The Sydney Opera House (SOH) is a top tourist attraction and landmark for Sydney

Question

The Sydney Opera House (SOH) is a top tourist attraction and landmark for Sydney and all of Australia. It is a major arts center, although, owing to its design, it is not necessarily the best place to hear opera. The SOH is visually spectacular and a magnificent structure, but it was nightmare to design and build. The original concept for the SOH was a sketch submitted by Danish architect, Jorn Utzon. Judges selected it from an open competition that ended with 233 entries from 11 countries. Though happy to win, Utzon was mildly shocked. The concept that had caught the judges' attention consisted only of simple sketches, with no plans or even perspective drawings. Utzon faced the challenge of converting the sketches into a design from which a structure could be built, but he had no prior experience in designing and constructing such a large building. Because there were no plans, detailed drawings, or estimates of needed materials, there was little on which to base cost estimates. No one knew how it would be built; some experts questioned that it could be built at all. (Interestingly, because the design was so very different, and unique, some people thought it would also be inexpensive to build.) The initial cost was estimated at $7 million, to be paid by the government through profits from a series of state-run lotteries. Engineers reviewing the concept noted that the roof shells were much larger and wider than any shells ever built. Further, because they stuck up so high, they would act like sails in the strong winds blowing up the harbor. Thus, they would have to be carefully designed and constructed to prevent the building from blowing away! Government managers worried that people scrutinizing the design might raise questions about potential problems and stall the project. They thus quickly moved ahead and divided the work into three main contracts: the foundation and building except the roof, the roof, and the interior and equipment. As experts had warned, the SOH project became an engineering and financial debacle, lasting 15 years and costing $107 million ($100 million over the initial estimate). Hindsight is 20/20, yet from the beginning this should have been viewed as a risky project. Nonetheless, risks were downplayed or ignored, and little was done to mitigate or control them.

Question: What early actions should have been taken to identify risks? Please focus on project initiation and project planning phases in the project lifecycle and consider the four risk identification tools that are the topics of this week: Expert Interviews, Documentation Reviews, Analogy Comparisons, and Plan Evaluations. Please provide a paragraph for each tool describing specific techniques you would have used and potential outcomes (outputs). Specifically, please explain how you would have used each tool and what specific risks would have been identified.

Explanation / Answer

Expert Interviews

As the account tells, when Jorn Utzon submitted the entry, not a lot of work had gone behind it in terms of conceptualizing the same in the form of a blueprint. In the same competition, there were close to 233 entries, many of which were from eminent architects. Understanding fully well the appeal of the preliminary diagrams, the commissioning panel should have interviewed the top 5 or 6 architects of the time such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius, Ludwig Rohe and such to discuss the feasibility of such a structure.

Possible Outcome: A structured way to approach and conceptualize the building structure. This could have given the next level of detailed diagrams which in turn could possibly give the blue print to the actual construction.

Documentation Reviews

A critical part of architectural science is the presence of drawings that give a structure to the monument on paper. This proves as a starting point for various contractors, site planners and engineers for the project. Since the entry was nothing more than preliminary diagrams, the British engineering consultancy company Ove Arup and Partners gave out tenders without the necessary diagrams in place. This could have been avoided if appropriate architectural diagrams were solicited first from Utzon.

Possible Outcome: In the absence of a blueprint, the construction initiation phase itself got delayed by a year. And with time delays, come escalated costs. All such implications could have been avoided.

Analogy Comparisons

This is a stage where similar architectural marvels are selected and analyzed what challenges they faced during the planning and construction phases. Several buildings from the 1950s to 60s era could have been analyzed. Alsancak Hocazade Mosque is one such example from Izmir, Turkey.

Possible Outcome: Sharing of learnings could have been used to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the current project and risk mitigation could have been done more effectively.

Plan Evaluations

In this stage all the risks are gathered and evaluated and risk mitigation activities are collated and planned.

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