This post was inspired by today's 5-minute writing prompt in the Freewriters Community - 6 January 2025, @mariannewest's Freewrite Writing Prompt Day 2609: decrease the stress
Enjoy !
Image by Jörg Möller from Pixabay
This is a true story, and kind of terrifying if you think about it.
Back in the 1960's in the United Kingdom there was a fashion for building large estates of tower blocks. There was a need for housing for an increasing population and replacement of houses damaged during the war or just too old. A lot of it was much-needed slum clearance.
But there's a problem. The new tower blocks were put up in a bit of a hurry, using all the latest most fashionable techniques. That meant they were mostly made of reinforced concrete. Concrete is heavy, and as a bit of a cheat, they used a technique to decrease the stress of all that weight. It meant the foundations didn't have to be so deep or solid.
What that did was to put what was effectively a massive spring on top of the load bearing pillars. You can recognise the design, quite often it's a tower based on two "pillars" containing lifts, stairs, reception areas etc, with a space between them but upper floors above. As the building was constructed, the spring would be "wound up" to take the weight.
The issue is that now, decades later, the concrete is starting to deteriorate and the buildings need to be demolished. Unfortunately, in many cases the mechanism that winds the springs up has seized solid with rust and corrosion.
If they rust through and fail, the building collapses. If they try to unwind the spring as the building is demolished, they can't it's rusted solid. And if they try to demolish the building without unwinding the spring, pretty soon the huge forces it holds will be released as the weight is taken away, and what remains of the building (still several storeys high) will be flung into the sky.
Let's hope civil engineers find a way to solve this little conundrum !
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