Ian Wise MEng CEng MIED,
Arup senior engineer,
was the first in at least a
generation to win two IED
awards: the Kathbert Trophy
and the Geoff Kirk Young
Member’s Award. He reflects
on his experiences so far.
ED: Where does engineering design fit
into AEC (architecture, engineering and
construction)?
Ian Wise (IW): “Engineering
design is – or it should
be – key to the entire
process. It’s the
underlying thought of
what do we do. There
is a need; what is the
best way of responding
to that. We at Arup
are quite lucky that we
often get involved early.
But I do know that there are
lots of construction projects out there
where engineers are not brought into the
process soon enough; no-one sees it
from an engineering perspective until it
might already have planning permission,
for example. And that’s too late, in my
view. By the time you reach planning
for a building, there are a whole load of
design decisions that are locked in which
are not necessarily very good.”
ED: One of your many projects is artist
Luke Jerram’s Aeolus wind pavilion:
what did you do there?
IW: “All of the structural design,
modelling, drawing and fabrication
planning. I did that very early in my career
about 10 years ago; some of the work I
did in university was in complex geometry.
For this project, we wrote a bid for Luke
Jerram and did all of the engineering for
it, except the acoustics, which was done
by Salford University. Working with Luke
to help extract from his mind his vision
of what he wanted the object to be, and
turning it into fabrication drawings of a
real structure: that’s what we did. Aeolus
was great. To see it get made, that was
fabulous.”
ED: Aeolus is
an example
of a complex
geometrical design.
Does modern
software change
the design of such
structures?
IW: “Probably. We now have the
capability to try more stuff; try more
structures and geometries, with no risk. If
you are trying to build the Pantheon with
old technology, there’s quite a lot of trial
and error involved in that, and decades of
construction. Whereas in an afternoon we
can play with the geometry. It does change
it by virtue of the speed of iteration and
taking risk out of the design.”
ED: What skillset is required to be a
good design engineer now?
IW: “If a young person wanted to get into
industry, I would say: learn to draw -- just
sketching. And learn to be able to speak
to people. So much of what we do is
about being able to convey what we are
trying to explain clearly. Communication is
vital, and I don’t see that really changing.
In terms of more technical skills, I would
say that learning to program, learning a
3D modelling package and learning about
the qualitative understanding of those
structures; but not just analysis and
design and finite element methods and
all of the mathematical basis. It’s about
learning, ‘I think this will do this because
of this.’”
Aeolus wind pavillion
ED: That sounds like intuition. Isn’t
that innate?
IW: “No, I don’t think so. I think that
you get that from making things. Trying
stuff out. Pushing stuff over. Make stuff
and break stuff. Really, when we’re
talking about structures, they don’t
generally behave differently because
they are big. The 3D modelling and the
programming will increasingly come to
the fore. In neither case do you need to
be expert. But I think it’s very important
to understand how computers work in
the background. How do programs work.
How does software work. When you’re
modelling something in 3D, what is that
data? Not ‘what is the button to draw a
sphere’, but what is the underlying data?
How is it stored? What is the difference
between a mesh and a NURBS surface? I
think those things are important.”
ED: How do you feel about winning
these awards?
IW: “I forgot to say in my little speech
that I am extremely pleased. Also, one of
them says ‘young member’. That’s good.
I’ve got two kids now; I feel like I could
use the description ‘young’.”
ED: Do prizes help the industry?
IW: “I don’t know. What I can say is
that it means something to me. I don’t
necessarily think of what I do as being
special. It makes a difference to me
when external people who don’t know me
say those sorts of things.”
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