engineering

Scanlan Building

Scanlan Building is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Scanlan Building rather than just read about it. In short: The Scanlan Building is a building in Downtown Houston. History The building was first envisioned by Thomas Howe Scanlan, two-time mayor of Houston, to be built on the property he owned at Main and Preston streets.

Key takeaways

Scanlan Building belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Scanlan Building to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Scanlan Building from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Scanlan Building is a building in Downtown Houston.

History The building was first envisioned by Thomas Howe Scanlan, two-time mayor of Houston, to be built on the property he owned at Main and Preston streets. After his death in 1906, his seven daughters built the building as a memorial to him. Approximately 85 feet by 101 feet, the building was among the first in Houston to use a fireproof steel skeleton. The Scanlan Building, located at 405 Main Street in Houston, Texas, is an eleven-story, 76,403sq.ft building completed in 1909. Built on the site of the first official home of the president of the Republic of Texas, it was the first building of its size and type to be designed by a major national architect to be built in Houston, and set the style for future construction in the area. It is the only known office building in Houston which was designed by D.H. Burnham & Company of Chicago. The building was the first to be built higher than ten stories, breaking the limit preferred by Houston developer Jesse H. Jones. D. H. Burham & Company started work on the Scanlan Building just after the Columbian Exhibition of 1893. The steel-frame building was built in the Chicago style, with an L-shaped inner structure, permitting ventilation to the interior of the building. Facial details were restricted to the street sides of the building. Above the ground floor, all floors had an identical plan, with halls with offices on both sides, and one outer executive suite, including an interior office separated from the corridor by a receptionist office. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 23, 1980.

Current use Workspace provider Novel Coworking purchased the Scanlan Building in June 2014 and renovated the building's interior to provide private offices and co-working space for entrepreneurs and small businesses that need flexible, short-term workspace. As of February 2024, the owners, Level One, a subsidiary of Expansive (a renaming of Novel), defaulted on its loan due in November 2023. The Scanlan Building was scheduled for foreclosure auction in March 2024.

See also National Register of Historic Places listings in Harris County, Texas

References

Bibliography Bradley, Barrie Scardino (2020). Improbable Metropolis: Houston's Architectural and Urban History. Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-1-4773-2019-8.

External links Media related to Scanlan Building at Wikimedia Commons

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Scanlan Building

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Scanlan Building claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Scanlan Building before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Scanlan Building ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Scanlan Building

In research: Scanlan Building appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Scanlan Building in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Scanlan Building is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1909 establishments in Texas, Buildings and structures completed in 1909, Buildings and structures in Houston, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Scanlan Building outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Scanlan Building in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Scanlan Building means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Scanlan Building out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Scanlan Building in simple terms?

The Scanlan Building is a building in Downtown Houston. History The building was first envisioned by Thomas Howe Scanlan, two-time mayor of Houston, to be built on the property he owned at Main and Preston streets.

Why does Scanlan Building matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Scanlan Building?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Scanlan Building.