle of competing constraints and unpredictable scenarios... At his best, Petroski is a compelling storyteller, and his recounting of past disasters and near-disasters can be fascinating. In addition to several detailed but well-paced narratives of familiar failures such as the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion, the book contains a great deal of intriguing arcana... Petroski’s greatest asset as a writer is his impressive historical erudition. He seems to have an infinite file of meticulously detailed case studies that illustrate his points, and any thought of just how long he must have spent researching inspires mild fear. He has written prolifically for nearly three decades on the topic of failure in engineering, and there is no doubt whatsoever that he knows what he’s talking about... I would sincerely recommend To Forgive Design to anyone with a particular interest in historical engineering fiascos.”―Colin McSwiggen, Literary Review

“To Forgive Design remains a largely accessible, important contribution to the growing library of failure.”―Colin Dickey, Los Angeles Review of Books

“When a plane crashes or a bridge collapses, faulty engineering is the usual suspect. But in seeking the roots of failure, we should look beyond design, says engineer Henry Petroski. We must probe the political and economic imperatives that shape purposes and use. In this follow-up to his influential To Engineer Is Human, Petroski argues that accidents such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill are the result of faults as much in ‘human machinery’ as in mechanical devices. He praises software developers for learning from structural engineering about how to report and analyze mishaps.”―Nature

“A rewarding read.”―Jonathon Keats, New Scientist

Edition details

• Publisher: Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0674416821
• ISBN 13: 9780674416826
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 432