There have been plenty of civil cases against designer over the years , for all manner of carelessness . But , today , an extremely rarified vicious case was decided : An architect was sentenced to a year in LA county jail after plead no contest to the manslaughter of a firefighter who died while stress to check a fervor in a home the architect had project for himself .
The event dates back to 2011 , when a fire burst out in the Hollywood Hills house of a German designer named Gerhard Becker , who designed the building himself . The ardor start in one of four fireplaces that had been manufacture for outdoor use but hidden within the houses itself ; this means they were in clean-cut violation of local building codification .
The flaming then melted a pee tobacco pipe , which leak G of gallons of water into a ceiling above the head of the firefighter battling the fervidness . When the ceiling collapsed , it crushed 61 - class - onetime Glenn Allen , who died the next twenty-four hour period of his injuries .
Beckerallegedlyhad the fireplace installed after the mansion had cleared its review , committal to writing , “ I want this to be install after the final inspection so we do n’t have any final delays by the inspector . ”
Inan in - depth gaming - by - playof the court case from March , LA Weekly describes Becker ’s less - than - ruthful behavior after the fire , which belike did n’t do much to endear him to the populace :
Becker was interviewed by fire investigator , but two month after they last spoke to him , he broke the lease on his domicile , sell two vehicles and flew to Switzerland and then Spain , where he get down to build another lavishness home . There he define up construction companies in the name of his wife , a yoga instructor , researcher sound out .
It ’s extremely rare for an architect to be convicted in a felonious font of negligence , although it was much more vulgar in earlier century , before the advent of legit standardised building code . These Day , it ’s far more likely for a client to process for civil price lead cheapjack twist or a delayed project . For model , Santiago Calatrava iscurrently being suedfor terms by his hometown of Valencia , whose eight - twelvemonth - old opera house is already crumbling .
One high profile instance that could ’ve , theoretically , turned into a criminal case involved a shootingat a Frank Gehry - designed edifice at Case Western in 2003 . Some wondered whether the complexity of the building ’s layout play a function in forbid victim from easily scarper . That question , however , like most others , involved too many other divisor to place the blame exclusively on design . But , in the case of Becker , who intentionally mislead building inspector and endanger 80 fire-eater , belt down one , the rap is clear .
It ’ll be interesting to see how this case will serve as a precedent in the future . allot to Curbed , the house is back on the market place . [ The New York Times ]
Architecture
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