Chicago flagship Apple Retail store roof not well suited for snow, ice

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Comments

  • Reply 41 of 62
    blastdoor said:
    For people who think that Apple had nefarious intent with the battery / CPU slow-down situation, I suggest you read this story and then consider the possibility that sometimes Apple can just be kind of insular and dumb. 
    While that might be the case, how did the City grant permission for the building with this obvious design fault?
    Is there no building control in the Windy City?

    h2p
  • Reply 42 of 62
    Soli said:
    From now on are we suppose to refer to black ice as space gray ice?
    Nope. It is either matte Black or Glossy Ice

    Soliking editor the gratetekfranz
  • Reply 43 of 62
    Gotta say the more I’m reading about this and how these signs are all over the place in Chicago I now believe this is a BS story designed to get traffic to someone’s blog. Really makes John Gruber look bad that he linked to it.
  • Reply 44 of 62
    How the hell do you build a roof that does not suffer with this problem? Don't be a smart Alec and say gutters as the snow and ice would block them! AF_Hitt comment shows Apple is not alone in putting up signs to highlight a potential hazard as you would expect from any responsible building owner/occupier.
    LukeCageh2p
  • Reply 45 of 62
    blastdoor said:
    For people who think that Apple had nefarious intent with the battery / CPU slow-down situation, I suggest you read this story and then consider the possibility that sometimes Apple can just be kind of insular and dumb. 
    While that might be the case, how did the City grant permission for the building with this obvious design fault?
    Is there no building control in the Windy City?

    Not the job of cities to prevent architects from making bush league errors. Apple should always take local climate conditions into account when making costly or complex architectural decisions.
  • Reply 46 of 62
    jungmarkjungmark Posts: 6,926member
    polymnia said:
    LukeCage said:
    This seems pretty normal to me, what’s the problem? If you live in a cold climate falling ice is something you have to deal with. 
    So other stores in Chicago have similar signs? That’s interesting because I live in Minnesota and no retail stores I go to caution me to watch for falling snow or ice.
    Minneapolis here. We have a downtown full of tall buildings with very little falling ice problem. It’s something that is designed for. Though, sometimes an out-of-state company tries something more California-designed and fails. See the AMC theater at Rosedale mall with their outdoor ticket windows facing a plaza. Poor ticket takers are freezing. 
    You guys also have indoor walkways between buildings downtown so no one goes outside anyways :)
  • Reply 47 of 62
    jungmarkjungmark Posts: 6,926member
    blastdoor said:
    For people who think that Apple had nefarious intent with the battery / CPU slow-down situation, I suggest you read this story and then consider the possibility that sometimes Apple can just be kind of insular and dumb. 
    While that might be the case, how did the City grant permission for the building with this obvious design fault?
    Is there no building control in the Windy City?

    Not the job of cities to prevent architects from making bush league errors. Apple should always take local climate conditions into account when making costly or complex architectural decisions.
    Actually it is. That's why they have "licensing and inspection" departments. 
    Solih2p
  • Reply 48 of 62
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,035member
    jungmark said:
    blastdoor said:
    For people who think that Apple had nefarious intent with the battery / CPU slow-down situation, I suggest you read this story and then consider the possibility that sometimes Apple can just be kind of insular and dumb. 
    While that might be the case, how did the City grant permission for the building with this obvious design fault?
    Is there no building control in the Windy City?

    Not the job of cities to prevent architects from making bush league errors. Apple should always take local climate conditions into account when making costly or complex architectural decisions.
    Actually it is. That's why they have "licensing and inspection" departments. 
    In case he doesn't believe you.

  • Reply 49 of 62
    jungmark said:
    polymnia said:
    LukeCage said:
    This seems pretty normal to me, what’s the problem? If you live in a cold climate falling ice is something you have to deal with. 
    So other stores in Chicago have similar signs? That’s interesting because I live in Minnesota and no retail stores I go to caution me to watch for falling snow or ice.
    Minneapolis here. We have a downtown full of tall buildings with very little falling ice problem. It’s something that is designed for. Though, sometimes an out-of-state company tries something more California-designed and fails. See the AMC theater at Rosedale mall with their outdoor ticket windows facing a plaza. Poor ticket takers are freezing. 
    You guys also have indoor walkways between buildings downtown so no one goes outside anyways :)
    Haha the skyways. Yep.
  • Reply 50 of 62
    jungmark said:
    blastdoor said:
    For people who think that Apple had nefarious intent with the battery / CPU slow-down situation, I suggest you read this story and then consider the possibility that sometimes Apple can just be kind of insular and dumb. 
    While that might be the case, how did the City grant permission for the building with this obvious design fault?
    Is there no building control in the Windy City?

    Not the job of cities to prevent architects from making bush league errors. Apple should always take local climate conditions into account when making costly or complex architectural decisions.
    Actually it is. That's why they have "licensing and inspection" departments. 
    The fact that Apple’s roof is the way it is today easily disproves your belief that licensing and inspection departments = magical solutions to problems.
    edited December 2017
  • Reply 51 of 62
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,035member
    jungmark said:
    blastdoor said:
    For people who think that Apple had nefarious intent with the battery / CPU slow-down situation, I suggest you read this story and then consider the possibility that sometimes Apple can just be kind of insular and dumb. 
    While that might be the case, how did the City grant permission for the building with this obvious design fault?
    Is there no building control in the Windy City?

    Not the job of cities to prevent architects from making bush league errors. Apple should always take local climate conditions into account when making costly or complex architectural decisions.
    Actually it is. That's why they have "licensing and inspection" departments. 
    The fact that Apple’s roof is the way it is easily disproves your assumptions.
    Can you back up this claim that there are no permits, inspections, or licensing for Chicago buildings despite clear proof (not to mention common sense) that these do exist?
  • Reply 52 of 62
    So other stores in Chicago have similar signs? That’s interesting because I live in Minnesota and no retail stores I go to caution me to watch for falling snow or ice.
    Yes, They Do in Chicago.
    GOOGLE IMAGES > Falling Ice Chicago and report back what you see, please.
  • Reply 53 of 62
    tyler82tyler82 Posts: 1,100member
    Glad I don't live in Chicago
  • Reply 54 of 62
    wiggin said:
    This is absolutely a non-story.  Warning signs and precautionary roped off areas are (and have been) incredibly common around the Chicago area during the winter, almost anywhere where there is a roof and heavy pedestrian traffic.  Here in Chicago, we call this problem “winter”.
    Yes, but no.

    Yes, there are signs like that all over Chicago in the winter. But no, they are not for snow and ice falling off the roofs of buildings. Every person here who has stated or implied that need to rethink their conclusions.

    Those signs are because of the snow and ice that accumulates on the facades (ie, the sides, window frames, and architectural elements) of the buildings. Not the roofs (at least not the flat roofs of larger buildings which is what we are talking about here). Chicago has only gotten a few inches of snow so far this winter. How many of these signs are you seeing around other than the Apple Store? I've seen none on my 15 minute daily walk across the Loop each morning and afternoon. If the Apple Store is already having this problem after such light snow, what on Earth are they going to do when it really snows?!?

    Absolutely an architectural design failure. And a failure of the city to not catch this when they reviewed the building permit (too many $$ in their eyes, perhaps). Living and working in this city you come to expect this when walking past the high-rise building during the deep winter and especially the spring thaw when all the accumulated ice and snow starts melting and detaching from the sides of the buildings. You wouldn't expect this from a relatively low building like the Apple Store and so early in the winter when there as been very little snow.
    This is one of the more accurate posts. The problem with falling ice in the commercial districts of Chicago are not because of roofs but architectural elements and ledges for snow and ice to sit on when the surface is below freezing and then allowed to fall to the earth when the surface reaches above freezing temperature. One of the worst offenders is the Ogilvie Transportation Center (mentioned in one of the posts) designed by Helmut Jahn -- one of Chicago's most respected architects.

    The Apple issue is different. It may be more similar to the Aquascape roof collapse a few years ago in the western suburb of St. Charles. It was one of the largest roof gardens in the world at the time, but the problem was not the roof garden. The problem was the roof over the interior heated building space drained to fairly large roof unheated overhang. Snow on the overhang melted at a much slower rate than the snow over the heated building space melted underneath and could not reach the perimeter roof edge because the snow over the overhang became a dam. The roof structure was designed to meet the International Building Code required snow load but did not take into account the amount of drifting snow and ice buildup in the middle of a roof that had a change in thermal conditions. Fortunately the roof structure failed on a weekend when no one was under the former overhang. 

    The forming of icicles at the roof edge is an indication of roof ice dams. The good news for Apple is that the roof covering is monolithic as opposed to a shingled roof where the ice can backup under the shingles.

    The solution is to have a roof covering with a uniform temperature or warmer temperature at the eaves. The building may have met the Chicago Building Code (and the International Building Code even though it's not applicable in Chicago despite being located in south Cook County) just like Aquascape, but it was still poor design and coordination by the architects and engineers.
    h2p
  • Reply 55 of 62
    avon b7avon b7 Posts: 7,621member
    Rayz2016 said:
    WTF? How did they not factor in the fact that Chicago gets snow in the winter?
    Loving the theatrical outrage. 

    My guess is that the architects were British, so they naturally assumed that the whole of Chicago would shut down after a centimetre of snowfall. 
    But only if it was the wrong type of snow!  ;)
  • Reply 56 of 62
    I would sue the living bird sh#t out of the architects LOL and deliver the summons in a snowball.
  • Reply 57 of 62
    dysamoriadysamoria Posts: 3,430member
    blastdoor said:
    For people who think that Apple had nefarious intent with the battery / CPU slow-down situation, I suggest you read this story and then consider the possibility that sometimes Apple can just be kind of insular and dumb. 
    Sometimes? This seems to be their normal and historic corporate culture... at max levels, currently.
  • Reply 58 of 62
    netroxnetrox Posts: 1,415member
    Totally epic fail on building design. I cannot believe they didn't think of it. 
  • Reply 59 of 62
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    With this, not adding gutters and/or snow deflectors to the roof, Apple was dumb.
    With BatteryGate, they were not.  They created a minor problem (a minor slow down) to avoid a major problem for their customers:   unreliable iPhones that would shut down at unpredictable moments and not restart until put on a charger.  Yes, they could have been more transparent about it, but they did the smart thing, not the dumb thing.

    The roof has a gutter. 

    https://www.archdaily.com/882147/apple-store-michigan-avenue-chicago-foster-plus-partners/59ede44fb22e385ec4000628-apple-store-michigan-avenue-chicago-foster-plus-partners-section


    edited December 2017 Soli
  • Reply 60 of 62
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    Gotta say the more I’m reading about this and how these signs are all over the place in Chicago I now believe this is a BS story designed to get traffic to someone’s blog. Really makes John Gruber look bad that he linked to it.
    Oh absolutely, and I'm surprised that Gruber got taken in by it as well.

    So as well armchair CEOs, armchair product designers, armchair chemical scientists and armchair lawyers, we now have armchair architects. 

    https://www.citylab.com/environment/2012/02/chicagoans-vs-falling-icicles-history/1219/
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