Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
engineers familiar with thinking through complex design and
testing processes with their many variables and feedback
loops - could deliver real value.
In public policy, such as health, education, law and order,
complex situations are often tackled with pilot projects but this
is costly and often doesn't scale up. I would love the structural
engineer to grasp the opportunity and turn those same skills of
logic, numeracy and understanding of natural forces towards
solving societal issues of even greater interest and even more
potential satisfaction. I think my friend, the daylight-mapping-
spreadsheet-guru (one such broad spectrum engineer), would
be just as able to design tools for social policy as for buildings,
if only he properly cultivated his contextual knowledge. As
traditional structural calculation heroics become automated,
it might be very satisfying for him to do that; and indeed, he
might not become extinct.
I know that the structural engineering world probably will
not or cannot change itself fast enough, so for this to happen
the business and social environmental pressures will have to
increase fundamentally. And that will only happen if they have
a pressing need which we can answer. Sadly, there will have to
be something in it for business, and for politics, be it money,
power or comfort, or maybe even survival.
Figure 2.5 How different sorts of engineers relate to planet Earth
structural engineers are also very timid as an industry. We
accepted relegation in the V&A (Victoria and Albert Museum)
to a very small architectural ante-room. As the dominant ques-
tions change from structure (will it fall down?) to environ-
ment (can we globally afford it?) and perhaps to society (does
it benefit mankind?), so engineering as a way to solve these
problems should take centre stage. But the introverted 'spe-
cialist specialist' world of pure structural engineering has not
yet caught up, and this may partly explain why those outside it
appear not to recognise the significance of our achievements.
Nevertheless, the talent is there to turn it around. There is
apocryphal evidence to support this, as I have heard environ-
mental engineers say 'The intellectual horsepower of an aver-
age structural engineer appears to be twice that of an average
environmental engineer.' Many structural engineers harness
that horsepower to be superb Artisans, numerically gifted
people who love logic and mathematical modelling, but that
is such a powerful skill that it needs to get out of its one small
corner of the technological world and make a difference. To
do that, we need to know how to put our skill into a broader
societal context.
Think-tanks signal the change in direction: for example, the
250-year-old RSA (Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) has
swung its aim squarely away from the technological waves
of design and industry and onto society and environment. The
RSA's Chief Executive Matthew Taylor (ex Institute for Public
Policy Research (IPPR) and 10 Downing Street policy chief)
writes a blog on the RSA's website on the need for what he
calls a change to 'Pro-Social Behaviour'. This supports the
view that society is the ultimate client for engineers. But Taylor
is the first to admit that he isn't quite sure how to achieve it.
This is where a generation of specialist generalists - structural
2.9 Getting more from less: Integrating structure
and environment
If I think of the most satisfying and successful projects I've
been involved with over the past 20 years or so, they share a
common theme: they use the structure to manipulate the envi-
ronment for the benefit of the architecture. Sometimes this is
on a macro scale: for example, the great 90 m span concrete
shells making up the simple thermally stable backdrop to the
old warbirds at the American Air Museum at Duxford, or the
vierendeel monocoque used for the whole of the exoskeleton
of the Commerzbank tower in Frankfurt to open up giant holes
to bring daylight and air into the centre of the building. On
these successful projects it was very unusual to work on even
a simple thing, say a beam, without integrating its structural
behaviour with the natural phenomena with which it comes
into contact.
As just one example, which shows the depth to which it
is necessary to go, consider just a few of the factors against
which a simple structure might be tested by the engineer, and
as a result reshaped. Let's consider the most basic structural
form - a simple beam (see
Table 2.5
).
This beam is just an easy example, but something every sin-
gle structural engineer needs to know how to do. The design
of a beam is the structural engineer's equivalent of practising
scales on the piano - a simple form laden with depth and sub-
tlety, from which you can go on to make much more sophisti-
cated and complex pieces of work confident in the knowledge
that you have some mastery of technique. For every simple
beam, there is a floor, for every floor a building, for every
building a community, for every community a city or a country
