Why some opposing architects do not take measurements or carry out tests on the damage
We have sometimes expressed our surprise that some technical professionals who prepare reports for the opposing side do not need to take measurements of any kind, or make calculations or analyses, or fit crack monitors, for example, and yet conclude in their reports that there is no damage – damage that we have identified, on the basis of photographing it extensively and fitting crack monitors, monitoring and reviewing them.
What is more, they apparently – and never was a phrase more apt – need only their eyes, without taking any measurements and without fitting crack monitors, to say that they have not seen any damage. And not only that: they sometimes go further, dismissing the measurements taken and branding them unscientific and potentially manipulated.
We have always said that experts of this kind feel, or believe themselves to be, part of the scientific community, but it should be made clear that architects are not scientists. Science is one thing and Technique is another. And technique must tackle problems whose scientific treatment would be unmanageable.
Technically, an empirical method consisting of fitting crack monitors is accepted and, since the results of these breaks or separations vary greatly, a second empirical method consisting of a particular statistical treatment of the results is also accepted.
These empirical methods have worked so well that the current standards have adopted them as the technical procedure for determining movement and the progression of damage in a building.
Technical professionals must make decisions based on measurements, not on sensory impressions, even if scientifically those measurements are not perfect, or are even debatable.
If technical professionals, professors, scientists or lecturers find this procedure abhorrent, let them offer alternative solutions, other than their telepathic insights into the damage to structures and partition walls, which is easily observable by those of us who do not have so many years of innate knowledge.
But what is more – and this is the paradox – some technical professionals are seriously bothered by the fitting of crack monitors and try to discredit their fitting, evolution, observation and the objectivity of the measurement results by unspeakable means.
In Technique, when a problem is discussed, measurements are taken, and things are analysed and measured. There is no chatting or criticising. Do it yourself in your own case, and tell me where I have gone wrong.
Fortunately, along those lines, judges are increasingly criticising in their judgments this passive attitude with scientific airs, which, by coincidence, is widespread and always ends up finding that there is no damage in the buildings of their colleagues that they have examined.
Any questions?