It’s easy to conceptualize how an architect might respond to a problem in unique and imaginative ways. Given the same parcel of land, programming requirements, and project goals, it would be surprising if two architects arrived at the same solution. Architecture is artistic expression; it is subjective, widely understood, and celebrated by the public.
On the contrary, when presented with the same set of architectural plans and project goals, most people believe that structural engineers will arrive at the same solution. It’s considered an applied science after all. By profession, an engineer is bound to objectivity, adhering to scientific and material principles that ensure the creation of a sound structure. Considering this, you might ask how much one solution can really deviate from another. The truth is—every engineer will invent a unique solution to any given problem.
As Peter Rice, the engineer behind three of the most significant architectural works of the 20th century—celebrated for his dual role as both engineer and designer—writes in his book, An Engineer Imagines, “The architect’s response is primarily creative, while the engineer’s is fundamentally inventive.”
The textbooks don’t tell you that engineering is as much an art as a science. Within every set of architectural plans lies thousands of potential solutions that satisfy the same goals and challenges. Rice describes the role of an engineer with a playfulness, creativity, and passion that is deeply ingrained in our culture. Starting with our founder, Martin Glotman, who spent late nights playing with a slide rule to solve the curve behind the Vancouver Planetarium; we’ve approached every project with the same playful spirit of exploration, imagination, and unconventional thinking.
An Exercise in Agility
Every project arrives on our desk with its own set of challenges. We might inherit an existing foundation, seismic design limitations, strict setback or shadowing requirements, mixed-use building typologies, or poor soil conditions. All engineering solutions must adhere to the laws of science and nature, yet within those boundaries lies a multitude of opportunities for an engineer to innovate and explore.
For the Richmond Olympic Oval, we had to devise a solution to maintain a perfectly level ice surface for speed skating on notoriously unstable soils. Nearby buildings were known to settle as much as 200mm, but the Richmond Olympic Oval could not vary any more than 3 mm in 3,000 mm, nor 20 mm over its full length— a distance four times the length of a football field. To achieve this, we designed a large basement structure on a 6-acre concrete foundation raft, which eliminated the need for expensive, deep foundations. Deeper than typical average hollow core panels were custom fabricated to form the ice surface floor, meeting the tight deflection targets with a level of certainty that a typical cast-in-place floor slab could not provide. We also devised several contingency mechanisms to adjust the floor levelness,; including adjusting the supporting columns lengths, and adjusting the ice slab by screw jacks or foam injection.
Balancing creativity with science is one example of an engineer’s agility. Another is navigating the diverse perspectives and personalities involved in every project—the ambitious developer, the visionary architect, and the practical builder, each with a stake in the outcome. Engineers serve as sensible partners, offering objective solutions that bridge subjective differences. While almost anything is possible, we act as mediators, balancing practical considerations like cost, embodied carbon, and buildability, while still fulfilling the vision of the architect or owner.
The Art of Material Selection
When reviewing a set of plans, we are agnostic to the material. Our primary concern is ensuring the chosen materials will perform as required for the design. This stage reveals another opportunity for ingenuity, as all materials—steel, heavy timber, and concrete—have inherent properties with specific advantages.
On 843 N. Spring St, the architectural vision involved designing a creative workspace in historic Chinatown atop an existing parking structure. To work within the capacity of the existing structure, a lightweight material like steel or timber was required.
Given the larger office grids and 14-foot cantilevers rising out of the building along its wings, steel construction was chosen for the primary frame, and steel concentric brace frames (SCBFs) were selected to resist the high seismic forces in the region.
To achieve the project’s ambitious sustainability goals, cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels were chosen to span to the exposed steel beams. In addition, they provided critical weight reduction of the existing foundations. This is a great example of the modern-day brick and beam, with the steel beams and CLT panels fully exposed to create a unique space and feel.
On Fifteen Fifteen, Buro Ole Scheeren and the Bosa team presented us with the lofty challenge of designing protruding cantilevered glass-encased observatories overlooking Stanley Park. The original free-form sketches help illustrate the engineers’ inventiveness—rough ideas evolving into more refined drawings which eventually result in granular fabrication drawings down to the nuts and bolts.
For the cantilevered spans, full-height trusses were chosen for their expression and inherent stiffness. The cantilevered boxes introduce larger vertical and horizontal forces back on the base-building. Steel columns were chosen to facilitate the connection and erection of the steel pods and to carry the vertical loads down to the foundation within a more slender profile. Concrete was chosen for the floor slabs and central core for its higher stiffness and strength in resolving the horizontal loads. The cantilevered units are anchored back into the building with DWYIDAG rods encased in the concrete that extend the length of the floor plate. Marrying steel and concrete requires careful detailing and consideration of their inherent properties.
Streamlining the Flow of Forces
Once the materials are selected, there is an art in shaping the building’s structure to make it as efficient as possible. As engineers, we can manipulate the flow of forces from the top of the structure down to the foundation by shaping and locating the structural elements to create a specific load path.
In some instances, the structure is entirely driven by the external form. On Vancouver House and Telus Sky for example, there were obvious demands on the building structure that needed resolving. To create the sweep, we introduced walking columns. To resolve the thrusts exerted by its shape we introduced post-tensioning in the floors and core to counteract the tension forces.
In many cases, the structural inventiveness in the load path is less obvious, buried behind what may appear to be a conventional building. Mixed-use projects present a complex puzzle, as they strive to integrate structural elements across different programs seamlessly. Where is the optimal location for a transfer? Can we eliminate a transfer altogether? If we sweep the columns on one side to accommodate the parking layouts below, can we mirror that alignment on the opposite side to balance the building’s forces? Every site and building project presents a unique set of challenges to solve for.
Once the plans and materials are sketched out, an iterative exchange begins between the engineer and the architect—a dance between creator and inventor until the structure complements the architecture and vice versa. While the creative conceptualization phase has been a fundamental aspect of engineering since its inception, the validation stage has evolved significantly with the advent of new technologies and tools. This evolution sets the stage for our next blog, where we will explore the latest advancements in technology and validation tools that are transforming the engineering landscape.