This paper proposes, in principal, a potential solution to this through the upskilling of engineering professionals to become ‘specialist generalist technical lead’ designers within a renewed and simplified core design team.
Consulting structural engineers or facade engineers, being tuned to be as technically competent as they are practical, and as design sensitive as they are aware of technical feasibility and cost, are perfectly suited to fulfil an increased need for this specialist generalist figure who can complement the architect from a technical perspective and harness the best of specialist designers, while maintaining a holistic outlook on the technical and sustainability aspects of a project.