not on this building. when we see the window washing scaffolding thaings they hang off of. >> those are window washing davits. they have two motors. for that height, those guys are hooked to the basket. they're not on an independent line. and i have to do that occasionally. and the scary part is when you come down on a windy day, this building isn't like that, but that building, if they doesn't tie off, the rig will get sucked off the face of the building. and i've been on one of them where they've gone to the center of the street. and you're about 20 feet off, surfing in the wind, and generally the front is open. so you're holding on to the back rail, with about 20 feet in front of you. >> how does that make you feel? >> oh, i was not a happy camper. i got down on the ground and

kissed it. >> is that something you have to have a separately safety line for that thing? >> if they tie to the rig, they have to have more lines on the building running it up and down. so that's very heavily regulated by cal osha for safety concerns. >> and not by the city of san francisco. we don't regulate that at all. >> that was big in the regulating world. >> you have to clean buildings. >> they're swaying it inboard. as we would say. >> the original design for old buildings were, they would open up the window and there were these two bronze hooks. and the guy would hook himself up and hang on the outside of the building, close the window and wash the window from outside, hanging off these bronze hooks. now, there's no way i would do that but they found people to do it. >> why would people use bronze? it's not just corrosion

resistant, very highly corrosion resistant. >> it is a hard material. not soft like copper. >> on high rise we have cladding, this is from the outside of the building, very unusual. >> this is about four ircht incs thick. when they build this building, the bank said money is no object. so in most buildings you will see in san francisco, the veneer is 3 centimeters thick with a concrete backer. >> and then as you go up, you sort of get lower and lower grade visual material. >> here they said, we just want it all granite. the best. >> okay. if you look at this, this is incredibly heavy, right? it's attached to framing members, steel framing members with these little metal clips that are welded on. and the building code says that

this has to be -- and they recently changed the code. it used to be corrosion resistant. now it says corrosion resistant elements. >> from the 20s, 70 years old. >> are beginning to show corrosion elements, that means you have to come and take the panels and reconnect them to the building. so -- >> but this is primarily 1925 building stock. and do not be surprised in the next fives years there's a facade ordinance for the 1920 buildings, just like there's a facade ordinance in chicago and new york. ken will be talking about one of them soon. >> but we don't have the problems that new york and chicago have, with freeze/thaw, where you get water inside the cracks and it expands and pushes stuff up.

yeah, you had a question. >> i understand the building sways in high winds. and i want to know how structurally the buildings can accommodate that and how come the panels won't come off. >> all buildings sway in the wind and all buildings sway in the breeze. these panels are attached spernl so thaspecial sospecially. buildings grow and slink from summefrom-shrink from summer to winter. it's very difficult to do, but after a few of these buildings were built, 50 years ago, they figured out how to do it. >> and the same is true for the glazing as well. if the building sways in the wind or an earthquake the glazing can, also enough resilience that the glass doesn't hit anything. >> all buildings which sway.

the biggest thing though, is, you want to design a building to be stiff enough that your body does not perceive the motion. the designers of this building, the code required -- stop it -- the code desired, designs, one, drift allowance, and they doubled it. because again, the bank who was the original owner said, money's no object, we want a conservative blt. and so a lot of times said the code said x, they designed for two-x. so when i have to work on this building, because i'm not old enough to have designed it, i just have the pleasure of working on this building, is whenever i'm doing something on this building, it's so overdesigned that it's an easy building to work on. versus a building that just barrel met the code. -- barely met the code.

if you touch it, i've got to worry about this, i've got to worry about this. >> the financial strain of the building asked the designers and engineering to not overdesign, other than to meet the design of the codes. >> except for owner occupiers. >> they will say yes, we want to exceed that. but most of the case, people are meeting the minimum standards of the code. which we all have acknowledged is what society acceptance as a minimum standard -- accepts is a minimum standard. it is within margin. when you are looking at something that meets a minimum standard you're always looking right at the edge, you know, how can we correct this without getting it to go below the minimum standards, how can we do tenant improvement work to make sure it complies and continues to comply. >> because one of the things in the building is, tenants love to connect floors together. so they have their own private tenant spaces.

that's an engineering issue. the tenants love to have files. so if you design a code right to the minimum, the engineer me, has got to sharpen his pencil and do things. in buildings that were built for an owner who says we want a class a, well-designed building then it's a lot easier for me to do an valleys o evaluation of te building. this blid i building -- building is designed to life-load twice what the building was designed for. >> occasionally there are issues, somebody accommodation in with a huge load of equipment. they want to turn this into storage. >> jeenl problem, they sigh they need fire-safe files, and a fire-safe file, looks like they weigh about a thousand pounds. because they're filled with fire proofing. and those are where you start

scratching your head. >> okay, so we got into this topic about what people do in the spaces. what we're looking at here is sort of raw space right now. the building owns the space and then they lease it out and then a tenant comes in and does what weem call tenant improvement work. so what he we have here is a big raw space. the tenant comes in and says i want to lease this space. they typically can lease a whole floor or a piece of it. with the designer they lay things out. how do we get out, whethe wheree exits? >> generally the exits are at the tremendous end of the building and so the issue is, do you have a corridor to tie those exits together? or do you not have a corridor, because it's one big tenant space. >> with a big room you request see the exit. >> you are going to need a walkway with those low-rise

folding partitions. >> what's interesting, if you look at the concrete floor, see what this rests all the difbts in thdivotsin the floor? there was a metal track that formed the corridor. you could follow along, see where the walls used to be. there's a wall right there. and they put the wall in by putting a little metal track and shooting it into the concrete. how would they attach -- what would they do for a ceiling in here? >> they would have to rub it all the way to the top because this corridor has to be fire protected corridor. everything on this side, they would run it up to the ceiling, they would hang it down, they would attach the top of the wall to the braced ceiling. >> you have to have everything braced for earthquakes. >> can you see a great -- you can see a brace line here.

this is part of the sprinkler line. can you see two braces that is going to make sure this line is not going to move in an earthquake. the bath rooms are generally in the core. when they do ti buildouts, they remodel in the core. this may have been the women's bathroom and you'll see the men's bathrooms. if you're on this side you don't have to walk all the way around the entrance. they have a door on both sides. >> any time you want to do any work on high-rise buildings you have these issues, which include disabled access, energy, security -- i don't know what -- >> i think the hardest thing is probably the bathroom issue. it really is. you're looking at a space right here you've got the building

core on that wall and you've got the building core on this wall. which may be an elevator shaft and a smoke shaft. >> and they aren't moving. >> all of a sudden we have all these new requirements. this is a pretty big issue. so you've got other requirements, how many bathrooms, how many toilet stalls you need to have. here we've got a whole bunch of requirements in a really small space. so what do you do? >> how do you nor normally resoe that? >> hardship. >> comply with specific letter of the code. if you can't comply with specific letter of the code then we try and figure out a way that reasonably allows access. disabled access takes precedence over how many things. if you can ma make one accessible, make one accessible. >> so if the code says five and disabled access says you can only get in four then you file

for a hardship and say i'll put four in. but in a case like this there are almost always solutions. here's an exarnl where you -- example where you only go outside. depending on your creativity, the easiest method is to claim hardship. >> i want everyone to notice that on the exact diagonal of where we were just a few minutes ago is an exit sign. that's the second exit. every one of these buildings has at least two exits. that's a requirement. i believe this building actually has three. but at a minimum, you must have two exits that are separated by half a diagonal of the building. and they'll have a sign, and that's a rated corridor, and it goes all the way down half the plaza level all the way down to the concourse level to a corridor that goes up some stairs and puts you right on

pine street. >> okay. let's look at the pipes that are hang up in the ceiling, see if we can identify what they are and what they're used for. brad, you can help me. the first thing, and we were talking about it a middle ago, are some smaller ones, like this guy over my head, fire sprinkler lines. this building and buildings of its kind are fully splirchg intg letter. >intrirchgsprinklered. >> there are two different kinds of electrical basically that we're talking about. we have the line voltage stuff, the stuff that runs equipment and lights and so on. and then we have signal stuff. >> low voltage. >> low voltage. for example, the stuff that's serving this little light here, which is part of the alarm

system has its own separate conduit. the same conduit is protected, very necessary in high rise buildings. >> if you're smart you can see the junction box painted red as well so that you can identify it. the one thing is when you're working on the inside of a space you never want to touch the life safety system wires because as soon as you touch those wires accidentally, fire department shows up. and they're not going to be happy. you get a couple, and then they start to charge you. i think they thought about it. >> after five, that's the. you've got five warnings. >> these pipes here are probably the biggest sewer drain pipes that we've ever seen. this is draining sewer from for example -- >> it may or may not. >> you can see the branches come across and drop into the main,

most likely it goes straight down. i think there may be a dual pipe system here for a reason. what we've got the other side there -- >> one may be roof water and one may be sewer water. depending on how they want to do it. >> but san francisco is unique that way too, where even though there are separate pipes right here, they go into the same sustain, eventually. >> we take our groundwater and put it into our sewer treatment system and then require us to treat the rainwater, as the sewage. so if you ever look at your water bill, it will be $25 for the water you bought, and $75 to treat that water. and the reason it is, is because you're paying to treat all the rainwater that goes into the storm system, that goes into the sewage system. >> okay, let's see, what else do we have? >> how come the sprinkle springe

turning up? >> that's the way it is now. when they put the ceiling, they may have to put another sprinkler system. if you were to put a ceiling in, you'd have to sprinkler above and below. but nobody knows the height of the ceiling. so the last thing you want to do is put a sprinkler head in pointing down which you really don't need because these heads will fully sprinkler. >> there's actually a lot of expense from taking a tenant space from one use, demoing it, and preparing it for the next time you're going to lease it out. you actually have an expense where you have to alter the sprinklers to be able to support the way the system is now. and then when the tenant comes in you've got another tenant improvement. to have the exit signs working, during the courts of demolition

they wanted to make sure that the workers could get out in an emergency. there is a whole system to making sure that you keep the life safety codes in place while you're doing the de demolition. >> even if a house is mountain, shs. >> that light will remain on 24/7 and the smoke detectors are on. >> the one thing we didn't talk about is the trench here. >> that's getting a little high-tech. >> is that getting a little high-tech? >> we can explain if you want. in certain classes of buildings, who have what i consider sophisticated owners, they have put in electrified floor and they can lift up the steel plate here, and there is a trench here with wire trenches going out this way. and so they can come in and say, i want an electrical outlet

right there where your foot is. and they can open up this plate, run a wire down a sleeve, drill a hole where you're standing, and pop utd a wire -- up a wire, and never go down to the tenant below. they're called monuments. well, here's one. here is a monument. here they are. when they're done and the tenant moves out, they fill these in. at one time, there was a power plug here. and this is where people want to have buildings with the ultimate flexibility. but there's a premium to that. >> there is, yes. >> and there's tradeoffs. you can either pay now or pay later. >> that's right. imagine drilling, going underneath a floor drilling a hole and bringing up a pipe for every single outlet. >> and it all has to be in conduit. you've got to pop the ceiling

down and run this. >> whereas a beautiful space,. >> hard wood ceilings. >> how about the electronics, wiring? >> electronic and low voltage wiring and all the other. >> all the wiring is in the core. we're not going to be loued to go in there -- allowed to go in there. the amount of power that comes into the building is mind-boggling. generally in the core and then taps off. >> when you say electronics you mean for the tenants themselves, all their telephone lines and computer lines. that's becoming a really big problem not just high rise but all buildings. it's a huge amount of wiring and the tenant moves out and you're left with all the wiring. the cost to the landlord is to remove this wiring. >> that's why it's nice to have a trench. but if you don't have the trench

system then you just go overhead. it's pretty simple. you go to the electrical closet. you pull the wires, you go overhead, into your ceiling and drop down into your walls. almost everything you do you're trying to do overhead. that's what's great about the sooilg ceiling systems and the tall floor systems. >> the problem with that is you have to have your walls run all the way up. and in some spaces what they like is they want their partition wall here and then the entire space to be those four-foot-high partition walls. >> actually there is a code requirement that says if the partition walls are over four feet nine inches, if it's over that it forms a corridor wall. so everyone wants to ceeb it less than that. >> then you can't bring the power down. >> there is a little -- >> you get around it you make a

tunnel for it. >> so you can get your fire rating. you can maintain the egress and the one-hour ratings to get out, you simply make a tunnel, looks like an n upside down, you make the whole thing one hour rated, and run your duct through. >> is there anything else -- >> i do have this question. >> let's talk about all the rest of the rest of bits and pieces. >> these are probably what you would call a black iron strut, and they were popped off the wall so that they could build a stud wall in front of it. and they just bent them down to keep them out of the way. >> it was some structure it was holding up. what do we have here? >> copper water lines, water, potentially there was a fountain here. this is a sewer vent of some kind. this may have been --

>> like an abandoned water. >> like water or gas or something. sewer. >> do they have gas in the ceiling? >> some do. >> want to see how a plaster wall is made? the black of the plaster wall is expanded metal lath and then it's plastered on the other side, in a couple of different layers, not just one. >> to give you an idea of the strength can, this is really strong. and it is cut in half, and i'm i'ming on it. >> we just did some earthquake testing over at u.c. berkeley and it turns out that it is the assembly of things that adds a lot of things to it. the individual segments may not be that strong, the lath, the plaster, but when you put things together you get very strong in summary. >> this thing part's got to come up, we came up the freight

elevator. this is the main elevator. so in this building, there are four elevator bank. and each bank services a quarter of the building. you don't want to get in on an elevator, and have 52 floor buttons. when they create high rise buildings they create elevator banks and break the building up into sections or quadrants. and this elevator services 1 to 14. there are other elevator banks but the they bypass these floors, service 15 through 28. another elevator bank services other floors. what is interesting is, on these super-tall buildings, since the

elevator takes up so much space, they have a superelevator that takes you from the first floor to the 50 floor lobby. and they've moved the lobby up higher up into the building, and then they redistribute you. because the elevators take up so much space in the building, and -- >> there's a whole new elevator control industry that's in play, that's coming underway? where they have offered intelligent design of elevators. >> intelligent design. i've heard about them, where you've got different people on different floors pressing different buttons at different times. the computer system is analyzing where the people are and picking up the best way to deliver people. >> there's some disabled access issues about people in wheelchairs have to wait for certain other elevators but

we'll get over that disabled access. >> the other thing that is interesting is that the elevators will call you for your floor. you put your card up to the elevator, and it brings an elevator down, and says get into elevator number l, you step into elevator number l and there's no floor button to push. it's already been preprogrammed that your security pass is going to take you to floor 13. >> we had a question about how this and other buildings perform in earthquakes. i know that the transamerica pyramid, i think it was instrumented and i keep reading that it drifted a foot in the loma prieta earthquake. doesn't seem like much to me. how do these buildings perform in seismic events? >> historically no modern

high-rise building has ever collapsed in a major event except for one building in mexico city where it was designed as an office building and the government converted it to a book warehouse. and they filled the floors up this high with paper. which effectivelily mad effectie building three times heavier than it should be. as a class, these buildings are probably some of the best buildings you could be in. >> but there was an interesting anomaly that came up as a result of the northridge earthquake in los angeles in the '90s. that was the welded steel joints which we up to that point thought were absolutely terrific, allowed a lot of movement, turned out to not just fail but to be weaker than we thought, to crack. there was an enormous effort

coming forward, to figure out how this happened, how to prevent that in the future. >> part of the problem with those, the city has an ordinance on a certain size earthquake is that you will come out and inspect the welded joints. >> a welded joint is one of the places where the beam and the column -- >> this particular building has been instrumented andettes been reviewed by the author of the northridge report. >> instrumented means there is seismic motion instruments so as the building sways it can record what the duration is and what the forces are. >> this building's response was this building was so conservatively designed, you couldn't believe how conservatively designed it was. that was one of the authors of

the northridge report. >> some buildings are not as sceflconservatively designed. >> they changed the design of the buildings after northrich. the two connecting the beam is now kind of tapered in a little bit. >> dog boned. >> dog bones in a building. so we expect most high rise buildings to perform quite well. some of them will have a lot of investigation to do. >> well, the biggest issue would be glass. in general, if you're downtown, stay in the buildings. the buildings are perfectly safe. the biggest issue is probably -- well, my mind is, that's my office. >> you're a whole lot safer in the building. >> my life, ten hours a day seven days a week in that building. that building is a brunier building, same gieg who designed this building. for 40 years this guy was

brilliant. so i'm in a 27 building. i'm staying in the building. i don't want to be on the street because i don't want to be can climbing through the glass. stay in the building. if you're in the street and there's an earthquake, jump into the building. thereto going to be a lot of things falling. >> who knows what's going to be falling? we've seen that a lot. >> are there any other questions? >> older high rises are not required to make special let retrofit? >> there is no requirement for any retrofit except for brick buildings in san francisco. some older high rises dopose a potential problem. those are the ones that are not steel but concrete buildings. older concrete buildings. >> that's a problem that we haven't quite greapsd politically. becae