Qualla: Collapse of the Space Building https://qualla.com/collapse-of-the-space-building en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:12 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/d/3/4/7/collapse-of-the-space-building-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Collapse of the Space Building https://qualla.com/collapse-of-the-space-building Collapse of the Space Building: Introduction https://qualla.com/collapse-of-the-space-building/ Photo credit Tecsie, CC BY-SA 4.0. The residents of Tower 6 had been told to leave. The day before, on October 11, 2013, someone had noticed a column failing on one of the lower floors of the Space Building, a residential complex in El Poblado, one of Medellin's wealthiest neighborhoods. Workers from the CDO construction company were sent in to repair the damage. They were still working when, at 8:20 PM on October 12, all twenty-four floors of Tower 6 pancaked into the ground. Twelve people died -- eleven construction workers and one resident who had not yet evacuated. The building had been completed just months earlier.

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Image: Tecsie | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/3/4/7/collapse-of-the-space-building-wp/d347-collapse-of-the-space-building-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Collapse of the Space Building: A Structure Built on Miscalculation https://qualla.com/collapse-of-the-space-building/ Photo credit Tecsie, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Space Building sat at Carrera 24 D in El Poblado, on a hillside in Medellin's comuna 14. Built by Lerida CDO between 2006 and 2013, the complex consisted of six interconnected towers, or 'stages,' each with a different number of floors and basements. Stage 6, the last to be c...

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Image: Tecsie | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/3/4/7/collapse-of-the-space-building-wp/d347-collapse-of-the-space-building-a-structure-built-on-miscalculation.mp3 0:06 2 full Collapse of the Space Building: The Warning Signs Nobody Heeded https://qualla.com/collapse-of-the-space-building/ Photo credit Tecsie, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Space complex had shown signs of distress long before the collapse. In August 2013, just two months before the disaster, engineers identified differential settlement problems -- meaning the foundation was sinking unevenly -- and attempted to shore up the building's base. Othe...

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Image: Tecsie | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/3/4/7/collapse-of-the-space-building-wp/d347-collapse-of-the-space-building-the-warning-signs-nobody-heeded.mp3 0:06 3 full Collapse of the Space Building: The Domino That Kept Falling https://qualla.com/collapse-of-the-space-building/ Photo credit Tecsie, CC BY-SA 4.0. After Tower 6 collapsed, the entire Space complex was evacuated. The Mayor's Office of Medellin hired the Universidad de los Andes to investigate, and their conclusion was blunt: the building's columns lacked the structural capacity to support the loads they bore under normal con...

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]]> Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/3/4/7/collapse-of-the-space-building-wp/d347-collapse-of-the-space-building-the-domino-that-kept-falling.mp3 0:06 4 full Collapse of the Space Building: Accountability and the Law That Followed https://qualla.com/collapse-of-the-space-building/ Photo credit Tecsie, CC BY-SA 4.0. The National Professional Engineering Council of Colombia, known as COPNIA, spent three and a half years investigating the people responsible for the building's design, review, and construction. The structural designer, Jorge Aristizabal, and the structural reviewer, Edgar Ardila...

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]]> Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/3/4/7/collapse-of-the-space-building-wp/d347-collapse-of-the-space-building-accountability-and-the-law-that-followed.mp3 0:06 5 full