UW News

February 28, 2012

News Digest: Friedman honored for social impact, Husky Stadium collapse recalled

News and Information

Batya Friedman

Batya Friedman

Friedman is known for value sensitive design, which considers human values in designing information systems. She and a team of researchers, legal experts and videographers created “Voices from the Rwanda Tribunal,” believed to be the first collection of stories from lawyers, judges, interpreters and other professionals who have served on a war crimes tribunal.

Friedman will deliver a talk on her work as part of receiving the award in Austin this May.

Photographer  recalls 1987 stadium collapse with extraordinary photos
When the north stands of Husky Stadium collapsed while under construction 25 years ago, on Feb. 25, 1987, UW photographer and lecturer John Stamets just happened to be nearby. He reached up and shot a nine-image sequence of this famous accident that ran in University Week and has been widely seen and praised ever since.

Stamets will discuss these events and present a slide show of photographs at 6 p.m. today, Feb. 28, in Room 322 of Gould Hall, and the public is invited.

Stamets will relate the event as he saw it and discuss the cause of the accident. He will also show photos and discuss two other major construction accidents that he has witnessed: the 1991 collapse of Hammering Man during installation at the Seattle Art Museum, and the 2002 mid-air disintegration of a large rebar curtain at the Seattle Central Library. A common thread links the three.

The lecture will also include samples of Stamets’ construction photography from 1988 to 2012, including his current projects documenting the construction of the new South Park Bridge and the Bullitt Center for Sustainable Design & Construction.