Henry Petroski

Aleksandar S Vesic Professor of Civil Engineering and Professor of History Henry Petroski

Contends that modeling engineering designs solely on past successes and ignoring past missteps is a path toward eventual failure.

The Paradox of Design

Success Through Failure

Timeo Williams

"Failure and responses to it may not explain every aspect of every design, but from the engineering perspective of this book it is presented as a unifying theme for describing the functional evolution of things. "(9)

"Complex collections of things and our manipulation of and interaction with them are termed systems, which themselves are designed. We are embedded in systems of all kinds, some of which are obviously mechanical or electronic but many of which are also social and cultural. But as much as things change, what drives that change remains essentially the same. It follows that any specific thing or system illustrates the nature of design."(43)

"Innovation requires that you go beyond the known into the unknown, where there might be trap doors and blind alleys..... The quicker more mistakes are made, the quicker the maze is mapped."(65)

" Even the absence of a hardware vulnerability does not mean that the operation of a system is without risk. MRI testing is believed to be virtually perfectly safe, but under certain circumstances it can be deadly. Because of the strong electromagnet incorporated into the ten-ton machine, metal objects of all kinds are supposed to be absent from the examining room. ... And a boy being tested was killed when an oxygen tank, which for unknown reasons had been brought into the room, was pulled into the center of the machine and fractured his skull. Hospitals can be risky places, where seemingly the best-designed engines can surprise their engineers. "(94)

" No number of historic successes ever provides absolute insurance against future failure. Maker and user, let alone middleman, can have different expectations of what constitutes acceptable performance. Dissatisfied customers are thus the source of important feedback on designs to manufacturers."(107)

"Ironically, what limits the height of skyscrapers is not structural but mechanical. As buildings rise higher and higher, more and more elevators must be provided."(125) It was around the late 1920's that the Empire State Building was built, to be the tallest building with the largest amount of office space available. We also had the Tacoma Narrows bridge, with its failure mostly attributed to part of its name- it was too narrow. 

Conclusion- "Given the faults of human nature, coupled with the complexity of the design of everything, from lectures to bridges, it behooves us to beware of the lure of success and to listen to the lessons of failure."(194)

Success Through Failure The Paradox of Design

Reviews