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To Forgive Design : Understanding Failure by Henry Petroski; A O Sykes is a nonfiction available to read on EtoBox.

What is To Forgive Design : Understanding Failure about?

When planes crash, bridges collapse, and automobile gas tanks explode, we are quick to blame poor design. But Henry Petroski says we must look beyond design for causes and corrections. Known for his masterly explanations of engineering successes and failures, Petroski here takes his analysis a step further, to consider the larger context in which accidents occur. In __To Forgive Design__ he surveys some of the most infamous failures of our time, from the 2007 Minneapolis bridge collapse and the toppling of a massive Shanghai apartment building in 2009 to Boston's prolonged Big Dig and the 2010 Gulf oil spill. These avoidable disasters reveal the interdependency of people and machines within systems whose complex behavior was undreamt of by their designers, until it was too late. Petroski shows that even the simplest technology is embedded in cultural and socioeconomic constraints, complications, and contradictions. Failure to imagine the possibility of failure is the most profound mistake engineers can make. Software developers realized this early on and looked outside their young field, to structural engineering, as they sought a historical perspective to help them identify their

Who reads To Forgive Design : Understanding Failure?

Author

Henry Petroski; A O Sykes

Publisher

Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press

Published

2012

Language

EN

ISBN

9780674065437

Category

nonfiction

Subjects

Engineering, History, Science

Rating

3.44 / 5 (93 ratings)

Updated

2026-03-14