British Engineering, whats going on????

[northwind]

Originally Posted by DanDare

What was wrong with the old design, why do they find it nessacary to build a radical new untested design ( which nearly collapses ) and why do they just go for the cheapest unrealistic solution, knowing full well it wouldn't work and then millions more being spent to either compensate or finish the job.

That's how competetive tendering seems to work... Give te contract to the cheapest bid, regardless of whether or not it's realistic, then don't complain when it goes so far overbudget that it's higher than any of the alternative bids.

i think the real problem is that for large-scale architecture, everyone wants a structure with impact, they don't want a structure that works. So you literally have "architects" like Norman Fowler drawing something that looks pretty on a napkin, then handing it to a team of engineers who have to somehow make it work. The results are always compromised

Historically, if you wanted a bridge, you built a hefty bit of steel or stone or concrete, it'd stand for a century without problems. Now, you build a delicate spiderweb of steel cables and randomly placed mirrors, powered by the phases of the moon, and just occasionally on a very calm day you can let one person walk across it at a time.

Or if you wanted a block of offices, you built something that looked like it was made of lego. You could make it handsome, but it'd still be a box. But now, if you want to get ahead in architecture and be a "name", you build a physiologically accurate glass **** that fires laser beams out of the end. of course, it overheats in summer, freezes in winter, costs a fortune and gives less floorspace than the box, but everyone talks about it. (what people seem to miss, is that a lot of the people who talk about it say something like "Look at that ****ing ridiculous glass ****"

Or, closer to home for me, instead of putting a parliament building into the already existing, nearly suitable building that's been made available, you purpose build a "feature" to "represent new democracy", which represents new democracy by being slow, expensive, and having to be abandoned after a year.

to be fair though, the FA is a nightmare client. design changes and slow decision making. Multiplex were also left in the sh*t when the steel contractor went bust.

they're also a client of my company, hence sticking up for them (a bit)

IMHO, the reason the steel company went bust was because of Multiplex not paying in the first place. So there own fault really.

DanDare, I know you were not having a go at individuals, but what you must realise is that this kind of thing happens all over the world. A good example would be the island airport in Japan (name escapes me at the mo) but anyway the island is now sinking so the building thats on it has had to be put on jacks to be inched up every year!!.

Large construction projects are amazingly complicated and it only takes one thing to go wrong to throw the whole thing back a few weeks. This soon adds up.

We could all just put up boxes on time, on budget and they would do exactly what they say on the tin, wouldnt that be boring though. One of my personal heros Joseph Bazlegette and Brunel didnt beleive that any job was impossible. There jobs always ran over time and over budget and yet we marvel at their achievements still today.

[northwind]

Brunel was inventing new technologies as he went along, and buidling things that nobody thought could be built. That's hardly the case at Wembley.

Originally Posted by Rog

DanDare, I know you were not having a go at individuals, but what you must realise is that this kind of thing happens all over the world. A good example would be the island airport in Japan (name escapes me at the mo) but anyway the island is now sinking so the building thats on it has had to be put on jacks to be inched up every year!!.

The airport is Kansai International, but that isn't an example of a **** up, it's an example of engineering brilliance. The island was always going to settle, they calculated the amount of subsidence and then installed the jacks to keep the terminal building level.

[timwilky]

I have worked for engineering companies all my life. Even though I am in IT my degree is Mech Eng. My employer of the past 20 years has provided 25% of the worlds power generation capacity and I have been fortunate enough to work on a large number of overseas construction projects.

There is nothing wrong with British Engineering. However I have seen two areas that worry me. The first is rationalisation and iradication of duplicate capacity. Working for a multinational this usually means shuting down capacity in the UK. The second more worrying trend within the construction industry seems to be the claim culture. Whereby construction companies quote for the work at cost hoping to actually make their money for claim after claim for design change or failure to provide information, additional scopes of work etc. Instead of being a partnership with the intention of completing the project on time and to budget it becomes an exercise in protecting your own backsides and screwing the contractors.