Concluding our series on automation – December 2021 (Installment 1), March 2022 (2), June 2022 (3), September 2022 (4) – I sat down (virtually) in July 2022 with two more industry experts in innovation: Dr. Erica Fischer, Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering at Oregon State University; and Ilana Danzig, Associate Principal at Aspect Structural Engineers. Below are highlights from our discussion.
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Author Archives : Eytan Solomon, P.E., LEED AP
Eytan Solomon is a Senior Associate at Silman and a member of STRUCTURE’s Editorial Board. (solomon@silman.com)
Continuing our series on automation – December 2021 (Installment 1), March 2022 (2), June 2022 (3) – I sat down (virtually) in April 2022 with two more industry experts in digital design: Steve Reichwein, a Senior Associate at Severud Associates Consulting Engineers, and Carlos de Oliveira, a founder of Cast Connex. Below are highlights from our discussion.
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Continuing our series on automation (Installment 1, December 2021, Installment 2, March 2022), I sat down (virtually) in January 2022 with two more industry experts in digital design: Matt Sweeney, Production Technology Manager at PES Structural Engineers, and Derek Pedersen, Principal at JVA Consulting Engineers. Both serve on the SEI Digital Design Committee. Below are highlights from our discussion.
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Robert (Bob) Silman, founder and President Emeritus of the structural engineering firm Silman, formerly Robert Silman Associates, passed away in 2018. Prior to the firm’s founding in 1966, Bob worked at Severud Associates, Ove Arup & Partners, and Amman & Whitney. Bob taught at Cornell, Columbia, Yale, and Harvard and was a fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers. He was also an honorary member of the AIA New York Chapter, the Structural Engineers Association of New York, and the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering.
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Continuing our series on automation, I sat down (virtually) in September 2021 with two more industry experts in digital design: Michael Bolduc, P.E., a Senior Project Manager at Simpson Gumpertz & Heger, and Dr. Kristopher Dane, Vice President and Director of Digital Design at Thornton Tomasetti. Both serve on the SEI Digital Design Committee. Below are highlights from our discussion.
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In July 2021, I discussed the “hot” topic of automation and the future for structural engineers with two of the industry’s leading experts in digital design: Rob Otani is a Senior Principal and the Chief Technology Officer at Thornton Tomasetti, and Zak Kostura is an Associate Principal and the Americas Region leader of Advanced Digital Engineering at Arup. Below are highlights from our discussion.
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Inevitably, designers respond to crisis with… design.
The world of 2020-2021 is grappling with a devastating pandemic, protests against racism and inequity, and demands to shift resources: from policing to community building, from fossil fuels to green energy, from shareholders to stakeholders, from short-term profit motivation to sustainability and resilience.
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Kurt Vonnegut, whose father and grandfather were architects, imagined a computer program called “Palladio” in his novel Timequake (1997). Palladio, the story went, could perform a complete building design according to basic user inputs about the intended use, size, location, architectural style, and even the aesthetic of surrounding buildings. The program output full working drawings – down to “plans for the wiring and plumbing” (presumably structural as well) – in less than half an hour. …
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