Engineers who can make best use of emerging technology
I was closely involved with setting up the Design for Manufacture (DfM) Master of Architecture course at the UCL, which I now teach alongside Deputy Programme Director, Peter Scully, and Programme Director, Bob Sheil, amongst others.
The Bartlett School is renowned for award-winning innovative research and our new “Here East” site in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park has been founded to bring engineering and architectural research under one roof.
Our focus is producing the kind of graduates that industry needs: engineers and architects who know how to collaborate and make best use of emerging technology to build the cities andstructures of the future.
A number of departments – the Bartlett School, the Civil Engineering Department and others share the space at Here East.
The idea is to encourage collaboration between departments, across different skill sets and specialisms – although that doesn’t prevent competition for space and resources!
设计和生产互相通知
每个部门都有自己的重点，因此可以发现合作机会而不是规定的。
重要的是，我们有很多空间和工具，人们认为如何以一种有用的富有成效的方式使用它们 - 设计和生产相互通知并创造意外的协同作用。
One example is robotics: when tied todigital design processes它们具有使用更少的材料，通过更多的定制或添加剂制造来制造更有效的结构，从而降低对预卷部分的依赖性。
Robotics also has the potential to fundamentally alter the balance of time and labour vs material use in the fabrication and assembly of structures.
救助工程师思考和创造性地思考和工作
这是一个非常令人兴奋的地区。Partial automation of both design and fabrication, letting scripts and robots to do the ‘donkey’ work of design and production, frees up engineers to think and work more creatively - knowing that we can deliver something that won’t hit the buffers when labour requirements are costed.
I think it will allow us to do things that we wouldn’t do now anyway because the time to do it manually (either in design or production) is too cost prohibitive.
The importance of great research
In turn this makes the kind ofresearchgoing on at Here East more important. In a way we all do research when we try out new things to solve a specific design problem.
但好大学的研究是必要的understand and explore the potential of robotics and other future techniques and technologies, and also to develop applications from other industries in an engineering and architectural context.
我们在从其他行业调整技术和方法时，我们有挑战是我们生产定制和一次性物体，而不是相同的大量副本（如汽车行业）。
However, façades for example have lots of repetition and can use this technology readily. We need to develop scripting software that makes it feasible to send lots of bespoke instructions to machines, rather than optimising machines for one production process.
数字制造业如何对结构工程师有用
机构的数字的Workflows and Computational Design Panelhas much the same philosophy as the Bartlett School: helping to encourage the kind of research and innovation industry needs, by helping to identify what aspects of digital manufacturing may be useful for structural engineers.
We’ll aim to provide members with guidance through articles, lectures, notes and other resources over the coming years.
这是一个不断发展的领域，即在其初期，这是一个激动人心的挑战，帮助结构工程师充分利用可用的机会。