Collapse: why buildings fall down

We take it for granted that buildings will not collapse. Yet even some of the most prestigious building projects have ended in disaster, often causing devastating loss of life. Once a building is erected, faults in design and construction can lie dormant for years, even centuries, until conditions conspire to trigger a collapse. The result is catastrophe. Few professional failures invite such popular contempt as the architects and civil engineers who kill by getting their calculations wrong. Written in the "Black Box" style, "Collapse" investigates structural disasters such as the "Tacoma Narrows" suspension bridge which collapsed whilst under observation for instability and "Roman Point", a 22 floor residential block of flats which crumbled when a gas explosion blew out one wall in a lower flat. "Collapse" tells the story of some of the worst structural failures of the the latter half of the 20th century and using expert testimonies from scientific investigations, pieces together the stories of how indestructable buildings have suddenly become piles of rubble. As well as forensic information, "Collapse" includes the human experiences of people unlucky enough to have been there when some tiny, creeping flaw became a terrifying structural collapse.