Speaker 1: You know, when we look at a finished building, like
Speaker 1: a skyscraper, a commercial complex, or I mean even just
Speaker 1: a standard house, it feels remarkably permanent, doesn't it. It's
Speaker 1: just static.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems completely still, like a you know, a
Speaker 2: completed sculpture that just rests on the earth.
Speaker 1: Right. But then you step into the shoes of a
Speaker 1: structural engineer and that illusion of stillness is totally shattered. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you realize that the building isn't static at all.
Speaker 2: Oh, not even a little bit. It's essentially a battlefield exactly.
Speaker 1: It's breathing, it's shifting, it is fighting off water, wind,
Speaker 1: and gravity literally every single second of its existence. It's
Speaker 1: this dynamic system desperately seeking equilibrium.
Speaker 2: And if you are gearing up to teach a room
Speaker 2: full of civil engineering students or young professionals tomorrow, which
Speaker 2: you know is why we're doing the steep dive for
Speaker 2: you today, getting them to see that invisible battlefield is
Speaker 2: your first major challenge.
Speaker 1: So to help you do exactly that, we're pulling apart
Speaker 1: the overarching framework from Tony Bryan's textbook Construction, Technology, Analysis
Speaker 1: and Choice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Brian's foundational philosophy here is great he approaches
Speaker 2: construction choice not as a static catalog exercise, but as
Speaker 2: a deeply analytical loop.
Speaker 1: I mean, it is never just about pulling a standard
Speaker 1: detail from a.
Speaker 2: CAD library, right, right, exactly. The process starts with making
Speaker 2: an initial suggestion, which is usually based on precedent or
Speaker 2: historical data, and then you subject that suggestion to a
Speaker 2: rigorous evaluation.
Speaker 1: Let's unpack that evaluation phase actually, because from what I'm
Speaker 1: seeing in the text, it basically boils down to asking
Speaker 1: two fundamental, almost brutal questions of your design.
Speaker 2: Yep, will it fail? And can it be built?
Speaker 1: Those are the ultimate tests.
Speaker 2: They really are. And to answer those two questions, Brian
Speaker 2: lays out a framework of seven critical areas of analysis,
Speaker 2: and these have to be satisfied before any construction choice
Speaker 2: is finalized.
Speaker 1: Okay, seven areas. Break those down for us.
Speaker 2: So three of these deal with physical behavior that's creating environments,
Speaker 2: behavior under load, and behavior.
Speaker 1: Over time environments load time, got it?
Speaker 2: Then three deal with resources manufacture and assembly, cost and
Speaker 2: social concerns like sustainability.
Speaker 1: Right, and the last one, the final one, is appearance.
Speaker 1: Seven areas, I mean that is a massive mental load
Speaker 1: for a student to juggle all at once.
Speaker 2: It is, but Brian uses a really effective mind experiment
Speaker 2: to show why you can't ignore any of them. He
Speaker 2: asks us to track the evolution of building purpose right,
Speaker 2: starting from just a primitive shelter like this. Initially, the
Speaker 2: builder only cares about staying dry, so they build a sealed,
Speaker 2: water tight box. But once you have a sealed dry shelter,
Speaker 2: you get cold. You want warmth, so you bring a
Speaker 2: fire inside.
Speaker 1: Which immediately creates a totally new problem because a sealed
Speaker 1: box with the fire means you have terrible air quality. Right,
Speaker 1: you're dealing with smoke inhalation exactly.
Speaker 2: So what do you do. You punch a hole in
Speaker 2: the roof for ventilation.
Speaker 1: Ah, But the moment you punch that hole, you are
Speaker 1: losing the heat you just created.
Speaker 2: And you've opened a path for the rain to get
Speaker 2: back in.
Speaker 1: Right. So, as the building evolves to manage these complex
Speaker 1: competing functions like sound, insulation, fire resistance, internal cleanliness, the
Speaker 1: technical considerations become incredibly interwoven.
Speaker 2: Yeah, changing one material to solve a heat problem might
Speaker 2: inadvertently create a moisture problem.
Speaker 1: So making an initial suggestion is sort of like a
Speaker 1: doctor making a preliminary diagnosis based on symptoms. Right, you
Speaker 1: think it's a bacterial infection, so you suggest antibiotics.
Speaker 2: That's a great way to frame it for your students.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but the evaluation phase is the rigorous lab testing
Speaker 1: to prove it. It's checking the blood work, ensuring the
Speaker 1: antibiotic won't cause a fatal allergic reaction somewhere else in
Speaker 1: the body. The suggestion is just the hypothesis, and.
Speaker 2: The evaluation is the scientific proof, which is why relying
Speaker 2: only on historical precedent without evaluation is so incredibly dangerous.
Speaker 1: Wait, hold on, though, I can totally imagine the student
Speaker 1: looking at, say, a standard load bearing cavity wall, something
Speaker 1: that has been built millions of times, and asking, why
Speaker 1: do I need to run a deep seven step evaluation
Speaker 1: on something we already know works.
Speaker 2: Oh? They definitely will ask that, Can I just copy
Speaker 2: the common form?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Why can't they?
Speaker 2: Well, Historically, slow changing environments allowed Billers to do just that.
Speaker 2: You could repeat common forms for centuries, honestly, but modern
Speaker 2: construction does not offer that.
Speaker 1: Luxury because things are changing too fast.
Speaker 2: Exactly, we are driven by rapid changes in materials, shifting
Speaker 2: sustainability laws, and changing production economics, the baseline is just
Speaker 2: constantly moving.
Speaker 1: Give me a specific example of how copying a common
Speaker 1: form fails in a modern context.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's take that standard cavity wall you mentioned. Say
Speaker 2: a student decides to dramatically increase the insulation thickness inside
Speaker 2: that wall, right.
Speaker 1: To save energy and meet a new local carbon emission
Speaker 1: law or something.
Speaker 2: Yep, they think they've just made a good design better,
Speaker 2: But changing that one variable drastically alters the internal microclimate
Speaker 2: of the wall structure.
Speaker 1: Okay, how so it.
Speaker 2: Moves the temperature gradient, which alters where the dew point
Speaker 2: falls inside the wall.
Speaker 1: And just as a quick refresher, the dew point being
Speaker 1: the temperature where water vapor actually turns into liquid. Right.
Speaker 2: Yes, So warm moist air from inside the building travels
Speaker 2: into the wall, hits this new colder layer that was
Speaker 2: created by the extra insulation, and it condenses.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, yeah, this is.
Speaker 2: Called interstitial condensation. So suddenly a wall design that functioned
Speaker 2: perfectly for fifty years is now trapping liquid water deep
Speaker 2: inside its layers.
Speaker 1: Which leads to unseen rot and structural decay.
Speaker 2: Exactly, you have to evaluate the entire system, not just
Speaker 2: copy a component.
Speaker 1: Which brings us to the physical components themselves, because once
Speaker 1: we have a concept that actually survives that initial evaluation,
Speaker 1: the engineer has to specify the exact variables that make
Speaker 1: up the physical reality of the building.
Speaker 2: We're moving from theory to reality, and Brian outlines four
Speaker 2: core variables here materials, shape, size, and spatial relationships.
Speaker 1: And when it comes to sizing, Brian heavily emphasizes dimensional specification.
Speaker 1: He moves through three distinct phases, which I think is fascinating.
Speaker 2: It is, and honestly, this explains a lot about why
Speaker 2: construction documents look so ridiculously complicated.
Speaker 1: Let's walk through those three phases.
Speaker 2: Okay, first, you have the gross size. This is based
Speaker 2: purely on performance metrics. Let's say your structural calculations show
Speaker 2: that a concrete limb, that's the.
Speaker 1: Beam spanning across the top of a window.
Speaker 2: Right, say, the math says it needs to be exactly
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty five millimeters deep to support the
Speaker 2: load of the roof without breaking That one hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty five millimeters is your gross size.
Speaker 1: But you can't just call up a supplier and order
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty five millimeters lintel because that beam
Speaker 1: has to actually fit into a wall made of standard
Speaker 1: sized bricks exactly.
Speaker 2: And that leads to the second phase, which is the
Speaker 2: coordinated size. You have to integrate your component with the
Speaker 2: surrounding materials.
Speaker 1: Right, They have to talk to each other. Yeah.
Speaker 2: For example, a standard brick course in the UK. So
Speaker 2: that's the brick plus the mortar bed is seventy five millimeters.
Speaker 2: Two courses equal one hundred and fifty milimeters.
Speaker 1: Okay, So to make the wall buildable, you adjust your
Speaker 1: LENTTL from the gross size of one hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: five up to a coordinated size of one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty millimeters.
Speaker 2: Yep, so it aligns perfectly with the brickwork coursing.
Speaker 1: Okay, so the calculations require one hundred and twenty five,
Speaker 1: we round up to one fifty to match the bricks.
Speaker 1: We aren't done yet, are we, because the lincl itself
Speaker 1: can't be exactly one hundred and fifty millimeters. Nope.
Speaker 2: The third phase is the working size. This incorporates the
Speaker 2: physical space needed for joints and the reality of manufacturing deviations.
Speaker 1: So that one hundred and fifty millimeters coordinated space needs
Speaker 1: to actually include the mortar joint that bonds the LNTL
Speaker 1: to the bricks around it exactly.
Speaker 2: If the mortar joint needs to be ten millimeters thick,
Speaker 2: your final working size for the concrete lenttel itself is
Speaker 2: specified at one hundred and forty.
Speaker 1: Milimeters gross size to coordinated size to working size. So
Speaker 1: one twenty five up to one fifty down.
Speaker 2: To one forty that's the progression.
Speaker 1: I mean, I get traditional brick laying having variations, but
Speaker 1: let me push back on this a bit. For the
Speaker 1: modern context, we have CNC machines, Now we have laser
Speaker 1: cut steel and automated manufacturing. If I order a steel
Speaker 1: bean cut to exactly one hundred and forty milimeters, it
Speaker 1: arrives at exactly one hundred and forty millimeters. So why
Speaker 1: are we still so worried about allowable deviations and tolerances.
Speaker 2: Well, factory tolerances have certainly improved, there's no doubt about that.
Speaker 2: But absolute perfection on a building site is still a
Speaker 2: complete myth.
Speaker 1: Really? Why?
Speaker 2: For one, materials physically expand and contract with temperature changes
Speaker 2: between the factory and the site. Sure, but more importantly,
Speaker 2: we are moving away from traditional cut to fit craft
Speaker 2: practices in the past, a mason could just shave a
Speaker 2: brick with a trowel to make it fit a wonky.
Speaker 1: Gap, Right, they just fix it on the fly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But now we are assembling precize rigid factory components.
Speaker 1: So the precision actually makes it harder in a way.
Speaker 2: It creates a phenomenon called cumulative spatial creep. If you
Speaker 2: stack fifty rigid factory made facade panels next to each
Speaker 2: other and each one is just one millimeter wider than
Speaker 2: specified by the.
Speaker 1: End of a fifty meter facade, your wall is fifty
Speaker 1: millimeters off its reference gridline exactly.
Speaker 2: The final piece simply will not fit into the building
Speaker 2: frame because you can't just shave down a glass and
Speaker 2: steel panel on site. You have to design joints between
Speaker 2: every single panel that can absorb those tiny inherent deviations.
Speaker 1: Wow. Okay, So if we've successfully managed to snap all
Speaker 1: these rigid pieces together perfectly on day one using those
Speaker 1: joints to absorb the creep, that still doesn't stop the
Speaker 1: building from physically snapping in half when a hurricane hits
Speaker 1: on day two.
Speaker 2: No it doesn't.
Speaker 1: So how does Brian evaluate physical stress once the building
Speaker 1: is actually standing?
Speaker 2: This is where we analyze those three modes of physical behavior, environments, underload,
Speaker 2: and overtime.
Speaker 1: Let's look at environments first.
Speaker 2: So the building is constantly seeking equilibrium with nature. Designers
Speaker 2: have to map the flows of heat, moisture, and air.
Speaker 2: You have to anticipate highly specific failure mech meaning.
Speaker 1: It's not enough to just ask will it get wet?
Speaker 2: Right? You have to distinguish between penetrating damp from wind
Speaker 2: driven rain, rising damp being sucked up from the soil
Speaker 2: through capillary action, and the interstitial condensation we talked about earlier, and.
Speaker 1: When we look at behavior underload. Brian splits this into
Speaker 1: two different criteria, right, the collapse criterion and the serviceability criterion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the collapse criterion is straightforward, will the material actually
Speaker 2: break based on its ultimate strength, like will the steel
Speaker 2: beams snap under the weight of the roof? Critical obviously,
Speaker 2: But the serviceability criterion asks will it distort, deflect, or
Speaker 2: bounce too much based on the material string characteristics, which is.
Speaker 1: A vital distinction for student to grasp. A floor might
Speaker 1: be structurally safe from collapse, like it can physically hold
Speaker 1: the weight of fifty people, but if.
Speaker 2: It bounces like a trampoline every time someone walks on it,
Speaker 2: it has failed the serviceability criterion, and that.
Speaker 1: Bounce isn't just annoying for the people walking on it.
Speaker 2: Is it No that reflection actually cracks the rigid dry
Speaker 2: wall ceilings on the floor below, which leads to a
Speaker 2: failure in appearance and potentially compromises the fire resistant environment
Speaker 2: of the room below.
Speaker 1: It's all connected. The structure has to manage dead loads,
Speaker 1: which is its own weight, imposed loads like people and furniture,
Speaker 1: and windloads exactly.
Speaker 2: To prevent racking, which is a building leaning over and
Speaker 2: overturning from wind, engineers utilize rigid frames, diagonal bracing, or
Speaker 2: solid sheer walls.
Speaker 1: Then there is the third mode, behavior over time.
Speaker 2: And here Brian stresses that durability is not an inherent
Speaker 2: property of a material. You can't state universally that steel
Speaker 2: is durable.
Speaker 1: Because it depends on the context exactly.
Speaker 2: Durability is a relationship between a material and specific environmental
Speaker 2: agents of decay. Steel is highly durable inside a dry, warm,
Speaker 2: climate controlled room, but.
Speaker 1: Put that same steel in a salty coastal atmosphere.
Speaker 2: And it degrades rapidly. Understanding this relationship means planning for
Speaker 2: wear maintenance and eventual disposal right from the concept stage.
Speaker 1: When teaching this, it really helps to frame the building
Speaker 1: not as a static box, but almost as living organism.
Speaker 1: It breathes, it sweats, its bones, flex under windloads, and
Speaker 1: its skin ages based on the climate it lives in.
Speaker 2: I love that analogy. It's perfect.
Speaker 1: So theoretically, we've now designed a structure that survives the
Speaker 1: forces of nature, manages its loads without bouncing, and handles
Speaker 1: decay over time. But an elegant design on paper is
Speaker 1: totally useless if we don't have the physical means to
Speaker 1: safely and economically build.
Speaker 2: It, which brings us to the second overarching question, can
Speaker 2: it be built?
Speaker 1: Let's get into the resources required to realize a building's performance.
Speaker 1: Ryan breaks us down into four essential categories.
Speaker 2: Yes, First, materials the primary resource. Second knowledge and skill
Speaker 2: the human resource, Third production equipment the technological resource, and
Speaker 2: fourth money.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about production equipment for a second, because we
Speaker 1: aren't just talking about cranes and bulldozers here. Brian specifically
Speaker 1: focuses on temporary works.
Speaker 2: Yeah, temporary works are often the enabling technology for the
Speaker 2: permanent structure. Think about pouring a concrete floor. You need formwork,
Speaker 2: temporary molds to hold the liquid concrete in the air
Speaker 2: while it cures, or earthwork.
Speaker 1: Support to hold back the dirt when digging a basement.
Speaker 2: Exactly. I mean, the Romans could only build their magnificent,
Speaker 2: massive concrete domes because they first figured out how to
Speaker 2: engineer the temporary timber centering to support that massive weight
Speaker 2: while the concrete hardened.
Speaker 1: That makes total sense. Now, I can see why materials, equipment,
Speaker 1: and even labor are technical resources. But why include money?
Speaker 2: People always ask that.
Speaker 1: I mean, isn't the budget just the project manager's problem.
Speaker 1: Why does a civil engineer evaluating physical load paths need
Speaker 1: to view money as a technical resource.
Speaker 2: Because money dictates the physical reality of the design. Let's
Speaker 2: say you engineer a technically superior structural solution for a
Speaker 2: deep basement, but building it requires highly specialized, incredibly expensive
Speaker 2: temporary earthwork supports. If the client cannot fund those temporary works,
Speaker 2: your foundational solution is technically invalid for that specific context.
Speaker 1: Wow, you literally have to redesign the physics of the
Speaker 1: foundation because you can't afford the temporary support.
Speaker 2: Furthermore, money dictates the level of mechanization and the quality
Speaker 2: of skilled labor you can hire, which directly impacts the
Speaker 2: allowable deviations and tolerances you can specify in your structural design.
Speaker 1: So if you design a facade requiring millimeter precision, but
Speaker 1: the budget only affords a workforce and equipment used to
Speaker 1: centimeter precision.
Speaker 2: The components won't fit and the building will fail.
Speaker 1: Money dictates the geometry. That is such a crucial lesson
Speaker 1: for young engineers, it really is. So how do these
Speaker 1: resources dictate our broad production options? Well?
Speaker 2: Brian contrasts three main production options. First in situ, which
Speaker 2: is casting or building in place, like pouring a concrete
Speaker 2: slab on site.
Speaker 1: Then there's traditional right.
Speaker 2: Right, Traditional is the site ascen of manufactured components like
Speaker 2: laying bricks. And then prefabrication or system building.
Speaker 1: Where entire volumetric modules are large panels were built in
Speaker 1: a controlled factory environment and simply bolted together.
Speaker 2: On site exactly and connecting this back to the framework,
Speaker 2: prefabrication solves the tolerance and weather problems we talked about earlier.
Speaker 2: Factory conditions mean tighter deviations and no rain getting in
Speaker 2: the joints during assembly.
Speaker 1: The prefabrication introduces massive new resource constraints, doesn't it.
Speaker 2: Oh? Absolutely, You need expensive transport to move volumetric modules
Speaker 2: and you need massive cranes specialized production equipment to lift them.
Speaker 2: Every choice is a trade off within the framework, and.
Speaker 1: Today sustainability is heavily woven into these resource choices too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, critic to gate analysis which measures the embodied energy
Speaker 2: and carbon it takes to manufacture material, along with planning
Speaker 2: for waste disposal, are now mandatory technical considerations when sourcing
Speaker 2: your primary materials.
Speaker 1: To really solidify this for an educator, I think we
Speaker 1: need to see how available resources and required performance dictate
Speaker 1: choices across different scales. Let's look at domestic housing versus
Speaker 1: commercial construction.
Speaker 2: That's a great comparison because the scale, the loads, and
Speaker 2: the end use of a house are highly predictable. Domestic
Speaker 2: housing relies heavily on established common forms like what well.
Speaker 2: A standard domestic house in the UK manages moisture by
Speaker 2: using a semi permeable masonry cavity wall, an outer leaf
Speaker 2: of brick, an air cavity, and an inner leaf of blockwork.
Speaker 2: The upper floors are suspended timber.
Speaker 1: And the roof usually uses trus rafters connected with gang
Speaker 1: nail plates.
Speaker 2: Yes, and gang Nail plates are a perfect example of
Speaker 2: a highly optimized common form. They are galvanized steel plates
Speaker 2: with dozens of sharp spikes stamped directly into them.
Speaker 1: So instead of a carpenter spending hours cutting complex traditional
Speaker 1: wood joints.
Speaker 2: A factory press just stamps these spiked plates into the timber,
Speaker 2: instantly creating a rigid triangle. It requires minimal skill on site,
Speaker 2: uses minimal material, and performs perfectly for the highly predictable
Speaker 2: load of a standard roof.
Speaker 1: But commercial construction throws that predictability right out the window completely.
Speaker 2: Due to massive, diverse loads and vast open spans, commercial
Speaker 2: buildings require a complex technological mix.
Speaker 1: Let's look at the commercial structure itself.
Speaker 2: Okay. They often use skeletal frames, which might be steel
Speaker 2: columns supporting composite decks, or they use institute concrete flat slabs.
Speaker 2: A flat slab is a solid plate of concrete spanning
Speaker 2: between columns without any horizontal beams supporting it.
Speaker 1: Wait, if there are no horizontal beams to distribute the weight,
Speaker 1: doesn't the vertical column just punch right through the concrete
Speaker 1: slab under all that load, like I don't know, pushing
Speaker 1: a pencil through a piece of paper.
Speaker 2: That is the exact primary failure mode you have to evaluate.
Speaker 2: It's called punching sheer punching sheet.
Speaker 1: Okay, so how do you solve it?
Speaker 2: Engineers must specify highly specific, incredibly dense steel reinforcement cages
Speaker 2: embedded in the concrete slab directly above the column heads.
Speaker 2: This localized steel reinforcement absorbs the sheer stress, preventing the
Speaker 2: column from punching through.
Speaker 1: What about below ground? You mentioned the danger of deep
Speaker 1: commercial basements earlier.
Speaker 2: Digging a deep basement is incredibly dangerous because the surrounding
Speaker 2: soil wants to collapse inward. One elegant commercial solution is
Speaker 2: diaphragm walling.
Speaker 1: How does that work?
Speaker 2: You excavate a deep, narrow trench, but as you dig,
Speaker 2: you constantly fill the trench with bentonite's slurry.
Speaker 1: Bent tonite is essentially a liquid clay. Right. How does
Speaker 1: a liquid stop a dirt wall from collapsing?
Speaker 2: It's amazing. Actually, the liquid clay exerts outward hydrostatic pressure
Speaker 2: against the soil. It literally pushes back against the dirt,
Speaker 2: holding the walls of the trench apart.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And once the trench is deep enough, you lower
Speaker 2: a steel reinforcement cage directly into the slurry. Then you
Speaker 2: drop a pipe called a trimy tube all the way
Speaker 2: to the bottom of the trench, so.
Speaker 1: You pump concrete down the tube to the bottom.
Speaker 2: Exactly. Crete is heavier than the slurry. As the concrete
Speaker 2: fills the trench from the bottom up, it displaces the
Speaker 2: lighter slurry, pushing it out the top.
Speaker 1: That is brilliant.
Speaker 2: The result is a permanent structural concrete wall cast directly
Speaker 2: into the earth. Before you even excavate the basement center.
Speaker 2: You've effectively turned the temporary earthwork support into the permanent structure.
Speaker 1: That's incredible. And then we have the commercial enclosure. A
Speaker 1: popular choice there is structural glazing, massive sheets of glass
Speaker 1: held by stainless steel spider brackets instead of heavy window frames.
Speaker 2: Right, but recall the windloads we talked about. Wind makes
Speaker 2: a commercial skeletal frame flex and bend. If you rigidly
Speaker 2: bolt metal brackets to glass and the building flexes.
Speaker 1: The metal doesn't give and the glass.
Speaker 2: Shatters exactly, So the engineers must design the spider brackets
Speaker 2: with flexible nylon bushes. These act as a buffer, preventing
Speaker 2: metal to glass contact and accommodating the movement of the building.
Speaker 1: So if domestic housing is like a set menu at
Speaker 1: a restaurant, s highly optimized, rarely requiring deep reevaluation, commercial
Speaker 1: construction is basically a la carte engineering. You have to
Speaker 1: carefully pair the structural, enclosure and services systems. If you
Speaker 1: mix the wrong a la carte items like rigid steel
Speaker 1: and fragile glass, the flavors don't just clash, the components
Speaker 1: physically destroy each other under load.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the interfaces between those varied commercial systems are where
Speaker 2: the majority of the physical risk lies.
Speaker 1: So if you're taking this into the classroom tomorrow, the
Speaker 1: core takeaway to impart to your students is that Tony
Speaker 1: Bryan's framework demands we view construction technology as the rigorous
Speaker 1: analysis of dynamic systems. The goal is to move beyond
Speaker 1: memorizing static details and instead master the analysis of physical behavior,
Speaker 1: dimensional deviations, and production buildability.
Speaker 2: And a great way to test if your students actually
Speaker 2: grasp this is to give them a scenario, like a
Speaker 2: review question.
Speaker 1: Well, I like that, what's the question?
Speaker 2: Ask them this? Imagine a design calls for a highly insulated,
Speaker 2: prefabricated solid timber panel wall to replace a traditional masonry
Speaker 2: cavity wall in a commercial building. Using Brian's framework, identify
Speaker 2: one potential failure risk and physical behavior over time, specifically
Speaker 2: regarding durability and the internal microclimate, and one manufacture and
Speaker 2: assembly risk specifically regarding spatial deviations and fit that you
Speaker 2: must evaluate before finalizing this choice.
Speaker 1: That is a fantastic real world application for them to unpack.
Speaker 2: So good it forces them to think about the system
Speaker 2: as a whole well to leave you.
Speaker 1: With a final forward looking thought as you build your curriculum.
Speaker 1: Throughout this analysis, we've talked a lot about the preceded
Speaker 1: data we rely on to make that initial suggestion. You know,
Speaker 1: historical weather patterns, one hundred year wind loads, predictable thermal extremes.
Speaker 2: Right the baseline data.
Speaker 1: But as climate change drastically alters those historical weather patterns,
Speaker 1: the centuries old data we've relied on is becoming obsolete.
Speaker 1: The battlefield is shifting. So how do we engineer and
Speaker 1: evaluate safe common forms when the baseline laws of the
Speaker 1: physical environment are shifting beneath our feet. It's something to
Speaker 1: think about until next time. Keep diving deep.