Design Archives - Page 2 of 4 - Being Brunel
Adaptive Structures
August 7, 2014
One of the core motifs of Transistor is the notion of self adapting structures: Buildings and infrastructure that alter their states, with apparent sentience, to cope, survive and provide for scenarios beyond…Read More
Influencing The Next Eurocodes
July 22, 2014
It’s funny to think that the Eurocodes, which were so cutting-edge when I was at University that I was barely taught about them, actually begun life 12 years before I was born. It’s even…Read More
IKEA Engineering
April 14, 2014 1
Over the last year I’ve been learning some real practical engineering lessons from the most unlikely of sources: my IKEA Austmarka wardrobe. Brought from that nightmarish trip, which has become…Read More
Fermi Estimates Preliminary Design
February 23, 2014 4
Enrico Fermi was a physicist who was renowned for making good approximations with no actual data, and a Fermi estimate is a method for making a ball-park guess that might actually be right…Read More
Programming Civil Engineers
January 30, 2014 9
The world of engineering has been becoming progressively more digital; with monstrosities such as ProjectWise entering the common vernacular (verb. to make someone else’s document control…Read More
Structural Diagrams Online
January 19, 2014
Allow me to introduce the wonderful world of ‘SimplySupported‘. This little widget knows how to render beam diagrams and write out the static formulae for a library of known structural…Read More
Parametric Design
October 14, 2013 4
After a weekend of prototyping (lit. creating an application from libraries and scripts loosely held together by hope and gaffa tape), this is the beginnings of my contribution to parametric design. “Woah” I hear you cry; “an application that draws…Read More
Infamous Engineering Structures
October 7, 2013 8
It seems apt this week, therefore, to discuss some engineering structures that live in infamy; noteworthy in their failure rather than their success. Ronan Point (1968) Younger engineers may not…Read More
Looking at the Future of Design: Part 2
October 1, 2013 6
Here is Part 2 (check out Part 1 for the backstory that makes the twist so engaging) of the trials and tribulations at the IABSE Future of Design 2013 conference. After this, I promise, I shall never…Read More
Looking at the Future of Design: Part 1
September 16, 2013 4
So, with little more ado then a quick note (to whit: “fun was had by all”), let’s press on with Part 1 (of 2, I’m not Tolkien) of the IABSE Future of Design 2013: A Brand New Hope. Sadie Morgan (dRMM): Most engineers design in Concrete and Steel; it’s all to easy to forget Timber- perhaps its time we…Read More
