Editorial

Global society, the construction industry, and the practice of engineering are all changing. While change is a universal truth, the rate of change varies over history. Connected to this thought (which I will return to) is one I have been thinking about in the context of Canadian practice (which is where I work). Namely, that while engineers are recognised in society as professionals it is no longer clear what that means. Is it still an appropriate definition?Traditional definitions of a professional are connected to “a person who provides service beyond oneself”, “one who vows high standards of service”, and “one with great integrity”. Generally, a professional was educated in their area of practice and interested in how their service benefits society. This can be contrasted against the current definitions which generally define a professional as “someone who gets paid for their work”. Engineers must do more than just get paid, we must care about how our service benefits society, and the contemporary definition of professional is just not enough.Following the failures during the construction of the Quebec Bridge the Canadian engineering community established the Calling of an Engineer ceremony. The ceremony, largely designed by Rudyard Kipling, includes giving emerging professionals their ‘iron ring’ as a physical reminder of their responsibilities and the potential consequences of errors or omissions. Engineers are to be “Wary and watchful all their days that their brethren’s days may be long in the land” (Kipling). But recently there is increasing discontent among practitioners. A growing feeling that professionals are being too constrained by ‘business’, and that everyone is stretched thin. Mistakes are happening, and accountability feels lower than it should be.The world is changing, how do we keep delivering in service to society? This issue’s articles show how this change and these pressures on our profession is not new.It is exciting to watch how quickly our profession can change and adapt to meet societies challenges. Unlike Canada, the UK is a global leader at reminding engineers that we can help fight climate change by not building, and that we can do simple carbon calculations to help in effective decision making. The future of engineering is in using what we already have, and to do so we must understand our existing structure and the context (technical and social) in which they were developed. The first article Structural characteristics analysis of brick-timber buildings built before 1950 in Shanghai touches on how important it is to understand a situation, how professional judgement is often required and how challenging it can be to protect what we value. This is woven into structural data that helps global practitioners gain additional insight into similar or comparable structures. The second and third articles, Brickwork in Norway: traditional encounters a new age of industrial construction, 1905–1912 and Rationalization of factories in Norway: from classical to modern architecture 1920–1929 are related articles that capture rapid industry change. Into the writing is interlinked themes of historic context and societal impacts. These capture how innovation in one area can rapidly be used as inspiration in another, while engineers help adapt to local conditions and the needs of the communities in which they serve. Thomas Brassey, the Houenstein tunnel and the Swiss Federal Court is the forth article, providing a contractor focused look at a major engineering project over a century and a half ago where things went wrong. A world where decision makers are busy is not new, and yet we have the opportunity to learn from our collective past.I personally get anxious about where the industry is headed. These articles remind me that so long as our profession talks about the challenges and continues to learn from what was past, we will improve. The 1857 construction failure that led to 63 deaths in Switzerland was a disaster then, while now it would be completely un-imaginable. We are protecting life better. In the same way that in the early 1900’s the Hydro company needed engineers to reimaging how we collaborate on building design so the nitrogen fertiliser industry in Norway could continue, engineers are now reimaging how we can re-use buildings to reduce carbon. We are working to address global issues in a way we never have before. And how, as demonstrated from looking at brick-timber buildings in Shanghai, we just need to take the time to understand what we have, consider what we value, and use our professional engineering judgement to find good solutions.

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