For those of you who missed it, there’s something fun happening in London this weekend- and I’m going to be there. Yes, it’s the AEC Hackathon! To make life a bit more exciting (and to allow me to get all the dull things I’d usually do on a weekend out the way), I’ve decided to make a repeat of my last Construct//Disrupt attempt and blog live from the event.

So once again, let me invite you to check-out Being Brunel Live!

Being Brunel: Live

As the event is a two and half days long, expect updates to be a touch more periodic than the steady stream I achieved last time. As always, feel free to drop me a line (perhaps on Twitter) with any questions, comments or suggestions and I’ll try and answer, respond or action them!

The post AEC Hackathon 3.3 appeared first on Being Brunel.

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1. 3 More Engineering Blogs
2. Construct//Disrupt 3: Proptech
3. Open Doors: Construction Site Visits For Everyone

It’s amazing what you find on Twitter when you’re not looking. Today I was just idly browsing when Go Construct’s Open Doors caught my eye:

Did you know that from Monday the 13th to Saturday the 18th of June nearly 50 construction sites around the UK are opening their hoardings and offering free tours?

It’s a fantastic initiative, primarily aimed at educating the public on what construction is about and how the built environment is, well, built. With so much of our work put into finding ways to minimise the impact our work has on the public and hiding away our sites under construction; it’s great to see campaigns like this opening them back up again and engaging the communities these works are for.

With a huge number of participating sites, Open Doors has an impressive coverage of the country; and it should be pretty easy for anyone even remotely interested to find something near them. There’s also a good range of sites, with some famous names included such as Battersea Power Station, the Forth Replacement Crossing, and No 1 Spinningfields in Manchester.

The sad fact about the construction skill shortage is that so many potential engineers aren’t getting into the industry because they just don’t know what we do. It’s nothing personal, they just didn’t even consider it- did you look up every job in the world before picking your career? Initiatives like this give some much needed visibility to the oft hidden work we do in the built environment; and that’s why they’re so important.

So if you want to show someone what you do, know someone (teenager or adult) looking for a way into the construction industry, or perhaps even a school/youth club that needs a trip sometime soon…

Checkout Open Doors

The post Open Doors: Construction Site Visits For Everyone appeared first on Being Brunel.

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2. AEC Hackathon 3.3
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It’s not a secret that I like the IABSE Future of Design conferences. Normally my pre-conference build-up focuses on the speakers, however today I’d like to just quickly draw your attention to the two, now open, competitions that are run before, and as part of the event.

The One Page Paper Competition

Since I’ve been attending there has always been the paper competition. Whilst this might sound the least inspiring, it’s something that I would urge more engineers to enter. One thing we’re really bad at doing is both recognising and sharing our achievements with each other– and frankly, where else are you going to find a room full of people who might get excited about that complicated bolt connection?

I think the most important bit about the paper competition is that it’s only one page.

Yes engineers are busy people. But it only takes 300 words to fill a page (if you throw in a diagram; and everyone loves a diagram). Even if you only wrote five words every minute, you’d still finish your entry before an episode of Game of Thrones was over. Almost by definition you, as an engineer, solve interesting problems; so don’t underestimate how exciting your work is by thinking it’s not worth the competition!

The Design Competition

The newer of the competitions is the design competition, which I first saw last year. For this, teams of up to three young designers bandy together in an attempt to put forward an A2 poster outlining their proposed solutions to an unusual design brief.

This year the entrants are challenged to support a sculpture of Alex Chinneck. Perhaps most famous for “Take my lightening but don’t steal my thunder”, the building that appeared at the front of Covent Garden, apparently cracked straight along the middle with the top half hanging eerily in the air…

For the 2016 brief the teams must work out how to support an inverted pylon. An idea iterating Chenneck’s “A bullet from a floating star” (pictured in the post header), which sees a pylon sticking from the ground, point down- like it had been harpooned from the sky. The question is, how are you going to keep it up?

Both competitions are now open, and run until the 11th of July (although the Design Competition has a shorter ‘questions’ period that closes on the 15th of June.) The short listed entrants will be part of the IABSE FoD 2016, either as presenters of their papers or having their designs exhibited; with prizes on offer for the winners of both.

• More about the IABSE Future of Design 2016
• Details of the Paper Competition
• Details of the Design Competition / Registration Form

The post The IABSE FoD 2016 Competitions appeared first on Being Brunel.

Related posts:

1. IABSE Future of Design North 2015
2. Future of Design North 2015: Part 1
3. Future of Design North 2015: Part 2

So, while everyone is sitting down; let me introduce you to the wonderful world of Construct//Disrupt. I’m sitting with a bunch of excited engineers and property developers who are wondering what the future of innovative technology will do to their industry and are ready to take the lead and embrace it.

Savills

Nicky Wightman

Proptech is a really diverse market place

Property, like construction, sees the great value that start-ups can offer us; disrupting our industry to discover new value from the way we work. The important thing for startups, Wrightman adds, is that the industry keeps an open mind. There are massive opportunities that we can embrace if we engage the startup community; and we need to ask them- tell them that we’re open for innovation.

Savills introduces us to their research tool investigating what makes a city successful for tech innovation, measuring the following key statistics for each of the well known centres of technologies across the world:

• Quality of the technology sector
• Property cost
• Quality of life
• Time it takes to travel to work
• The cost of a flat white coffee!

Austin, it turns out, ranks top for tech cities across the global by the Savills index. Due to the University, the 1.2 millennial to boomer ratio (which is great) and the vibrant community the city offers. London came in at number six. However by understanding what makes tech cities great, we should be able to improve this.

You can take a look at the results of their research here:

Savills Tech Cities

Wired Score

William Newton

Even if you look at the most conservative estimates, there’s going to be a massive increase in the demand for connectivity in cities and spaces across the globe. Sharing an anecdotal story, Newton underlines the importance of connectivity; an office where the air conditioning, food and sewer services went down- but it took a builder cutting through the internet connection before everyone walked out!

People are demanding and expecting a different interaction with their environment

It seems accept that VR and AR will completely change the way we work- we don’t know how, but we do know that it’s going to require increased connectivity. This means people will need and demand better network coverage and capacity. We can already see this, now, where landlords are starting to make connectivity a main requirement of their properties.

There are a whole variety of new technologies emerging to solve this problem- LiFi (wifi by light) is Newton’s favourite. But more fiber optic capacity is needed in the short term; until we get cheaper satellites or drone access points this is becoming our bottleneck and Newton warns ups that it’s important to invest now.

Finally Newton introduces us to his product, Wired Score, which works as an independent (but London official) way of measuring the connectivity of buildings and structures online. His aim isn’t to disrupt the industry- but to allow developers to share when they’re doing well and see how they rate against others.

Resolution Property

Jacob Loftus

Loftus starts his presentation by reminding us of the workplaces of the past to ground us in a discussion of the workplaces of the future. In the past we were all about hierarchy and standardisation, and that permeated all office design. With the advent of technology we moved to efficiency- smaller workspaces; just a person and their computer. But now we’re learning that we need to focus less on process and more on the people.

Today, and in the future, office design is being completely reimagined around the occupier.

To Loftus, this means tackling the following key values in all the office buildings their designing:

• Creating an engaging environment
• Integrating smart technologies
• Focusing on the wellness of the occupiers
• Establishing healthy practices
• Optimising transport and access routes
• Building collaborative spaces
• Affecting inspiring surroundings

Looking at a building of the future he uses The Edge in Amsterdam as an example; it uses your phone to track your journey, prepares the office space for you- opening the gates and doors ahead of you- automatically booking rooms by the demands of your day and adapting every desk you sit at to your needs.

Loftus sees making a workplace collaboration centric as key to its success. Despite all the advances in distance-working technologies, business still want people in the office so that you can have that water cooler moment- the serendipitous discovery that comes when you create a space where people can have chance conversations. To Loftus that means making it a joyous place to work!

Converge

Raphael Scheps

We hear about IOT all the time- but what’s the hype (Internet of Things; if you’ve missed that)? Scheps warms us to the topic by highlighting that trillion dollar industries like construction are still wasting time carrying out manual monitoring. He points out that in 2006 an accelerometer used to cost you hundreds of dollars, now, thanks to the rise of smartphones, they’ll cost you a couple of cents. Combined, greater connectivity between devices and cheap equipment means a lot for the way we monitor.

For example, in the UK 20% of all water is lost to leaks. Water companies employ tonnes of people to literally follow the pipes and listen for leaks. Cheap sensors linked together by the IOT have the opportunity to massively reduce the cost and the effectiveness of this critical process. Similarly 20% of energy is lost in buildings due to misconfigured (lit. dumb) air conditioning; another problem easily solved by cheap sensors connected back to the building systems.

It probably won’t surprise you to learn that in construction our productivity has gone down over the last fifty years!

Think- we have site engineers who spend their days walking over to concrete, monitoring it by hand, making a note of the measurements in their notepads and then copying that into a dodgy Excel spreadsheet! Converge are bringing about a future where you attach a dirt cheap sensor to the concrete, and then sit down and drink some coffee (or maybe something more productive…). Scheps tells us that on jobs using Converge where concrete is on the critical path their approach is leading to a 10-20% reduction in programme.

BaseStone

Alex Siljanovski

If you organise your own event then you get to advertise your own product. I’ve actually talked about BaseStone before. In an industry where 30% of our revenue is lost to waste (including wastes of peoples times), I would recommend you look at the collaborative tool:

Learn More about BaseStone

Elegant Embellishments

Allison Dring

A startup, a manufacturer, a hub for material research and an architecture firm; Elegant Embellishments describes themselves as “Building Hackers”. To Dring the contrast between the tight control of internal building environments and the chaos of the external environments (pollution especially) is fascinating and bewildering. Using Beijing as an example she points to beautiful buildings in a sea of smog.

As a solution to this she introduces a paint technology (that’s been around for 16 years), which can convert NO2 (car pollution) to salt. By utilising modular patterns Dring’s team has managed to design building forms that create a large surface area; slowing the wind down to maximise the efficiencies of this “miracle” material.

When you talk about air pollution you have to talk about architectural façades.

The building, in Mexico City, is effectively absorbing the pollution from 1000 cars a day. To Dring scarcity and hostility in our environment is something we need to face; comparing COP21 to the Martian- like Mark Watney’s struggle to find air, we’re struggling to find energy to use.

Looking to COP21 Dring invites us to consider the 1.5% target. This will require more than carbon neutrality; it needs carbon negativity, and that’s something that we have to integrate into our biggest resource- the built environment. She insists we have to find a way to draw and capture the carbon from our processes.

Introducing us to Carbon Char (essentially burning biomass down to coal and then re-burning it), Dring explains that this is a carbon negative material. Therefore the more we make of it- the more we use of it- the better the benefit; a view that seems counter intuitive to you typical sustainable approach. The construction industry is huge; accounting for 30-40% of all manufactured material in world. Dring asks: If we start using biochar, imagine how much of a difference we can make?

Dring’s team have been looking into it as a material and it’s got some great properties- you can print it, it’s got good fire proofing (as it’s already been burnt), and it can be formed into thin façade plates. It’s also showing some promise for structural and acoustic applications. And if, like me, you’re struggling to work out why Carbon Char is carbon negative, check out this paper discussing the process and its potential effect on our environment.

The post Innovations in PropTech appeared first on Being Brunel.

Related posts:

1. Construct//Disrupt 3: Proptech
2. Disrupting Construction: PropTech
3. Open Doors: Construction Site Visits For Everyone

Tonight is BaseStone’s third installment of Construct//Disrupt; a show and tell of start-up innovations in engineering.

Inspired by the spirit of innovation, I’m going to attempt to blog live about Construct//Disrupt this evening. It might turn out to be the stupidest idea of all time, but I figure why not give it a go. So if you can’t make it, are interested, and think that those subtitles you get on BBC news are pretty riveting; I’ll try and keep it as faithful and free of spelling mistakes as I possibly can.

Don’t worry if you don’t want to spend your evening watching me type badly. After the event I’ll tidy up the live post and update this page.

Well- the event is over, but you can read the fully spell and grammar corrected version here: Innovations in PropTech

The post Disrupting Construction: PropTech appeared first on Being Brunel.

Related posts:

1. Innovations in PropTech
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What are you doing Thursday evening (that’s 19th of May 2016, for the archives)? Why not grow yourself a hipster beard [optional] and pop on over to trendy Shoreditch to find out what all this “proptech” excitement is about?

For those of you who haven’t heard about it, Construct//Disrupt is a gathering for all the innovators in construction; giving some of the coolest start-ups in our industry a platform to showcase what their about. I went to the first one and thoroughly enjoyed it. For the third iteration BaseStone have brought together some of the leading names in proptech to share their vision of the future:

• WiredScore – Find the Best Connected buildings In London
• Converge – Wireless Sensor Networks for the connected site
• Spacehop – Book home office space whenever you need it
• BaseStone – Capture, manage and share construction data
• Resolution Property – Real estate investment
• Savills Tech – Real estate service provider
• PropertyScape – Virtual reality for property
• Elegant Embellishments – Research and Design-Manufacturing studio

There’s beer and pizza too!

RSVP for Free!

The post Construct//Disrupt 3: Proptech appeared first on Being Brunel.

Related posts:

1. Innovations in PropTech
2. Disrupting Construction: PropTech
3. AEC Hackathon 3.3

Hackathons aren’t just for programmers. Let’s me just state that before we start, because the last thing I want you to think is “this isn’t for me.”

OK, now we’ve got that out of the way…

Something fun is happening this July. The ACE Hackathon is making a return trip to London! Having somehow missed the last visit of this international event, I’m determined to go to this one. Frankly I’m ridiculously excited and you should be too– here’s why:

A hackathon is an event where people band together in teams to identify industry issues and then throw everything they’ve got into fixing them. It’s the ultimate in rapid prototyping; collecting together people who have problems with those who can fix them. By creating a safe space for engaged people to come together and creatively solve problems. hackathons are about discovery.

The AEC (Architecture, Engineering and Construction) Hackathon is about the built environment. As civil engineers we know about the built environment; I mean- we built most of it! And that means we know a lot of the problems that the industry faces. Now most engineers I know can already vividly picture what it would be like to be in a room full of people and voice some of those problems (it’s called a tea break); but imagine that this time someone goes “ah, I have an idea about that…”; that’s the sort of opportunity a hackathon can present.

For me hackathons are about three things- having fun, meeting other people and solving problems. Sure, you might get to play with some fun tech; you might even win something or come up with a solution that changes the world! But mostly it’s about engineering in it’s purist form– collaborating to creatively solve problems.

So if that sounds like something you fancy doing:

Sign-Up for AEC Hackathon 3.3 – London

The post AEC Hackathon: Engineers Wanted appeared first on Being Brunel.

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If you haven’t heard of the IABSE Future of Design events (then you should at least read the first post of this two-parter)- they’re a series of conferences aimed at celebrating and sharing the best of (structural) design. This year saw the first FoD outside of London; venturing up to Manchester to enjoy the famous rain.

This is the second half of my highlights from the FoD North 2015; however I think I’d be remiss if I didn’t draw your attention to some important omissions. First- the networking, unlike any other engineering conference I’ve been to- the crowd is (relatively) young, and incredibly enthusiastic. Second- the day ended with a fantastic meal in the Museum of Science & Industry, with a fun live band. And last, but not least- the day after there was a walking tour of the bridges, culminating in two specially arranged bridge lifts; where else would you get that? 

Chris Wise (Expedition)

[aside]Science makes our ideas conform to the world; engineering moulds our world to conform to our ideas.[/aside]

If ever an engineer is to win the “best Steve Jobs” impersonation; it’s going to be Chris Wise. From the turtleneck, to the effortless presentation style- putting the artist back into technology. Wise started off with a look at the struggles of collaboration; tabling the view that the tendency to collaborate is inversely proportional to familiarity with the solution. Continuing to echo some of the themes of the day; he reiterated that engineers should make the end-users the “designers”- clients are a means to an end.

The latter half of Wise’s presentation looked at his theories of the different styles of engineering-minds. Beginning with a look at the specialist/generalist divide, Wise suggested that the best teams were formed of people who had a strong specialism while maintaining a broad enough foundation to interface with others; voicing a concern that rewarding specialism reduces those who can take a step-back and guide projects as a whole.

Finishing with an exercise to determine what sort of ‘design mind’ you have. Wise guided the audience through a series of questions (try it here yourself) that eventually declared you either an artist- someone who finds it easy to create, but doesn’t care for the detail; an artisan who find it hard to start but seek perfection on what they do; or a philosopher who seeks meaning. Urging us to take note, Wise warned against the challenges of trying to ‘think’ against your grain; recommending instead, to find a complementary team. 

Young Designers

[aside side=”left”]It’s always fascinating (if not a little envy inducing) to hear what designer’s my age are up to.[/aside]

Giulia Evelina Fenci (University of Salford), Christopher Bevington (Amey), Ben Luckin (AECOM), Jagvinder Singh (AECOM), Karl James (Parsons Brinckerhoff), Devaraja Rajan (Ramboll)

Where would a conference called the “future of design” be without a young designers competition? Here, twelve promising designers take to stage to share some of the exciting and innovative work they’ve been doing! Because the room splits, I’m only able to share the six I saw; but no doubt the other half were just as engaging!

Fenchi started us off by sharing how she used the blooming flower to influence the design of a minimum-deployment energy ‘unfolding’ fabric structure by applying parametric/holistic optimisation across the time-steps. Bevington talked us through his work at Chorley Tunnel and its flying arches; listed and ornate props that needed to be lifted as part of electrification works. His was a story of unexpected expectations; learning the thought process of English Heritage, who were much more interested in retaining the elements, than their position or behaviour.

Luckin shared his experience designing twelve themed bridges for Chester Zoo– explaining the difficulties of designing a ‘broken’ bridge that was still safe; or a DDA compliant rope swing bridge! Singh returned us to the northern hub to talk through his BIM experience; it’s not 3D modelling- it’s about intelligence; pointing more towards model federation and point clouds than just the third dimension.

James provided us with some impressive Excel wizardry– showing how he’d taken the strut and tie method to a new level; investigating the effects of concrete damage on the reinforcement of deck beams. Rajan finished off with the impressive demonstration that undertaking a proper nonlinear critical moment finite element analysis was enough to improve the ultimate LTB capacity of plate girder bridges by 25% (45% at the midspan). 

Discussion Panel

[aside]As it turns out, engineering doesn’t want quotas for women in the boardroom; but does it need it?[/aside]

Tom Wallace (WSP), Lee Franck (Arup), Alison Watson (Class of Your Own)

Unexpectedly the panel this year included, well, me. Perhaps even more surprising was that the topic was about quotas for women on the board. I was impressed to learn that some countries have been implementing a 20% policy to help increase diversity at the top. I think this is important, and so took the (unpopular, it turns out) view that engineering should do the same.

The against (and vote winning) argument was that engineers should be promoted on their merit; and that such positive discrimination would breed distrust and lack of respect. The majority of the floor felt that the reason for the significant imbalance in upper management was primarily due to the low number of women entering the profession in the first place, augmented by historically bad equality policies.

The for (a side I reluctantly picked from a more Swiss-neutral) focused on the effects of unconscious bias; noting that an injection of women (who are all likely to be capable in any case) into positions where they could influence change were more likely to alter the status quo and accelerate the process. After all, anyone with a touch of game theory knows that a system rarely increases in entropy if only those who win get to pick the rules. 

Alison Watson (Class of Your Own)

[aside side=”left”]A STEM initiative that gets the students excited enough to spend their weekends doing it has got to be a good thing.[/aside]

Luke Steedman, Bradley Lees, Luke Chantler, and Craig Vevers (St Ambrose Barlow RC High School)

Now to what has to be the youngest speakers ever at an IABSE conference; and more literally the future of design. Class of Your Own is an amazing initiative to get school children interested into the profession- and teach the teachers too. It starts (this year) with a fantastic premise; James Bond has got a BIM model of a London underground station he wants to change into a hotel- however he is surprisingly hot on sustainability and also insists that the result engages the local community.

The presentation was great; hearing how the students had taken “special agent saturdays” to develop their Revit model solution; gadgets, solar panels, wind turbines, fish tanks, dark and secretive corners and even a casio. Counting as vocational UCAS credits, the course exploits the affinity that younger generations have with software to provide an entry point into what can be a fairly opaque industry. Now looking for paid work experience; I wish them, and the initiative, all the best. 

Robin Sham (AECOM)

[aside]If the tools aren’t up to the job; can you design better ones?[/aside]

Sham is certainly the the speaker who has traveled the furthest (I’ve seen) to talk at a Future of Design; but I’m glad he did. I’ve never seen an engineer with so many record breaking projects under their belt! His presentation looked at some of these, including the ‘third generation’ of suspension bridge; where two separate decks are held by a central cable system. There’s a huge number of articles on this, all of which explain it so much better than I ever could.

Of course, you don’t get a career like this with constantly innovating; both design and construction methods. I was particularly impressed with the development of a ‘lean and mean’ travelling formwork to extend the cantilever lengths- I can’t imagine ever asking a contractor to use custom plant! Looking to the future of design, Sham sees eco-bridges; where fibers in the surfacing provide enough energy to power the bridge; as well as developments in approaches to reach even longer spans (such as crossing-cables!).

Xavier De Kestelier (Foster + Partners)

Following my first Future of Design, I managed to wing a trip to meet someone following a similar career path to me (that’s how good the networking is). After having a chat, I stood up to leave and swung my backpack on, cutting off a model astronaut behind me at the knees. Unable to flee the scene, and witnessed by a group of students touring the office- it goes down as one of the most embarrassing things I’ve done in a professional capacity. Guess what that model was of… – Ed.

[aside side=”left”]In 3D printing- geometry comes for free; no problems with complex, efficient, shapes.[/aside]

Possibly only Foster’s could be commissioned to undertake something as beautifully esoteric as a project to build a lunar base. So how do you design for conditions where it cost you £2000/kg in transportation, the outside temperature ranges from +160 to -160 degrees celsius, there are high levels of radiation, and every now and again a meteorite comes and hits you. By using 3D printing, of course.

Delivered in flat packed modules; our settlers receive a 3D printer’mobile and inflatable membrane. Once pressurized the robots use the only natural resource; lunar rocks- to form blocks with a light, bone-like, microstructure. Like an igloo, the thick shell shields and insulates from the external environment, providing resistance to the gamma radiation and meteorite strikes; while an air gap for insulation. If you’re thinking about settling the moon any time soon; check out the video.

[divider] [/divider]

And there it is; the Future of Design North 2015. It was a fantastic event, and I would urge you to attend the next one, when it’s announced. For those of you who can’t wait, tickets for the ‘South’/London one are already on sale for September 2015. I’ll be there- and what other reason do you need?

The post Future of Design North 2015: Part 2 appeared first on Being Brunel.

Related posts:

1. Future of Design North 2015: Part 1
2. IABSE Future of Design North 2015
3. IABSE Future of Design London 2015

With a quote from Prince Phillip about how the world that surrounds us is the vision of architects and engineers, the IABSE Future of Design North started off as it meant to continue; celebrating and sharing the innovations of our profession. It was exciting to see the fantastic conference venture beyond the capital; and just as amazing to see that it was just as successful for it- with well over 100 attendees and the first speaker from outside Europe.

Today’s post is brought to you with a prefix of shame, however. You see, the IABSE Future of Design North 2015 happened over three months ago. Since then I’ve had my notebook of inscrutable writings from the event glaring at me reproachfully from my desk draw; while my turn-around for this post approaches Duke Nukem like heights. My only real excuse is that I’m an engineer (lit. someone who has half the spare time they think they do.) Better late than never, however, and hopefully this will act as a fond remembrance for those who went, now, just as much as a good summary for those who didn’t.

Francine Houben (Mecanoo)

[aside]We should design for people first, then the place and finally the purpose.[/aside]

Aptly fresh from the opening of a new office in Manchester, Houben talked about Mecanoo’s principles of design. Taking an interdisciplinary approach with their “symphony orchestra” of employees with diverse skill sets and even more diverse origins, the firm doesn’t believe that architecture is just an expression of art; it is something that should touch all the senses. Their philosophy is “People, Place and Purpose”. You might know everything about what constitutes a beautiful structure; but unless you’ve taken the time to understand the people and place that will form its context- all is lost.

Explaining the process, Houben talked us through the stages that led to the Birmingham Library. By walking through the city and talking to the people, she came to realize that it is an industrial town; where the river forms an incidental journal of art- giving her a story to form the architecture around. Learning how celebrated the archive was- she made sure that it wasn’t just relegated to the basement as so often happens. The result is a space that people enjoy, coping with the changing use of libraries over time; which is more than I can say for my local concrete block!

Brian Duguid (Mott MacDonald)

[aside side=”left”]There are limits to analysis; sometimes you have to test and measure empirically.[/aside]

Another fitting topic- the Northern Hub; a massive upgrade to the rail network to significantly improve services to and around the north of England. For this talk Duguid focused on the Ordsall Chord; a bridge that provides a critical bypass across a busy branch. Requiring 300m of new structures, widening of old masonry arches and situated on an environmentally and historically sensitive site (passing over Stephenson’s skew bridge, for example); the project would be complicated enough (when else will you need to film a masonry arch to determine how it behaves under load?!) without the decision to innovate by using a Network Arch form for the Chord.

Focusing on the delivery of the project Duguid noted that this form, while incredibly efficient when complete, is less so in the temporary condition. This has added to the complexity; highlighting the notion that while simplicity may not deliver the best solution- it does allow changes to be more easily forecast, making the design more flexible. Duguid seemed to have a similar attitude to BIM; noting that its “unbearable certainty” meant that models were often misleading, especially in the early stages where the design was still developing, or interfaced with existing, imperfect, structures.

Perhaps the most interesting points, to me, were on the commercial aspects of the project. Delivered under an alliance model, the client, consultant and contractor all take ownership of the project- sharing the risk and the successes. Fantastic for complex, or ill-defined projects (like everything I seem to work on!), it forces collaboration; making the team focus on solutions, not problems. Noting that Duguid works as the sign-off for both the contractor and the client shows just how effective the model has been at removing the traditional adversarial attitudes that are common in our contracts.

Anna Liu & Mike Tonkin (Tonkin Liu)

[aside]Lessons on minimising material and building strong, efficient, structural forms can be found everywhere in nature[/aside]

It’s funny how easy it is to get set in your way. After nearly 10 years of training, when asked to draw a structural form I’m conditioned to pull out an I, a square/rectangle, T, or maybe an L. What’s amazing about Liu and Tonkin’s “story of failures” is that they were able to look beyond this and take inspiration from nature; shells and leaves; to form structures from incredibly thin, flat, steel sheets into immensely strong forms. It’s not often you see meters of span formed of millimeter thin steel!

Although their story was one of posturing, tendering and being (in the main) declined; they have been learning from these failures- acknowledging that these thin plate systems are only strong in the permanent condition and therefore need to be augmented for the temporary case to avoid prohibitive false works; working to realise their components from 2D elements to allow them to be formed without wastage; analysing the sections to remove all but the critically stressed parts. So in the not too distant future, I hope we’ll start to see some significant structures birthed from this remarkable form.

Peter Miller (Severfield)

[aside side=”left”]Don’t forget to think how we build our structures; it’s not enough for it just to work in the permanent case.[/aside]

It seems an IABSE tradition to bring along one person who actually does some real work (lit. a contractor), presumably so they can look on in fear as the speakers discuss increasingly complex and intricate designs for them to realise. Miller works at Severfield (née Watson), who are responsible for fabricating and erecting some of the most challenging projects in the UK, and his talk focused on some of the techniques they’re using to deliver projects in increasingly economic, program and space constrained sites.

Perhaps most impressive was his revelation that they are now sliding bridges over live rail lines. For those of you who haven’t worked with Network Rail, this is a massive achievement. Of course, the art is in assurance; significant work goes in beforehand, working with the permanent works designers to ensure the temporary conditions can be supported, pre-erection and test runs and a well-honed system of working. It is, however, a massive bit of progress- the ability to safely install new bridges across the line without closing it will do a lot to relieve the inconvenience and cost of possessions.

Neil Thomas (Atelier One)

[aside]Always use a common designer/contractor model; it’s the only way for complex projects: collaborate![/aside]

It’s not every day you get a talk from the Royal Designer for Industry. Describing the role of the engineer as something between a magician, a school boy and a builder; Thomas took us through some of the exciting projects he’s worked on over the years before finishing on a stark reminder that climate change is a very real problem that, as an industry, we seem to be ignoring. Talking about the future of design he says he’s holding out hope for the coming innovations in self-assembly structures and programmable textiles.

Thomas has definitely strayed from the beaten path with his firm; primarily working to deliver the structural elements of concert stages. It’s not often you get to hear about the design challenges behind U2’s requirements for a 360 degree screen– “either you put a damper in now and wonder if you needed it, or leave it out and find out you did!”. When it comes to working on bespoke multidiscipline projects under the public eye (where there’s no second chances), Thomas notes that collaboration becomes essential; all teams working on the same model and constantly sharing their ideas, expertise and experiences to ensure the final product works on the night.

Richard Hornby (Arup)

[aside side=”left”]During construction the Queensferry Crossing will be the largest cantilever in the world.[/aside]

I feel a bit like I’m being stalked by the new Forth bridge, whose progress I’ve accidentally followed closely; although thanks to Thomas I now know that it’s a bridge, and not a tunnel, because you can’t easily transport Whiskey though a tunnel! Hornby’s talk focused on the design; the challenge to produce a solution that combines elegance, efficiency and economy (or are they the same thing?) while not looking out of place standing alongside a river of bridges that were the state of the art for their time.

One thing I didn’t know about cable stayed bridges is the while two towers are common, three or more are not. As you increase the towers it is necessary to start relying on tower bending and deck stiffness. You could tie the tops of the towers to solve this problem; but the spans involved result in self-weight stretching that is prohibitive. Instead Hornby used a parametric approach to discover that overlapping the anchor lengths of each tower by approximately 33% results in an ideal balance between deck thickness and tower size. Now under construction, the bridge should be open in 2016.

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That’s it for the first part, look out for the second half coming next week (or the week after; two weeks at the outside…)!

The post Future of Design North 2015: Part 1 appeared first on Being Brunel.

Related posts:

1. Future of Design North 2015: Part 2
2. IABSE Future of Design North 2015
3. IABSE Future of Design London 2015