Episodes

Rudi Scheuermann Do plants hold the key to making cities healthier? Could we design buildings that don’t take away green space, but create it? That don’t demand energy, but generate it? Rudi Scheuermann of consultant Arup thinks so. By employing a range of design techniques including cladding structures in living plant walls and engineering bioreactive facades that generate biogas, he says that greener buildings can improve air quality, mitigate noise pollution and create healthier environmen...

Providing water and sanitation after a destructive military revolution in Peru; engineering with elephants in Kenya; and plunging into enormous pot holes in Uganda, the professional life of civil engineer Brittany Harris has been more eventful since she graduated in 2015 than many engineers’ experience throughout their entire working careers. Her efforts to bring sustainable water and sanitation to developing countries, and to encourage other engineers to do the same, led the Institution of Civi...

Dr Robin Sham How did a circus act inspire a revolutionary new construction method for Scotland’s first glass fibre reinforced polymer, cable stayed footbridge? Why did triumph and heartache underpin construction of the world’s most difficult cable stayed bridge, the Kap Shui Mun Bridge in Hong Kong? What did tunnel engineering teach designers about construction that enabled them to extend the span of cable stayed bridges to over 1km? And what was it like to work on two world beating structures...

Are there really bodies buried in the Hoover Dam? Was the hard hat really invented here in 1931? And why was it originally called Boulder Dam? In this podcast we explore and uncover the secrets of one of the greatest engineering projects ever built. The unique and formidable Hoover Dam. Learn about the “Double Ugly”, “Hurry Up Crowe” and a cast of other characters that brought this formidable piece of engineering life. And find out why over 200 people were killed during its five year constructio...

No-one knows how many penguins are in the Antarctic, but thanks to the use of drones this is set to change as scientists are using these unmanned aerial vehicles to fly over colonies of chinstrap, adelie and gentoos. And that is not all. Academics at the University of East Anglia are developing artificial intelligence that can count the birds massively cutting down the processing time required to determine the numbers. Such techniques have applications in the built environment too. Drones that c...

Robots are not just coming. They are already here. From TyBot which can tie steel reinforcement into position on bridges, to the road marking wizard Little Erik, and robotic hot wire cutters that can create bespoke formwork in minutes, robots are able to transform the way that infrastructure and buildings are constructed. From accelerating work flows, to making sites safer, the implications for the built environment are vast. But there are many challenges too. Investment costs are simply too hig...

With 4.8 million kilometres of road China sits third in the world in terms of length of highways behind only the US and India. But its huge investment budget of £455 billion for new and improved highways could see it bypass these other world leaders. In 2018 alone it will add a further 5,000km presenting a huge challenge to those who design and build these connections. Companies are under pressure from clients to design and construct these new highways faster and in this episode we investigate h...

Right now companies around the world are competing in a global race to prove that a new transport revolution is just a few years away. Using high speed transit through low pressure tubes speeds of 1100km/hr per hour are theoretically possible, bringing cities closer together than ever before. London to Edinburgh? 40minutes. Melbourne to Sydney? 52minutes. Mumbai to Delhi? 1 hour 22 minutes. But there is a long way to go before these journey times become a reality. In this episode we talk to worl...

Floating along Copenhagen’s central waterway is a new proposition in affordable student accommodation, Urban Rigger. Each of these 745m2 units starts with a central concrete pontoon supporting nine steel shipping containers, which between them host 12 studio apartments for student accommodation. Launched as a solution to the student housing crisis in the Danish capital more units are set to follow and Denmark is not the only place exploring the use of shipping containers for housing. The fast co...

The story of how Brooklyn born maths genius Barbara Res became head of construction for Trump Tower, despite deep-rooted sexism that sat at the heart of construction – and society in the 1970s and 1980s. Project owner Donald Trump modestly called Trump Tower “the most important project in the world” and to deliver it, he appointed a 31 year old female engineer called Barbara Res. Having seen her in action on the Grand Hyatt project, Barbara had earned his respect as a hard worker, and someone w...

The story of how schools, colleges and professional institutions are working with Minecraft Education Edition to inspire the next generation of young engineers. Engineering UK predicts that 124,000 new engineers are required every year in the UK to fill the gap created by retiring professionals and expanding demand. But it is only managing to attract half as many and a shortfall of 59,000 per annum is expected over the next decade. Engaging with young people is therefore crucial, and working wi...

How a small village in Buckinghamshire developed and delivered a clean, green, solar energy project that generates enough electricity to power over 1000 homes and uses its profits to benefit the local community. The 4.18MW solar power project in the village of Gawcott generates three times more electricity that this community of 280 properties requires. At the same time the financing for the scheme included a community bond offer meaning that local people were able to invest in the project. Tho...

From apps that can tell building residents what to do in a fire, to smart psrinklers and localised external fire detection and suppression, new technologies have the potential to make buildings safer and evacuation faster. Developments in fire detection technology are also reducing the incidence of false alarms and reducing the likelihood of vandalism or malicious activation. At the same time the digital revolution is finally hitting the building industry catalysed by the post Grenfell review in...

In the event of a fire do not use the lift, use the stairs. We have been conditioned to fear using an elevator to escape a fire. But one major London project is trying to change all that. At 22 Bishopsgate in London the designers have set in place a lift evacuation strategy that can cut escape times from the 64 story building to just minutes. The team have done this, not with state of the art pressurised lift shafts, but instead with standard lifts, a bit of concrete and a clever strategy. In th...

In the second of our series of podcasts examining fire safety in tall buildings we ask how can developers of tall buildings be incentivised to build in more resilience, and use some of the innovations already in the market to make buildings safer from fire? We interview Justin Francis of the Queensland Fire Service who says that the answer is a new fire and life safety rating system that could be used by building owners to highlight good performance on fire safety. Interviewing Justin at the FI...

Now is the time for change when it comes to fire safety in tall buildings. The catastrophic events at Grenfell Tower in London on 14 June 2017 have become the starting point in a drastic restructure of the system governing fire and safety in tall buildings. The post-Grenfell review of building regulations and fire safety by Dame Judith Hackitt found that the entire system was fundamentally flawed from procurement through design and construction to maintenance. Ambiguous regulations, unclear resp...

Digital twins are revolutionising business models for aviation, industry and engineering. These virtual replicants of assets enriched with real time and contextual data are giving more information about networks, systems, factories, equipment and buildings than ever before. Assets then become more cost effective to maintain, and efficient to operate with cloud based data storage enabling performance monitoring at a scale that has not been possible until very recently. As a result, wholescale tra...

The UK in now at war with waste plastic creating major new opportunities for the waste industry. In January Prime Minister Theresa May published a new 25 year Environment Plan which pledged to eliminate all avoidable plastic waste by 2042. Increasing recycling rates, using biodegradable materials and reusing plastic are all parts of the strategy but what if all plastics could be made to biodegrade under the right treatment conditions? Well this just might be possible. There is already a unique b...

Satellite based global positioning systems have revolutionised navigation outdoors and now software engineers are bringing the same innovation to indoor spaces. Airports, with their expansive terminals, are a perfect testing ground for new digital navigation technology. In London, Gatwick airport is leading the way. Designed by Pointr Labs the airport introduced 2000 Bluetooth beacons to its terminals in May 2017 to enable accurate indoor wayfinding by smartphone app. But apps are not the only ...