An engineering or architectural design has many components, one of which is intent. The designer has a goal in mind – which may not be obvious to someone looking at the design drawings or the completed construction – and that goal influences design decisions from beginning to end. There are occasions when the intent is …
There’s nothing wrong with a little professional voyeurism, right? The now-universal use of computer-aided drafting means that we, as structural engineers, almost never create our plans from scratch. On nearly all projects, we receive architectural plans in the form of CAD files which we convert to use as backgrounds. We then draft the information which …
Our increasing involvement with the analysis and repair of cast iron buildings in New York City has allowed us to gain first hand knowledge of their structural behavior, which often entails partial dismantling for observation. Because we feel it is important to share what we have learned with other preservation professionals, hopefully augmenting their ability …
This conversion project took a 1905 New York City elementary school building, which had been abandoned since the 1970s, and restored it for use as a condominium. The original building was one of more than 400 designed by C.B.J. Snyder, New York’s chief architect for more than 30 years. Old Structures was responsible for design …
Efficiency is ordinarily a goal in any technological undertaking. We want our vehicles to be energy-efficient, our computers to be time-efficient, and our building designs to be simply “efficient.” But what does efficiency actually mean? Any design is a response to multiple criteria including the physical properties of materials, code requirements, costs, clients’ stated desires, …
