Socio-Economic Responsibilities: the Challenge Facing Structural Engineers

Movement in clay Rodney Higgins has usedpart of his holiday, he tells us, to catch up on back numbers of The Structural Engineer: most commendable! Evidently, his reading extended more widely, and he writes: Having recently read the new BRE Digest concerning the influence of trees in clay soils on low-rise buildings, I was reminded of an experiment I undertook on a subsidence claim following the 1989-90 drought.

Computers are becoming an integral part of most facets of the construction industry from conceptual design to maintenance planning. Their influence on structural design has been particularly dramatic, where software is available to assist analysis and design, and drawings are routinely produced on computer aided draughting (CAD) systems. Peter Gardner

Bernard Johnston grew up in the industrial landscape of the north east of England, outside Newcastle-upon-Tyne, amongst the shipyards and bridges of Tyneside. As a small boy he was deeply impressed by these surroundings and remembers ‘building reinforced earth structures and long spans of twigs and grass and earth’ in the garden of his home. He also spent hours wandering round the Museum of Science & Engineering where he was most attracted to the models of ships and planes. His father was a commercial artist running a silk-screen business, and his brother became a mechanical engineer.