Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
So naturally the structural engineer's knowledge of con-
struction needs to be very high to bring down the overall
risk. If only we could live up to that hope. At the end of the
twentieth century, despite the best efforts of Michael Latham
and John Egan in suggesting ways the design and contracting
industries could work more closely together, and despite many
corporate pronouncements that things have changed, lurking
just underneath the surface is contractual confrontation, with
claim and counter-claim when things get difficult. In other cul-
tures, especially Japan, Germany, France and Spain, the con-
tractor is involved early on, sometimes right from the start of
the project, sometimes even as the co-promoter. Many of the
best engineers in these countries work not for consultants, but
for contractors. I think that that close relationship helps them
become better, more useful, more imaginative, more capable
structural engineers.
I make no apology for demonstrating this through the indi-
vidual example of the great contributions of construction-lit-
erate engineering minds on our own projects: Julio Martinez
Calzon in Spain when he helped the contractor Cubiertas y
MZOV develop the final construction method to lift 3500
tonnes of floor structure in one go right up our 292 m Torre
de Collserola Communications Tower. More recently Calzon
worked with Bovis to realise our 90 m 'UFO' flying over the
top of the redeveloped 100-year-old Barcelona Bullring; I
think too of the persuasive work of Jorg Schlaich's office with
Pfeiffer and ISG on the development of the cable net for our
2012 Olympic Velodrome structure; David Taylor of Dorman
Long for his work on the erection methodology for the Infinity
Bridge over the Tees; Bob Gordon of Bovis (now of MACE)
for his thinking on the construction methodology which helped
realise this pioneering technology for the Channel 4 cable-net
wall in London. Their knowledge is a great and necessary
complement to the theoretical, architectural and environmental
thinking of a new generation of structural engineers.
The beauty of this mentality is that the engineer develops a
design that is buildable. The down-side is that dealing in the
high-risk world of contracting brings with it either high reward
or high conservatism. And standing in the way, allegedly to
preserve some sort of commercial competitiveness among the
contractors, it is normal, at least in the UK, to delay the appoint-
ment of the contractor until the design is 'done'. This moment
is somewhere near full working drawings, and the same sys-
tem is very common in such places as Greece, Italy and the
USA. In these countries, the contractor is only appointed after
the design has been finished, which has two predictable conse-
quences: either good ideas are brought to the project when it is
too late, resulting in delay and redesign costs, or the design is
developed with little understanding of new construction tech-
niques and manufacturing technologies and so tends to per-
petuate the status quo. In this traditional model, the unhappy
consultant is regularly beaten up to produce an absolutely pris-
tine set of working drawings and calculations, only for the first
thing to happen once the contractor is appointed is a request
for a redesign. While this is often based on a very good techno-
logical idea, or a practical appreciation of what is involved in
building something, such an intervention by the traditionally
appointed contractor comes too far along the project journey.
As a side issue, given that all up fees on a building project are
in the order of say 10%, even a small change so late in the day
can demand significant extra human resources for a project,
and although this is good for employment it is not good for the
husbandry of engineering skill.
So, whenever I can, I argue as strongly as possible for the
contractor to be appointed early. The neatest compromise is for
this to happen with the contractor being paid for constructabil-
ity and procurement input just like any other member of the
design team. At that moment there is no guarantee that the
contractor will get the project proper, so everyone is on their
best behaviour for a while. Of course, as long as they are eco-
nomic pragmatists who are judged on the financial success of
each discrete project, contractors will tend to gravitate towards
solutions that are familiar, or to manufacturing techniques they
are comfortable with, or sometimes to those that are most prof-
itable. But at least it is possible to bring that expertise into the
team when the key design decisions are being developed and
finalised, and that has to be much better than changing every-
thing after tender. There is a side benefit of having a heavy-
hitter like a major contractor in the team and that is that they
provide a counter-balance to the wilder excesses of architec-
tural imagination. This provides a dose of reality when it is
most needed.
2.15 Emergent technology as an integrating
force?
Emergent technology is the generic name for experiments that
bring together the worlds of construction, engineering, archi-
tecture, evolutionary science, environment and computational
software and hardware using the principles of genetic algo-
rithms learned from Nature. It is inevitable that as such a new
technological 'system' emerges, so does it test our art. I have
been lucky enough to see this first hand as from 2003 I have
been an external examiner on the Architectural Association's
EmTech course run by Michael Weinstock, which is at the
front of the field in world-leading experiment.
How might a whiff of 'emergent technology' add to the great
body of human achievement? The very name hints at the creature
from the Black Lagoon. The answer is being demonstrated by
those very clever people who are currently exploring the world
of genetic algorithms and their applications in the built environ-
ment. Some of these are nominally structural engineers; some
architects; some environmental engineers. Yet they are doing
something rather special, namely working across all of these
disciplines as if there are no borders. I have seen these people
develop a philosophical proposition that becomes an aesthetic
one, which is then tested against environmental and structural
principles before being squirted down the wire to a 3D printer
which makes it large, ready for everyone to gawp at. And they
