WSU Chemistry Building

I was telling a friend of mine who teaches chemistry at WSU about my experience with the intimidating hazard diamond this past Sunday and he got a big smile on his face and asked, "Did you see the blast wall?"

Blast wall?  

From what Kevin says, they keep all the really dangerous stuff in a separate closet on the exterior of the building.  They've built the outside wall so that it is structurally weaker than the others and then, about a foot or so away from that wall, poured a huge concrete wall.  The thinking is that if something goes wrong and those chemicals explode, the weak wall will blow out and direct all the force into the concrete blast wall.

I have a class in the chemistry building so on my way there I snapped this picture:

Right next to the white rain gutter you can see the "crumple zone" as it were for the building.