engineers

Nature of the Work Engineers apply the theories and principles of science and mathematics to research and develop economical solutions to technical problems. Their work is the link between perceived social needs and commercial applications. Engineers design products, machinery to build those products, plants in which those products are made, and the systems that ensure the quality of the products and the efficiency of the workforce and manufacturing process. Engineers design, plan, and supervise the construction of buildings, highways, and transit systems. They develop and implement improved ways to extract, process, and use raw materials, such as petroleum and natural gas. They develop new materials that both improve the performance of products and take advantage of advances in technology. They harness the power of the sun, the Earth, atoms, and electricity for use in supplying the Nation’s power needs, and create millions of products using power. They analyze the impact of the products they develop or the systems they design on the environment and on people using them. Engineering knowledge is applied to improving many things, including the quality of healthcare, the safety of food products, and the operation of financial systems. Engineers consider many factors when developing a new product. For example, in developing an industrial robot, engineers determine precisely what function the robot needs to perform; design and test the robot’s components; fit the components together in an integrated plan; and evaluate the design’s overall effectiveness, cost, reliability, and safety. This process applies to many different products, such as chemicals, computers, gas turbines, helicopters, and toys. In addition to design and development, many engineers work in testing, production, or maintenance. These engineers supervise production in factories, determine the causes of breakdowns, and test manufactured products to maintain quality. They also estimate the time and cost to complete projects. Some move into engineering management or into sales. In sales, an engineering background enables them to discuss technical aspects and assist in product planning, installation, and use. (See the statements on engineering and natural sciences managers, and sales engineers, elsewhere in the Handbook.) Most engineers specialize. More than 25 major specialties are recognized by professional societies, and the major branches have numerous subdivisions. Some examples include structural and transportation engineering, which are subdivisions of civil engineering; and ceramic, metallurgical, and polymer engineering, which are subdivisions of materials engineering. Engineers also may specialize in one industry, such as motor vehicles, or in one field of technology, such as turbines or semiconductor materials. This statement, which contains an overall discussion of engineering, is followed by separate statements on 14 branches of engineering: Aerospace; agricultural; biomedical; chemical; civil; computer hardware; electrical and electronics, except computer; environmental; industrial, including health and safety; materials; mechanical; mining and geological, including mining safety; nuclear; and petroleum engineering. (Computer software engineers are discussed elsewhere in the Handbook.) Some branches of engineering not covered in detail in the Handbook, but for which there are established college programs, include architectural engineering—the design of a building’s internal support structure; and marine engineering— the design and installation of ship machinery and propulsion systems. Engineers in each branch have a base of knowledge and training that can be applied in many fields. Electronics engineers, for example, work in the medical, computer, communications, and missile guidance fields. Because there are many separate problems to solve in a large engineering project, engineers in one field often work closely with specialists in other scientific, engineering, and business occupations. Engineers use computers to produce and analyze designs; to simulate and test how a machine, structure, or system operates; and to generate specifications for parts. Using the Internet or related communications systems, engineers can collaborate on designs with other engineers around the country or even abroad. Many engineers also use computers to monitor product quality and control process efficiency. They spend a great deal of time writing reports and consulting with other engineers, as complex projects often require an interdisciplinary team of engineers. Supervisory engineers are responsible for major components or entire projects.

At Buro Happold, we believe collective action is the best way to address the climate and biodiversity crisis.It is our responsibility to design and create environments that are sustainable and fair.Every engineer, consultant and advisor must put the environment at the heart of their work.If we make major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, we can limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.This will mean environmental justice for all.
With this in mind, Buro Happold is proud to commit to the SE 2050 program with the explicit goal of achieving net zero carbon by 2050.All structural engineers shall understand, reduce and ultimately eliminate embodied carbon in their projects by 2050.

Buro Happold signs Structural
Over the last couple of years we have seen an increase in the interest and awareness of embodied carbon within the industry.This has ranged from collaborators asking that we share our knowledge and experience to clients indicating EPD targets for materials.

Education
Education is a pivotal step in tackling climate change.Only with a common understanding of the impending climate crisis can we begin to take steps to reduce the environmental impacts of the built environment.Buro Happold's North America Region has taken significant steps to educate our team about the importance of sustainability and how as structural engineers we can influence the impact of our designs.
In the last year, Buro Happold's North America structural teams have continued to expand our educational material and events The Sustainability in Structures Task Group formed from Structural Engineers Forum with objectives in the SE 2050 framework to engage more people.
An Embodied Carbon Playbook has been developed by the reduction task group to offer guidance at various stages of a project.
Onboarding meetings adapted to include the Embodied Carbon Playbook and Structures Forum content to demonstrate the LCA process and opportunities on our projects to new hires.

Development of a work bidding Embodied
Carbon Cheat Sheet for company leadership to incorporate into project proposals and educate clients.
Addition of an "Intro to EC3" presentation and recording as an educational resource to support others in the EC series.
The SE2050 initiative is targeting halving embodied carbon in our structures by 2030 and getting it to zero by 2050.It is a lofty goal, but actually it is aligned with the goals Buro Happold set out within our Global Sustainability Report.Many organisations across the engineering community share the same ambition, and it is great to see different strands of industries start to think about taking action: we need all strands to tackle their own challenges if we are to make a difference.
Stephen Curtis, Principal, Buro Happold Embodied carbon and timber in the USA: in conversation with Buro Happold experts Buro Happold Embodied Carbon Playbook

US Structures Embodied Carbon Playbook
Buro Happold has made a public commitment to measure and reduce Embodied Carbon ("EC") on all new buildings, major retrofits, and infrastructure projects by 50% by 2030 from a 2020 baseline.Additionally, our US Structures team has joined the SE 2050 program, which includes a commitment to track, reduce, and submit EC data from our projects to the SE 2050 database.This playbook summarizes how our team will approach these commitments on our projects.

Accountability
To ensure that these reviews are taking place and to hold the team accountable, a new project tracker has been developed and released in 2023.This gives an overview of all projects and tracks planned and completed embodied carbon reviews over the project lifecycle.What is monitored is the review process rather than the outcome.This ensures that there is a consistent and rigorous approach to reviews that is becoming part of the normal project workflow.
From the past year, Buro Happold have submitted five projects to the SE2050 database and is committed to submitting a further five over the next year.The projects presented give an overarching view of the work we carry out across all our US offices and encompasses the full range of project scales and types that we work on.

Tools
Buro Happold have developed several embodied carbon measurement tools for engineers to utilize and these will continue to be improved over the coming year.
The internal, structures Web-Based Embodied Carbon Calculator has been developed to give an accessible, easy-to-use option for all engineers.This has a manual data entry function for earlystage assessments as well as a bulk excel import function for handling larger datasets.US EPD values have been uploaded alongside values from around the world and the tool is used globally across all offices.The output from the tool ranks projects on an A-F scale allowing quick comparison to similar projects or between proposed systems.Collation of the output data into several useful charts breaking down the embodied carbon between building components or assessment stages allows designers to target reduction efforts where they have the greatest impact.
The award-winning open sourced and publicly accessible Building Habitats and Object Model (BHoM) LCA toolkit will continue to be developed over the coming years for linking directly to data from BIM software such as Revit or Rhino.The toolkit consists of a suite of tools for measuring the embodied carbon of any building material at any stage of design and compares it to benchmarked datasets.This is useful for early comparative studies as well as being listed as an approved tool by the International Living Futures Institute for the Living Building Challenge.
Buro Happold have set clear reporting targets to ensure that embodied carbon is measured across our project portfolio.As a minimum, all major projects must have an embodied carbon assessment carried out at each design stage in order to track reduction through the design and to benchmark against similar types of projects.The data reported from these reviews is collected in the Building Performance Dashboard, alongside other sustainability metrics such as operational carbon, to give a holistic overview of a design's performance.As we seek to achieve that goal we are making embodied carbon intensity a key metric in our design process, to be considered together with more established metrics including design requirements, constructability and cost.
We have identified an array of strategies and focuses to reduce embodied carbon in our designs.These include: Material choice -explore more structural framing options and consider hybrid approaches.
Early Comparative analyses -under comparative analyses of embodied carbon intensity during the initial project phases to assist in material selection decisions.
Material usage -optimize the usage of the materials selected.
Material specification -through our designs, Specifications and General Notes documents drive reductions in embodied carbon, the uptake of new technologies and accountability within the industry.
Embodied Carbon tracking -track embodied carbon intensity during the later project phases.
We are seeing some clients join us in establishing goals to reduce embodied carbon in their projects.Either through challenging us to demonstrate how we will drive reductions or by placing embodied carbon requirement on aspects of the project

Example of Comparative Floor Framing Analysis Dashboard
The focus in year three will be on implementing our reporting workflow and using early embodied carbon analyses to inform our design choices and benchmark our progress.Our goals are to reduce embodied carbon by circa 15% every two years as we work towards the 50% reduction goal for 2030.
Harvard University, Science and Engineering Complex.Image: Brad Feinknopf

Advocacy 14
At Buro Happold we recognize the role that embodied carbon holds in a broader building decarbonization effort and embraces structural engineers as critical gatekeepers for reducing embodied carbon.
Structural engineers hold tremendous credibility within the design team.
We exist to ensure that a building is safe to inhabit.By being a messenger for embodied carbon and reduction strategies relating to structure, that responsibility is extended to a safe planet to inhabit for future generations.
We seek opportunities to share this perspective with our clients, both those that have ambitious carbon reduction goals as well as those who are just learning about the importance of embodied carbon.We achieve this by highlighting our commitment and our approach in qualifications documents as well as including for embodied carbon and life-cycle assessment scope in our offerings.Due to the limited capacity of the existing structure and its sensitivity to additional loading, the initial engineering analysis was critical to defining the design basis for the new trail.The width of the walkway and material selection then had to be carefully tuned to limit the level of required structural strengthening.The project team tested multiple options and scenarios for trail width and decking system, which led to the selection of a lightweight steel-framed decking system to match the original Corten structure.
The steel-framed decking system provided the lowest embodied carbon option and enabled the trail to be constructed in prefabricated modules, which was a key consideration due to the access constraints of the site.
Based on the scale of the existing structure, unique site conditions and limited access, the team conceived an ingenious construction approach using a custom trolley system which was built to ride along the existing monorail beam.This enabled access across the entire length of the trail and allowed the zoo to remain operational throughout the duration of the project.
The trail incorporates four distinct "access points" to enhance the user experience, prioritize accessibility, and provide opportunities for respite, wayfinding, interpretation, and enhanced engagement with the zoo's programming and exhibits.Today, the trail stands emblematic of the Zoo's mission: to connect people, animals, and the natural world to save wildlife.Working with ODA and the wider design team, Buro Happold provided multidisciplinary services for this extensive redevelopment of Book Tower and the adjoining Book Building.

Services
Our structures team's careful optimization of the design of the structural upgrade-as well as new MEP equipment with a 20ft high brick screen wall-had a huge impact on reducing the embodied carbon and cost of the project by delivering a major reduction in steel, with an innovative intervention in the design.
Adaptive reuse is considered one of the greenest ways to build.Our experts modelled the amount of embodied carbon saved by retaining the structure compared to tearing it down and building new.Demolition and rebuild would have required more than 9,000 MT CO2e (including 22,000 tons of structural demolition waste and 2,000,000 gallons of water that would be used in dust dampening during the demolition).This compared to an embodied carbon level for the adaptive reuse of just 1,400 MT CO2e-an 85% embodied carbon saving compared to demolition and rebuild.
The redevelopment of Book Tower represents one of the largest adaptive reuse projects undertaken by Buro Happold in North America, offering a successful example of this type of project and providing Detroit with a significant catalyst for its wider regeneration.
Teamed with Lake | Flato and KSS Architects, Buro Happold is providing structural engineering together with MEP, lighting design and analytics services for the University of Pennsylvania on a new Data Science Building, Amy Gutmann Hall.
The 116,000ft 2 , mass timber building's planned academic features include active learning classrooms and collaboration spaces; a data science hub; research centers for new socially aware data science methodologies and novel, bio-inspired paradigms for computing.
The building will be Philadelphia's first Mass Timber building, and at 6 stories, it will one of the tallest Mass Timber structures in the region.
The mass timber structural system both reduces the building's carbon footprint by 52% relative to concrete and 41% relative to steel and creates a warm, tactile and welcoming environment University of Pennsylvania, Amy Gutmann Hall Philadelphia, PA, USA Dashboard -quick bay studies EC3 -free open-source tool with large supplier EPD database BHoM LCA Toolkit -advanced Revit takeoffs and carbon mapping ECOM BH Structures Embodied Carbon Calculator -web-based and BHoM-enabled EC calculator

CORE TOOLS Microsoft Excel -simple material takeoffs Autodesk Revit -advanced material takeoffs Report project on US tracker and assign project EC reporting lead MEASUREMENT + REPORTING Report EC measurement at 100% completion of each design phase to the Building Performance Dashboard (BPD) and update US project tracker Note: Select projects to be submitted to the SE 2050 database by US Structures Sustainability Committee Reporting Lead EC measurement is required for all (non-exempt) projects with fees > $100k QUALITY ASSURANCE + QUALITY CONTROL Document project lessons learnt Review project precedents and lessons learned Identify opportunities for EC efficiency and reduction with Project Design Review Engineer EC
considerations should be made during project design workshops & reviews DESIGN STRATEGIES + CONSIDERATIONS Review the US Embodied Carbon Playbook Discuss EC goals at project kickoff Identify "big ticket" items leading to EC Use EC as a metric for comparing early structural design options Set goals for structural studies and perform structural analysis of study models Collaborate with architect on optimal structural layout for system and material efficiency Perform comparative LCA of studies and finalize structural system Re-evaluate design methods and assumptions in Basis of Design (i.e.loading, serviceability criteria) Identify opportunities for reducing EC within selected structural systems Identify top material impacts and opportunities for reduction Consult General Contractor where possible to identify key material providers and collect EPDs Consult contractor / CM where possible for constructibility and supply chain feedback Include EC provisions in structural specifications Ensure EC requirements are addressed at construction kickoff Review contractor submittals to ensure specification requirements are being met Evaluate EC of major design changes This is a demonstration of the power of the collective to build a machine and develop a taxonomy for the industry.It could have a profound impact on the way we do things."Jurycomment from the 2020 Innovation Awards for the BHoM Life Cycle Assessment Toolkit Book Tower.Image: Bedrock Detroit SE 2050 EMBODIED CARBON ACTION PLAN