Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
judge, then iterate.
That is design. The brief itself cannot help
but be woven into the design process, as it is often hard for
the client to capture a clear expression of the need first time.
Logically, the brief needs to be an iterative project in itself.
You can go further with this diagram and use it at both macro
and micro scales. Each and every part of a project can be treated
as its own little project, with a similar set of activities, so the
anchor diagram has little piggy-back projects emerging at every
stage. It is good to know that there is the opportunity for creative
conceptual thinking even in the meat of a project. For example,
there is conceptual complexity in the design of a temporary
works scheme, or perhaps fine judgement required to choose
the detailed proposition for a joint between two pieces of steel-
work. I once remember spending a day with an architect trying
to work out a way to join together two tubes on a steel staircase.
We eventually took inspiration from the way a cylinder head is
bolted onto the engine block of a 1930s racing car and came up
with what we will always think of as our 'Bugatti detail'.
I have been asked many times to teach people how to be
better at conceiving ideas, but can only offer the advice that a
good concept arises from your life experience integrated with
the immediate project context. So to be better at conceptual
work it is well worth trying to develop your skills of judgement
and cultivate your experience to help you avoid the obvious
elephant traps that are not technical but more broadly con-
textual within the whole project. This will help you avoid the
sort of sad projects which don't work very well despite getting
every single technical sum absolutely and pointlessly right.
In the context of projects, it is possible to speculate about
which parts of the project process are dear to our structural
hearts, so here are four hypotheses.
Millennium Bridge has sometimes been quoted as an example
of a failure of a mathematical test, but the maths were essentially
correct. And the judgements we made based on an extensive
suite of those mathematical tests were also correct. But what was
marginally less than perfect was our generalist understanding of
every single one of the interacting complexities which the suite
of tests were designed to address. So, our judgement to go ahead
and build was, as sure as night follows day, also marginally less
than perfect. The moral of this particular cutting edge story is:
'Please don't believe you can test your way to the answer.'
2.1.3 Hypothesis 3: To raise our game in projects,
it is necessary to dramatically improve our skill in
conception and judgement
Our friendly computer doesn't care if it does daft tests for idiotic
questions…nor does it yet know what to test, or how to develop
a concept, or how to make the ultimate balancing judgement
as to whether the concept meets its given need. In typical engi-
neering projects, I could speculate that the proportion of design
effort might be (say) 3% Conception: 94% Specialist Testing:
2% Judgement. I think that balance is fundamentally wrong.
We need big help, so we could do a trade: if engineers are well
placed to teach others about testing, others might be well placed
to teach engineers about conception or judgement - let's say
artists for conception, lawyers for judgement and doctors for
the use of precedent. Here at Expedition, for example, we run
life drawing classes and classes in visual aesthetics. This sets a
test for those engineers who exhibit Myers Briggs tendencies of
introversion. Please get out there and find out what other people
are doing - some of it will be really useful.
2.1.4 Hypothesis 4: In making a structural engineering
contribution to projects, we are good at objective
tests, but poor at subjective tests
Objective tests
are repeatable and their results will be agreed
by everyone. An example of an objective test is 2 + 2 = ?
(answer 4). Another example is the midspan beam moment
M = ? (answer ωL
2
/8).
Subjective tests
depend on the observer and their experience.
Each person conducting such a test will do it according to their
own value set. The results may be different for everyone, or
there may be a consensus. An example of a subjective test is:
what shall we make the structural frame out of? (answer: it
depends). Another example from the Millennium Bridge: is it
better to spend money on protecting the lugworms on the bed
of the Thames or on providing a disabled lift? (answer: we
probably need both).
2.1.1 Hypothesis 1: In structural engineering projects
(and other sorts of engineering), specialist testing is
reasonably well handled
We can't seem to get away from the fact that structural engineers
love their special tests. Here we are helped by 3000 years of sci-
ence and now by computers which are very good at conducting
specific tests, especially for closed problems. But to a computer
a formula is just a formula; while we may have chosen to sepa-
rate the world into 'disciplines', this is a matter of supreme irrel-
evance to a computer. A computer is simply a specialist, specialist
in crunching numbers, whether or not those numbers come from
the field of structures, fluids, chemistry, maths, genetics, aviation,
statistics, climate change or currant buns. By using them only on
structures we miss the chance of challenging both the computer
and its operator, so we should look for ways to extend that reach.
2.1.2 Hypothesis 2: In engineering projects, success is
usually characterised by effective briefing, successful
conception and judgement and not just successful
testing…and failures follow the opposite pattern
Arguably many failures are not failures of individual tests, but
failures to conceive a complete set of tests. For example, the
2.2 Side presumption (the old chestnut):
'University is the best place to teach testing (in
the virtual, non-physical world)'
It is said that theory is well handled at university, and prac-
tice is well handled outside, and that this is the best fit. The
tacit assumption is that conception and judgement are being
