After only 10 years of service, the roof of a 15-million-gallon reservoir in Greeley, Colorado was near collapse. The reservoir was originally designed and built as a partially buried tank with an exposed post-tensioned concrete roof. The concrete had been exposed to Colorado's extreme temperature cycles and subjected to repeated volume changes and freeze-thaw cycles. The 6-inch-thick post-tensioned roof slab had deteriorated significantly and was in imminent danger of collapsing. The Denver engineering firm of Richard Weingardt Consultants Inc. (RWC) was called in to evaluate the situation and recommend a solution. After reviewing a number of plans for repairing and strengthening the roof, the consultants decided the only viable solution was to replace the old roof entirely.
In 1896, Nashville civic leaders planned an exposition that included the buildings of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman styles. A replica of the Parthenon in Athens, Greece, was built to house paintings and other works of art to be shown at the exposition. When the exposition closed, all the buildings were scrapped, with the exception of the Parthenon. But as the plaster facade of the Parthenon replica soon began to deteriorate, planning began for a permanent Parthenon replica.
Attorney and entrepreneur Samuel C. Hill was a primary mover in the struggle to get a motor road built through the Cascade Mountains from Portland toward eastern Oregon. In 1906 Hill invited Samuel C. Lancaster, an engineer who had gained recognition for the design of a network of county roads in Tennessee, to the Northwest. As their acquaintance grew, Hill decided that Lancaster was the man who could design and build the highway that Hill had dreamed about. The project began with a survey in September 1913, and grading was started in October.
When construction bids for St. Peter's Lutheran Church building in Columbus, Indiana, exceeded the 3.5-million-dollar original estimate by 70 percent, plans clearly had to be reworked. Eight months later modifications were completed and the cost had been reduced without compromising the original design
Albert Kahn was born in Germany in 1869. Kahn began his career as an office boy in the architectural firm of Mason and Rice, but was soon promoted. In 1902, Kahn helped to design the Palms Apartment Building in Detroit.
