COLLAPSED LIVES

Laura Daniela Reyes Mardini 2151012 grupo K1

In the last years in Colombia, it has been incremented the construction of edifices in massive
form, carrying with it the corruption in this sector. We have as consequence buildings of bad
quality. Can we settle that the construction sector is falling for the hyper optimization? To
answer this hypothesis, we must define the term hyper optimization. It’s a new tendency in
the engineers constructions; they are preferring the use of primary material of second hand
or bad quality, also putting the security factor at maximum limit of the buildings,
understanding the term we can conclude that the demolition of edifices is a common practice
now as they have so much failures that make them inhabitable, all of these its fault of the
hyper optimization.

The first example that I could look in the video was the Barlovento building in Medellin. It
was built for the architect Sergio Mejia, approved for the building company San Felipe and
the calculator operator Jorge Aristizabal, who was involved in the scandal of Space in 2013,
this edifice was demolished in 2016 in just four seconds, the residents of these eighteen floors
have been left homeless due to structural damage and fails on the land studies and seismic
vulnerability that make the foundations useless.

The second example is the forty-seven towers of the architectural ensemble Cormoranes in
the south of Cúcuta, north of Santander; a promoted project for the government for people
that has been victim of Colombia´s armed conflict and the invernal wave, approximately four
thousand people live there and they seem affected because in the moment of construction,
they didn´t the seventy-two explorations of the ground specificated for Colombia’s seismic-
resistant regulation, instead they just did fourteen explorations for minimize the costs.

The third example happened in the Las Americas hospital of Medellin, when a baby of just
eighteen months fell from the fifth floor that caused her death instantaneously, this accident
occurred for a bad design in the stair rail of the floor, which had a big hole where the baby
went through, however this could be prevent if the design had the minimum security
measurement. The mentioned examples has been shown to the engineer Angelino Garzón,
labor union president and different authorities of the sector and the only solution that they
suggested is being more strict and keep an eye, therefore we can assume that even though the
hyper optimization its affecting significantly, we must also have in count other factors as the
current mafia in the sale of the materials, where these got re-sold already used or in second-
hand, the corruption for the engineers who reduce the costs using different specifications to
the ones placed in the approved planes and the lack of studies of the land and obligatory
seismicity to ensure the construction stability.

In conclusion, we can say that Colombia needs a reform to secure that the engineers must
follow very carefully the regulation that legislate the construction and exterminate the
material recycling sites, in addition, the universities have to encourage the work ethic and the
human sense because this profession affect directly the life of a lot of people.