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What’s Involved in Forensic Architecture Consulting?

Forensic Architecture stands at the intersection of modeling and mystery. This field melds design and reconstructive modeling with the structure. Forensic architecture looks at potential failure mechanisms. The goal is to prevent failure or to uncover the truth and learn from it.

Surveyors analyze the building structure to determine any areas or points that can fail. They also investigate what forces could act upon the structure to cause failure. Surveyors work with architects to design or redesign the structure to withstand those outside forces.

Failure Mechanism Assessment

Although humans have designed and built for millennia, we continue to innovate new materials and technology. Buildings are not uniform. Many different materials make up buildings that act in different ways under stress. Many things cause stress to building material, including:

• Climate.

• Impact.

• Habitation and use.

• Geological activity.

Forensic architecture identifies how building use acts on building materials. It also examines how outside forces affect the structure. Building surveyors assess prospective or existing architecture for these things to determine the failure mechanisms. Failure mechanisms are any ways that material or structure can fail.
 

Revealing the Invisible

Forensic architecture reveals the unseen. Buildings and structures are no longer static and dead in the world of forensic architecture. Instead, they take on a sense of life, and like all living things, they change as outside forces act upon them. They reveal internal deficiencies over time. Bubbles move to the surface, damaged flashing results in a water leak. An earthquake tumbles a structure not built to code.

Surveyors and architects can act both before and after the damage. They draw on their knowledge of how materials respond to stress and how components act together to prevent damage. Based on this, they can make recommendations for prevention. Once an event occurs, they can investigate what went wrong in the hopes of preventing future events.

Specific Recommendations

Architects and building surveyors operate within local building codes and standards. They create defensible reports detailing structural issues. Surveyors make recommendations on material, cost, and the likelihood of a failure mechanism event. Architects integrate their knowledge of structures under stress in the design.

Reports will detail all failure mechanisms in order of likelihood and severity. If the project is in the design phase, then the recommendations will be preventive in nature. Recommendations for existing structures focus on control and mitigation if a failure occurs.
 

Professional and Detailed

Forensic architecture reveals the truth of a structure. This is as important for a single small building as it is for a multi-million-dollar complex. Knowledge of code and material function is key. It is also important to be able to draw on experience.

Learn more about what is involved in forensic Architecture Consulting, contact Core Consulting Group, Inc. at (858) 693-3008, or (602) 272-0092 today!