Conceptually...

Not many textbooks speak about the design failures at length, perhaps, due to the design failure of the textbooks itself.

"While errors can occur at all the design stages, fundamental errors made at the conceptual stage remain the most elusive", says Petroski.

Paconius, in the 1st century, went bankrupt moving a large massive stone pedestal by making what seemed to him slight cost saving design changes to an established approach. He was tasked to shift a large stone pedestal from its quarry to the temple of Apollo at Selinous.

Few ideas spring from nothing like magic. However, in case of Paconius, it had its priors. Cherisphron had done it earlier. His son Metagene did it too. They both used the circular columns as wide wheels by fitting with pivots into the cut-out centre either side of the stone. It cruised easily through soft grounds & was easier to pull. 

Metagene made a leap forward by using the rectangular columns as axles. The ends were wound around with wooden frames. 

However, Paconius came out with a different idea to move the giant circular column. He didn't want to damage the ends of the column & nor did he want to extend frames from it. The reasons behind his decision was discussed in the book "The Ten books of Architecture" by Roman Vitruvius in the 1st century. One of the major reasons was, the pedestal was to mount with its top end exposed. So he didn't want to mar the stone.

Hence he improved the design of Metagene by connecting the two wheels with cross bars to make a great wooden spool. He then made his oxen to pull the rope wrapped around the spool. When Paconius began the parade, the spool didn't roll straight. It started swaying away as it went along. Paconius also had to stop often to wind the rope. Finally the approach didn't work the way he had conceived.

Paconius had apparently thought that the new concept would give him twice the moment as that of earlier design in which the force was applied at center of the columns. He also saved the cost w/o making pivots which needed skillful technicians. To save the ends of the pedestal the wooden wheels could have been extended outward to carry pivots. However it is likely that there would been narrow streets on his way to the temple. Thus his plan ended unsuccessfully & he became insolvent. 

Fast forward to year 2000. Similar conceptual mistakes brought a great embarrassment to a construction company which built the London's Millennium Bridge. In an attempt to build an innovative blade of light structure, the engineers didn't consider the effect of the synchronous lateral excitation due to which the bridge started wobbling on its grand opening day on 10 June 2000. Londoners nicknamed it the Wobbly Bridge.

The same cognitive mistakes made 3000 years ago or 300 years ago or 30 years ago will likely to be repeated even today. For, the current design processes haven't fundamentally changed in 3000 or 300 or 30 years.

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