The Origin of Exposure C

Today in structures we talked about wind load in designing buildings. Wind load is essentially how much the wind pushes against a building. It is defined in the UBC (universal building code) in a complex equation based on five wind variables. The newer code, the IBC (international building code) has an even more bizzare way of calculating the wind load. Anyway, one of the variables in the calculation is based on the exposure of the site, ranked A-D. A apparently no longer exists, as it's never used in the real world. In magical A land, the structure is surrounded by massive towers on every side so no wind can get through at all. B is a standard urban setting, and D is out by the shoreline, where its really windy. The highter the exposure rating, the more stringent the code and the stronger the building has to be.

Urban Phoenix is inexplicably designated class C exposure, which is equivilant to the open plain with no buildings around. When our structures teacher inquired as to why this was, the planners told him ( I am not making this up) it was becasue what if all the other buildings around the building fell down.

Anyway, thought that was kind of funny. Got a busy weekend lined up.