© Jottie 2005
This is work in progress and is only put up for the purposes of review... The last few sections are only titles... There is also a large amount of irrelevant information in the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House Sections...
Can Building Software Be Compared to Building The Harbour Bridge or Building the Opera House?
Two of Australia’s Most Famous Landmarks: Built in very different ways
Introduction
This may sound a little like a joke, an Accountant, a Mining Engineer and a Software Developer are travelling to work together and the Accountant says, "When they built the Sydney Opera House, they didn’t have plans, just a concept". The Mining Engineer says, "How did they know what to build". The Accountant says, "No wonder they went over budget". The Software Developer says, "Sounds like every project I work on".
In the Software Engineering Profession we often ask the question, "Are we Artists or Engineers?" I would like to consider this question by looking at the building of two of Australia’s most famous landmarks.
Building of the Harbour Bridge
The Government Architect Francis Greenway, an ex convict is reputed to have suggested to Governor Macquarie that the northern and southern shores of the Harbour should be linked via a bridge. Prior to the completion of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1932, the only links between the city centre and the north shore were by ferry or by a 20 kilometre (12 mile) road route that involved five bridge crossings.
Various options where floated (pardon the pun) throughout the 19th Century however a senior engineer who worked for the Department of Public Works, Dr John Job Crew Bradfield (1867-1943) is regarded as the ‘father’ of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Dr Bradfield favoured building a cantilever overpass, without piers, between Dawes Point and McMahons Point. In 1916 the New South Wales lower house of parliament (the Legislative Assembly) passed the Bill for the construction of a cantilever bridge. It did not proceed however, as the Legislative Council (the upper house) rejected the legislation on the grounds that money would be better used for the war effort.
Dr Bradfield continued on anyway and developed the full specifications.
In 1922 New South Wales Government invited tenders, they received twenty proposals from six companies. On 24 March 1924; the English firm Dorman Long and Co of Middlesbrough won the contract (for Australian 4,217,721 pounds 11 shillings and 10 pence!). I wonder what the 10 pence was for.
The general design was prepared by Dr Bradfield and officers of the NSW Department of Public Works, while the detailed design and crucial erection process were undertaken by the contractor’s consulting engineer Mr (later Sir) Ralph Freeman of Sir Douglas Fox and Partners and his associate Mr. G.C Imbault.
"The winning design tender by Dorman and Long (recommended by Bradfield himself) proposed the single arch design No. A3 (one of six alternatives) be built from both ends (using cable supports) and joined in the middle. The contract was let in March 1924 . The structural calculations were supervised by Ralph Freeman in London who had left the Cleveland bridge Company in the USA. As it was an arch design, any design change required a recalculation across the entire structure, and the calculations for the bridge both in tension (cable supported) and compression (as an arch) filled twenty eight books of transcribed calculations." http://www.sydney.com.au/bridge.htm
Construction on the bridge began in December, 1926 and the Harbour Bridge was officially opened on 19 March 1932. The total cost of the Bridge was approximately 6.25 million Australian pounds ($A13.5 million), and was eventually paid off in 1988.
The concept of the bridge in its current form was birthed by Dr Bradfield as early as 1916, the concept was ready for tender by 1924 and before construction begun in 1926, every piece of the bridge been designed.
Construction, a massive undertaking was done only after the full design was complete. Let’s compare this to the design and build of the Sydney Opera House
Building of the Opera House
In 1946, when Eugene Goossens arrived in Australia as guest conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra he was surprised to find that the orchestra was performing in the Sydney Town Hall and that no concert hall as such existed in Sydney. Through the media he began to push for a concert hall in Sydney.
The New South Wales Premier John Joseph Cahill showed interest in the proposal and in November 1954 Premier Cahill convened a public meeting to appoint a committee to advise the Government on building an opera house.
"The committee consisted of Eugene Goossens, Charles Moses, Harry Ashworth (professor of architecture at Sydney University), Roy Hendy (Sydney City Council town clerk) and Stan Haviland (the head of the Department of Local Government). 31 sites were examined and Bennelong Point was chosen. The committee also recommended a competition." <Sydney opera house dot com> Bennelong Point at this time housed the yard for the Sydney tram system
The New South Wales Government announced in January 1956 an international competition for the design of an Opera House to be erected on Bennelong Point.
The Government published a booklet which gave a site plan, conditions of the competition and set out some requirements. The booklet said that two halls were required, a large hall holding 3,000-3,500 people and a smaller hall which would seat approximately 1,200 persons.
No budget was given but an indication was given that, "they should bear in mind the necessity for sound judgement as to the financial implications".
The competition attracted 233 entries from around the world. Judging of the competition took place in January 1957 and on 29 January 1957 Jørn Utzon was declared winner of the competition.
Utzon presented 10 drawings as his entry in the competition. "If you think of a Gothic church, you are closer to what I have been aiming at" said Utzon.
Jørn Utzon was born in Copenhagen, Denmark on 9 April 1918 and was working on a housing estate in Denmark when he was awarded first prize for his entry for the Sydney Opera House on 29 January 1957. Utzon worked on the Sydney Opera House project until his resignation on 28 February 1966.
Utzon arrived in Australia for the first time July 1957 and returned to Denmark to work on the plans with the help of engineering firm Ove Arup and Partners of London. On 18 August 1958 the demolition of the tram sheds at Bennelong Point started.
On 2 March 1959 Premier Cahill and Utzon together laid the plaque. At Cahill's insistence work began on Stage 1, despite Utzon and Arup's protests that plans were not yet finalised. This was to be the start of many problems with the construction. On 22 October 1959 Premier Cahill died.
At this time, with construction beginning, Utzon's commission was changed. He now had to provide 4 theatres not 2.
Over the next 8 years over 350,000 hours of the Arup's company (the engineering firm) effort would be spent on the problem of the Opera House roof. Various concepts for the construction of the shells were tested between 1957 and 1961. A major problem was that the shapes didn't seem to fit a consistent pattern making prefabrication costly and time consuming.
" ... Utzon phoned from Copenhagen that he had solved the whole problem of pre- casting. It transpired that he had changed the whole shape of the shells by cutting each of them out of the same sphere ... the ribs follow meridian curves on spheres of the same radius ... ."
"The ribs could be divided into segments ... then assembled like a giant lego set" David Messent. Opera House act one.
"Each vault of the roof is made up of precast rib segments radiating from a concrete pedestal and rising to a ridge beam. The concrete shells are clad in chevron shaped tile-lids covered in a pattern of white glazed and matt tiles".
Ove Arup wrote: "This has been a difficult and unprecedented job ... We had to grope our way to a solution ... That some avenues were blind and others almost impenetrable was probably unavoidable. In this case we saw the light though the woods in another direction than the one we were going, and we believe the quickest way out is to change course".
In January 1962 the "spherical solution" was announced and it was approved in March and in October 1962 the Hornibrook Group was awarded the contract for the roof shells.
Sub-contracting for Stage 3 became an issue in 1964 with planning for the interiors of the Opera House well under way.
On 1 May 1965 a Liberal/Country Party Coalition Government was elected by a 2-seat majority, breaking a record 24-year term of Labour Government. Robin Askin assumed the office of Premier and Davis Hughes was appointed Minister for Public Works. Askin had promised to "do something about the escalating costs on Bennelong Point".
The architect insisted that there was only one company capable of producing a particular part of the roof. The politicians insisted it be put out for bid. Since they controlled funding for the project, the architect was slowly strangled by restrictions, postponements, and other power-grabs to the point that by February, 1966 Utzon resigned. Public debate raged and protesters demanded Utzon's return "in complete control".
Another argument broke out between the Australian Broadcasting Commission and the Elizabethan Theatre Trust (which eventually became the Australian Opera). The ABC wanted the acoustics to have a two-second reverberation -- suitable for broadcast. The opera needed a different period to keep from throwing the performers off. The solution was to tune the acoustics in the large hall for symphonies and the small hall for opera. While this didn't sit well with the ETT, the government had spoken and they had to live with it.
The problems weren't all political. After the foundation was laid, the roof support columns poured, and roof assembly started, it was discovered that those columns would not be sufficient to support the weight. Razing the site and starting again wasn't an option. So every day at 5:00pm demolition teams blew up the original columns and construction crews build larger ones in their place. Today there is no sign of the strife that marred one of the great buildings of the world. The Sydney Opera House has become an icon of a continent to the rest of the world. Its arches gracefully greet visitors from around the world, welcoming them to a progressive city without even hinting at the turmoil that nearly cost the building its very existence.
On April 19 1966 Hall, Todd and Littlemore were announced as the new architectural team for Stage 3.
There were still many problems to overcome in this part of the construction. The glass walls that enclose the northern and southern ends of the building proved a considerable problem and were extensively redesigned.
Nearing completion in 1973, Hornibrooks produced the following approximations of cost:
Stage 1 : podium - Civil & Civic P/L approx. $5.5m
Stage 2 : roof shells - M.R. Hornibrook (NSW) P/L approx. $12.5m
Stage 3 : completion - The Hornibrook Group $56.5m
Separate contracts: stage equipment, stage lighting and organ $9.0.m
Fees and other costs $16.5m
$100.0m
The final cost of the Sydney Opera House, excluding the organ was $102,000,000. The building was completely paid for by July 1975, mostly from proceeds of the Opera House Lottery.
May, 2002 - The state of New South Wales has approved spending millions to renovate the Opera House. The original architect will be involved in the work, but since he's 83-years-old, will not be able to travel to Australia to see his work completed.
Software: Over Budget, Overtime or Missing Features
No Plans Just A Concept
Much of the software that is developed is developed from a concept, with no plans. Often the project will start with a statement something like, "We need this by 1st August and its got to solve all our problems".
Often software projects start off like this. The client knows roughly what the software should do and they usually have an idea when they want it by. Sometimes they may even know what they can afford to pay for it. The fun part is making the concept, scope, time frame and budget line up.
When they decided to build the Opera House all they had was the concept idea Sydney needed an opera house. This was the basic concept. Someone came up with a more detailed concept that suited the basic concept. And from there they started to build.
Once they started to build, the scope changed and budget and time constraints began to take hold.
When you know what you want to build, its easier to plan for it, to scope it and to budget for it. I would go so far as to say that if you don’t know what you’re building you can’t plan, scope or budget it and yet in software development we constantly try to do this.
Scoping A Concept
A concept does not need to have a scope. It is just a concept. Within the concept the scope may be of varying sizes.
The initial concept of the opera house was for two concert halls. The concept changed as time went on
A concept cannot be scoped it has to be turned into a plan before the full scope can be determined. Once a plan is determined the scope of the project can be determined
Estimating A Concept
Budgeting A Concept
Start with Charles Dickens Quote on budgets
You cannot budget a concept. Sometimes we think we do however. We think that the amount of money we have to spend or would like to spend is a budget.
No a project budget is the amount of money that you estimate it will cost to deliver the items in the project plan. If the budget does not match up with the amount of money available, like Dickens said you are in misery. There are probably only two alternatives, build a smaller bridge or get a bigger budget.
There is a third alternative, build a bridge of poorer quality, with bridges we can't make that choice (unless its asthetic quality or the number of lanes on the bridge) but with software we sometimes can and often do make that choice.
References (for this incomplete version)
Sydney Opera House - References used to create this page
http://www.soh.nsw.gov.au/h/t_splash_fs2.html
Sydney Harbour Bridge - References used to create this page
http://www.bridgeclimb.com/history_frs.htm
http://www.sydney.com.au/bridge.htm
http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/hs_hb_sydney_harbour_bridge.asp
http://www.sydneyharbourbridge.info/ (Cool Pictures)
http://www.discoversydney.com.au/things/shb.html
© Jottie 2005
