Engineers in general spend a lot of time modeling and organizing reality in design. Looking only at structural engineers, a large difference between those who design new buildings and those of us who work with existing buildings is the starting point of the models. New-building analysis and design typically starts with an architectural concept, and …
Railroads have a place in the history of structural engineering for buildings. Big terminals, in the 1870s and later, were among the first buildings in the US to be so complex that a structural engineer was a necessary part of the design team. Not so much in the station pictured above. That’s the Ulster and …
If you’re laying the tile for the bottom of a decorative reflecting pool, why not include a starfish? No one will see it until the pool is drained for repairs, but it’s still there.
For a very long time, the New York City Building Code has required that the portion of floor directly in front of a fireplace, somewhat confusingly called the hearth, has to be of non-flammable construction. That way, if sparks or pieces of wood fall out of the fireplace onto the floor, they don’t immediately start …
I read “What Is the Difference Between Accuracy and Precision?” by Anne Marie Helmenstine yesterday (steered there by Bill Harvey), and of course I immediately started thinking about structural design in that light. I remember one of my professors saying, circa 1985, that our calculations simply weren’t accurate so we shouldn’t be worrying about every decimal …
