We all sat around and looked at this bridge that had been created around the 3rd Century BC. My colleague was a Yale grad and such a stickler for specifics about his various ideas that never really went anywhere in my opinion. He loved pointing out discrepancies in what he thought was incorrect with various structural and ground based engineering. It’s like his genius hindered him from really excelling in the field because even though his drafts/sketches and auto cad work was impeccable, he lacked realistic pervasive measures and implementation protocols that the General Contractors would actually take and work on. We both sat there in Germany and looked at this old rock of a dirt ramp so to speak and determined that using this foundation to create a newer more stable bridge would be a complete disaster if it wasn’t first leveled out properly and redesigned from the ground up. This project was made by an old steel mill company that had been in business in the area since the 15the century and there were completely against any type of demolition against this old relic because of how much they loved their countrymen’s heritage and land in this beautiful region of Berlin. After speaking with these Steel Mill owners whom we’d contracted with for this new design, I began to understand that we were dealing with some outlandish and unrealistic expectations to redesign a historical relic that had no shot in hell to be restored properly or to be maintained in some way shape or form without a demolition job straight out of the movie Iron Man. They truly believed that there was a way to restore the foundation in a sense where the old structural integrity of the bridge could remain in some way shape or form as if it were a little puzzle piece that would fit into a grand scheme planned art masterpiece. Looking at the schematics and recommendations they had suggested to us, all I could think about was the fact that we were dealing with a 2,000 year old bridge that had to be destroyed and cared for in some way shape or form in order to get this German Government ordered mandate out of the blocks and going as soon as possible. The deadline was in 18 months when it had to be fully restored or “completed” in a way that would make sense for heavy trucks and vehicles to be able to travel across this bridge regularly and daily due to the growing industries and storefronts popping up along the outskirts of the city. When the time came for us to begin the art work and drawings for what this thing would “actually” look like, my colleague says to me “they missed a few things with the structural integrity equation format that I had memorized when I was back at Yale. I just sat there and looked at him and thought “why didn’t I major in English Literature instead.” Puffff puff.