Industrial parks can spring up overnight around here, and during the boom times it seemed that you could sprinkle a few concrete seeds in an empty lot, add water, and instantly grow raw square footage ready for the cubicle installers. Tilt-ups are the weeds of which I speak. These rapidly built, but artistically maligned buildings are now prettied up with decorative flourishes and used for museums and churches. Tilt-up construction is just that. After the floor is poured, the concrete walls are formed on-site and tilted-up. It’s fast and the logistics are simple. But does easy up mean easy down? The results of Northridge (400 tilt-ups out of 1,200 damaged) and Loma Prieta on tilt-up construction was disturbing. Modern steel-frame buildings have a better safety record. The connectors between the tilt-up walls and roofs are key. Older tilt-ups used nailed wooden connectors. Newer building codes require steel connectors, and even those codes have been recently enhanced for stronger steel. Some tilt-ups have been retrofitted, but not all will be. It appears that we may have to wait for architectural evolution to take its course. (Also check out tilt-up.org with its top ten construction list. Largest square footage? 1,650,000 square feet, Rooms-To-Go Distribution Center, Lakeland, FL. Tallest panel? 91′ 7¼” Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, Nassau Bay, TX.)