5/21/2019 FUTURE STRUCTURAL ENGINEER - Where will we be in 10 Years?

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– Where will we be in 10 Years?

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Posted on October 4, 2016 | By Hugh Morrison | 1 Comment
Johnson Wax Building (1938) – Building

“You can describe the future of Ahead of Its Time

Exercise Book Amendment Question 2
structural engineering as Answer – Coming Up

something that, like the dinosaurs, is Aug 2017 Publication Announcement –

4th and Final Edition published 05
about to be struck by an asteroid. September 2017 …
April 2017 Workshop IABSE Conference
It’s disaster time and the – Future of Design She eld
profession is going to have to change. Cathedral Section – Structural Engineer
Magazine March 2017 Question
The big beasts may have to turn into
tiny mice and run about on the forest
Follow me on Twitter
oor  and evolve into something else,”
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5/21/2019 FUTURE STRUCTURAL ENGINEER - Where will we be in 10 Years? - Structural Engineering Art and Approximation

Quote from Chris Wise  Structural My Tweets

Engineer Magazine August 2016

And furthermore Chris said:
“Now there is so much that can be
automated, structural engineering
may not even need to be done by
structural engineers at all.
With much of the new software, a
seven-year old could do it.”
And then I wrote a letter, published the
following week:
September 2016 Verulam; Structural
Engineer Magazine
Quote:
“To take Chris’s thinking a step
further, perhaps a challenge should be
set: to de ne clearly and concisely

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5/21/2019 FUTURE STRUCTURAL ENGINEER - Where will we be in 10 Years? - Structural Engineering Art and Approximation

what a structural engineer should be

in 10 years’ time”.
Nobody has taken on the challenge,
from what can be seen in the October
edition of the Magazine.
Let’s make an attempt………The Engineer
of the Future……I present to you…..

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5/21/2019 FUTURE STRUCTURAL ENGINEER - Where will we be in 10 Years? - Structural Engineering Art and Approximation

Recipe to Create the Future Engineer

Ingredients
1. Artisan, Builder & Architect.
Let’s say that artisans are all those subcontractors which technical
knowledge and skills who produce specialist components: steelwork,
carbon bre roofs, intelligent cladding and so on. They also produce 3
dimensional drawings to enable the contractor to assemble the
component parts of the building on site. Prefabrication (o site
construction) will comprise the bulk (90%) of future construction.

Architects will conceptualise, plan and build (draw) 3D model drawings of

their buildings, bridges, street architecture and so on. They will no longer
act as master builders, but they will maintain the role of principle
consultant for clients.

Builders will take on the role of ‘master builders’ (the architect role

generally understood to predate the mid 20th century). They will  manage
the artisans (subcontractors), commission the design of the sub
assemblies; they will ‘dovetail‘ the components into the architects master-
scheme, liaise with the architects and client(s).

2. Advanced Materials and Methods

Construction will be making use of advanced materials. Carbon Fibre,
Graphene, High Strength/self compacting concretes, reconstituted
timber, will be familiar to the buildings of tomorrow. Intelligent cladding,
which can alter opacity to changes in sunlight, increase or decrease heat
absortion/radiation from surfaces, will be the norm.

3. New Design Tools (The Computer Age)

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Some techniques, in their infancy today, will be commonly available to all.

Virtual Reality (VR) will make the architect’s 3D models of the interior, and
local exterior, almost indistinguishable from the nished product. A client
will be able to experience the reality of their buildings before they are
built. Architects will have their time taken up with numerous design
alterations in this visual world.

Holograms will be available to all to give scaled representations of

elements – for instance structural connections, Kitchen arrangements (a
walk ‘around’ model), sculptures and so on.

Mathematical techniques such as fractural mechanics will be available to

help produce 3D-printed carbon bre/plastic structures which take forms
to ecological structures inspired from the natural world – to allow
experimentation – bring random and/or repeating patterns of beautiful
forms of exposed structure.

4. Internet of Things
IOT or Internet of Things is the next revolution in technology. This is the
interconnectness of computers and people of the future, rendering the
current form of the Internet obselete. All manner of devices will be
maintained, monitored, controlled and used with the data gathering and
remote control systems through the internet. Building environmental
systems, Bridges (tra c control, monitoring of de ections, bearing wear
and so on), CCTV systems, TVs and kitchens.

People will have all of their health monitored by implants and ‘smart

clothes’, buildings will come to learn individual needs and tailor this to the
speci c user. Robots (at least not of the talking and walking type like
R2D2, necessarily) will be cleaning our homes for instance and helping
the professionals (drawings, design, checking that designs meet local
authority regulations and so on).
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The Structural Engineer: Where and who

are you?
So far we have laid the groundwork, but have failed to
mention the engineer in the team. Is there any room left for
an engineer? Have they turned into ‘tiny mice’ or have they
disappeared altogether?

The O cial Struartapp.com Prediction

The Structural Engineering profession will have
split into two parts:
Stress Analysts (Or Stress Engineers)
In essence all of the complex ‘technically demanding’ modelling of future
structures will be undertaken under contract. Stress Engineers from the
Mechanical Engineering business will merge with like minded
‘mathematically and logically’ able structural/civil engineers into a new
profession with its own institution. All of the structural analysis ( nite
element modelling, calculations, complex models, dynamics) and
prototype testing of signi cance will be undertaken by this profession
who will work in the automotive, aerospace and civil industries.

They will not produce drawings, except the basis geometric output from
their models, which will be sent onto the architects/contractors – for
commissioning of the 3D models by other parties – which will be the
detailed drawings of the future. To some extent this is already happening.
Timber frame drawings (with details), for instance, are produced with 3D
drawing packages (such as ITW/hsbCAD). BIM will no longer be used as a

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term, since it is, in essence redundant, normal practice is 3D modelling of

buildings/bridges to which all parties contribute.

Structural Consultants
This will be where the ‘more aesthetically inclined’, more architectural in
leaning, and less ‘mathematically minded’ engineers will emerge. They will
be in the Chris Wise, Tony Hunt or Ove Arup mould. Part of their
University Education will be in the architecture schools and part learning
the skills of the artisan/contractor. Their ability to understand
architecture and aesthetics will be sophisticated. They will not draw
details  but produce conceptual drawings. Their level of calculation will be
rudimentary (but more accomplished and useful than architects. They will
in short, be more like the artisans/master builders of the medieval period
building virtual models of the building connections/components in a way
that was once done on full scale models by the medieval architects.

Just how close will this new sub-profession be to architects? Will they be
termed as say ‘Structural Architects MISArch.’?

Therein lies the rub…and I would hope Chris Wise would agree. The
extent to which this new sub-profession plays in the world of
‘planning/architecture/aesthetics’ in the future will depend on the
willingness of ‘pioneer’ engineers in the future to embrace the world of
the architecture: BIM, the loss of the architect’s ‘master builder’ role, the
greater preponderance of o site construction (details devised and
undertaken by subcontractors) and other changes all provide an
opportunity for (Today’s) Structural Engineers to soak up some of the new
(yet unde ned) areas of responsibility; the opportunities are there to be
grasped.

And how is this Achieved?

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It is contended that engineers of tomorrow should be “Engineers who are

prepared
to work with the demands of the project in hand, o er practical solutions;
without over-egging the details or sticking obstinately to their speci ed
design”.

In short they should relinquish the detailed drawing output and hand this
on to subcontracting designer/detailers, embrace and educate
themselves in architecture and building constrution and strive to become
the ‘Master-Builders‘ of tomorrow.

There are some universities who are leading the way developing more
design orientated courses: two of whom spring to mind – Bath and
Edinburgh.

If I were the Institution Futures Committee what would would the

masterplan be? Essentially to build education around the two strands of
the future predicted:

A. Push the integration of the technically orientated (away from the City
of London global nance employers!) with stress analysts of the
aerospace/automative industries.

B. Create a new branch of the profession (architectural engineers or

structural architects) and drive to integrate their education more closely
with architects. Starting with joint classes and projects at University.

This could all be more than 10 years into the future, but diving on the ball should start now,
perhaps?

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5/21/2019 FUTURE STRUCTURAL ENGINEER - Where will we be in 10 Years? - Structural Engineering Art and Approximation

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Where will we be in 10 Years?

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