The Trafford Centre, Manchester

Engineers’ salaries The comments by Mike Heath, Director General of the Engineering Council referred to in ‘Structural news ’ for 4 November 1997, has raised more correspondence. Mr E. N. Carmichael has written from Bridgnorth in Shropshire in response to the anonymous letter published in Verulam, 20 January 1998: I am moved to respond to the question raised by Verulam as a result of an anonymous correspondent on the validity of average salaries claimed to be £40 131 p.a.

This article reports experience on a number of lattice-shell roof structures we have designed recently. We are referring to structures where an open lattice is curved, either singly or doubly, so as to be able to carry load in a combination of in- and out-of-plane actions. Some published guidance on analysis exists, as do some reports on built projects which appear to have been determined by purely structural considerations. There is, however, little guidance on where to begin the design or, perhaps more importantly, what will constitute an acceptable end to the design of architecture-led projects. The choice of form for any structure must clearly address a number of issues to which the designer has to attach priority: - what space has to be enclosed? -how should the load be carried across that space? - the integration of technical subsystems into the structural arrangement - issues of overall economy -further issues, sometimes subsidiary, such as thermal performance, fire, acoustics, maintenance and daylighting M.W. Manning and P. Dallard

Few would dispute that construction projects generate more documents, and in particular secondary copies of documents, than are strictly necessary to get the work done. Whatever the reasons for this (and ritual abuse of the photocopier is clearly one), on completion of a project consultants need to decide how to deal with the voluminous documentation which has been generated. So what should you do? A. Rawstron