Discussion on Collapse of the Ramsgate Walkway by Dr J.C. Chapman

Email for Smaller Consultants Stephen Hudson, based in Cambridge, writes: I am a Chartered Structural Engineer and have spent most of my career working either for engineering companies, trying to persuade them to use IT, or for computing companies, trying to encourage them to produce software that does what engineers want. My experience is that it is often the amateurs from small consultancy practices who invest proportionally more in IT than systems managers from large practices.

The Tate Gallery of Modern Art at Bankside, London, now named ‘Tate Modern’, is one of the most important public buildings to be realised in England at the end of the 20th century. The project has transformed Giles Gilbert Scott’s grand power station into a vast art gallery, which will contribute to the resurgence of the London Borough of Southwark. From the outside, Bankside looks remurkably similar today to when it operated as a power station, apart from a certain amount of repair and a new glass-clad ‘beam’ appearing above the old roof line. This paper tells the story of how 300 OOO ft² of new, highly serviced floors were nested within the original enclosure. J.G. Hirst, F.H. Wainwright and J.M. Shaw

This month's letters discuss foundations in shrinkable ground and highlight a survey on structural optimisation in practice.