And it's 260 engineers to write 420 KLOC. This is why software is buggy; it's to expensive to make it not buggy.
The only difference is for most software projects it is acceptable to have "bugs" as customers will still pay for it, even if it's in a poor state of quality. But "bugs" in a 2,717 ft tower are unacceptable.
It comes down to, in general the cost of a bug in most software is relatively low compared to other engineering disciplines. Of course if the software is critical support systems for Astronauts that's a different story.
The point of engineering is to make a system that is resilient to a certain level of faults. That's why the tower doesn't collapse if there is a 0.1 mm crack in one of the bolts.
I was involved in a case with a turbine blade fracture. The user claimed that there must have been a flaw, and yes the crack must have started at a single atom sized crystal flaw in the meta. But the choice of alloy was such that the crack would have grown at a rate which means it was under the failure size for at least twice the inspection interval - where the customer missed it.
This doesn't mesh with my experience to be honest. I often come across code that contains nasty bugs but is still somehow working accidentally. And even more often, there are bugs that stop just one feature from working while the rest of a large system pretty much acts as if the bug didn't exist.
People have a tendency to overlook "bugs" in architecture because of the immutability of the medium. But once you start noticing that the HVAC is uneven on your floor, the hot water takes five minutes for ramp up in your office's break room and the conduit runs for networking are bizarre you start to understand that architects and builders run into design and implementation problems as well.
In fact they have their own word for patching. Renovations.
In my present house we cannot have the central air turned on in the downstairs toilet if we want heating to the smallest bedroom (the 'infant' room) upstairs. Similarly the basement air vent was so distant from the conduits that the main level essentially has a heated floor (hot air can be felt escaping through almost every gap in the basement ceiling except the air vent it's supposed to come out of. Similarly the plumbing is so unbalanced that the shower can essentially be turned off by a good configuration of tap turns and toilet flushes.
Architecture is a joke, and the 'engineers' who design them should really consider building a house themselves, because I've seen every crazy design from doors being hinged to trap people in the corner of a hallway (literally you'd have to step into the far corner to squeeze around the door to exit the bedroom), to lighting layouts that didn't illuminate the room, or switches completely impracticably placed.
You're entirely right, people overlook 'bugs' in architecture, although in my experience it's largely because of ignorance of what it being right is. How do you compare a poor plumbing design in your house? Do you run through your best friend's place screwing around with his sinks and toilets while he's in the shower?
It's easy to compare two software programs to find a less buggy option, however it's hard to compare two houses to find a less buggy option.
No, it's good economics. In commercial software development, after a certain point, the marginal benefit of fixing bugs divided by the marginal cost of doing so starts to exceed what the market will bear for consumer software. We literally get what we pay for when it comes to commercial software.
In fact, it's a bit of a shame we still haven't got how to make correct software, but it's no way impossible and should be getting cheaper by the day.
I think should is the important word here. It's not and we have nobody but ourselves to blame.