There was an apartment on the very top of one off those New York high rise towers valued at $250,000,000 if any GetBigger is interested.
And a very expensive and similar San Francisco high rise building is slightly leaning to the SE which they tried to repair .... but only made it slightly worse.
Kind of strange that you are allowed to build any structure over 12 feet tall atop the world's biggest faultline ...... the SAN ANDREAS.
I agree that building a tower on bad soil is a terrible idea.
But it's almost impossible to design for all the failure data when you are being asked by the client to shave off cost.
When i engineered structures in soft soils near the Gulf of Mexico, i designed them so robust it was impossible to fail. And the client went nuts over the cost, but 20 years later the buildings are standing firm, with almost zero settlement.
All the buildings nearby that were built at that time and even more recently are settling bad; they are spending hundreds of thousands to repair them or reinforce them after the fact.
Value engineering can have setbacks. You either pay up front or on the back end.
Not all engineers are equal, many will bend over when they are asked to cut cost.
The good ones stand their ground and build masterpieces.
