The London Olympic Park; bringing together all our engineering skills to regenerate a much neglected part of my capital city, and it is a triumph where others have failed.
- Andrew Daubney
Sydney Opera House; has it all – outstanding and innovative use of materials and a unique heart stopping location just to celebrate the arts!
- Andrew Daubney
Port Sunlight; man’s ability to leverage engineering to introduce social change
- Andrew Daubney
Hagia Sophia; classical mastery adapted over time surviving 1500 years of continuous use and still world class
- Andrew Daubney
The Hadron Collider; mind bending technology and collaboration to answer big questions – wherever next!
- Andrew Daubney
Lego; this is where it all starts – the genius of a toy that brings the engineer out in all of us
- Andrew Daubney
Rolls Royce turbine blade: These are some of the most hi-tech items ever made. They are located inside the hottest part of a jet engine, and in an environment that gets hotter than the melting point of the material they are made of. Based on ancient techniques of lost-wax investment casting, the blades are cast and set to form a single crystal. Only this is strong enough to survive. Tiny tubes are cast into the blades, and air is blown through them to form an air cushion around the blade, so that they don’t melt. The blades are testament to the ability of engineering design to overcome monumental obstacles.
- Tom Newby
Ronan Point: In 1968 an exploding cooker at Ronan Point in Newham causes the entire corner of a towerblock to collapse, killing four and injuring 17. The collapse was due to a weakness in the precast panel system used to build it, where the loss of one panel caused the progressive collapse of other floors. What is inspiring is that the engineering profession examined and understood the failure and then changed building regulations and design approaches to ensure it could not happen again. Learning from failure is incredibly important.
- Tom Newby
A new house in rural Philippines: After the devastating Typhoon Haiyan in 2013, CARE provided technical support, cash and materials to over 16,000 households, so they could rebuild their houses. This woman has designed and built this house herself, incorporating bracing, joint reinforcement and other measures suggested by CARE to strengthen the structure. It serves as a reminder that if we could just make good, basic engineering available to all the world would be a better, more resilient, more just place.
- Tom Newby
Mobile phone mast: Ugly and undesirable? Or a revolution in communications. Mobile communications has revolutionised how people interact and communicate, but nowhere more so than in poorer countries, where mobile telephones have allowed new economies to develop with mobile money and payments and the spreading of information and knowledge. It costs very little to roll out and maintain a network of masts; now everyone can be connected.
- Tom Newby
The Northern Outfall Sewer: in East London a path called the Greenway runs alongside the Olympic Stadium. Underneath it lies the Northern Outfall Sewer. Designed by Joseph Bazalgette after the 1853 cholera outbreak it was the first major urban sewer system in the world, and is still the basis of sewer design today. Modern sewerage has saved millions of lives.
- Tom Newby
Cutty Sark - a personal journey in my professional life but also a unique project and a wonderful London treasure.
- Emily McDonald
Sagrada Familia – I am still not sure if I love it or hate it, but one can’t but be impressed at the scale and ambition of this project and the quality of the craftsmenship – even my kids were in awe!
- Emily McDonald
Ditchling Museum of Arts and Crafts – For me at the heart of good design is an attention to detail and the care shown in the design of this Museum is exemplary
- Emily McDonald
Pompidou – As a young student I can remember this building totally turning my head inside out – dare to think differently
- Emily McDonald
Chrysler Building - sheer style and flair, an icon on New York's skyline a city of which I am very fond
- Emily McDonald
British Museum Great Court - a triumph of elegant engineering and an example of how good modern design can compliment a historic building
- Emily McDonald
Eiffel Tower Paris (or the Statue of Liberty) – Structural form and strength of materials to symbolise a City
- Michael Dickson CBE
Tiger Moth - the early mastery of powered flight
- Michael Dickson CBE
Isaac Newton – the basis of physics and mechanics
- Michael Dickson CBE
Great Court of Trinity College Cambridge- a seat of learning
- Michael Dickson CBE
The Aviary Munich- structure, lightness and air
- Michael Dickson CBE
An atlas of the World – the interconnectivity of nations
- Michael Dickson CBE
The Apollo lunar module: Stretching technology to its limits in a highly weight constrained environment Grummans engineers enabled man’s greatest exploration
- Gavin Thompson
Heart tent: A visible fusion between art, craft and elegant engineering which provides space for thoughtful contemplation
- Gavin Thompson
Solar panel: The world of energy is a crucible of innovation and the impact of renewable energy is causing incredibly radical change at a breath-taking pace.
- Gavin Thompson
London tube map: Engineers must make the complex understandable, this is what Harry Beck did for the London Underground.
- Gavin Thompson
Highline: engineering is provides the physical things but often these change behaviour, I like the effect the New York Highline ‘Park in the Sky’ has had on the people of NY.
- Gavin Thompson
Max & friend: My son Max + friend, building an orphanage in Malawi, making simple things happen can change lives.
- Gavin Thompson
Kids discovering how the world works All kids are fascinated with the world, driven by curiosity and fun. This is how engineers should always feel and it's how we should teach people so they are inspired and refund that curiosity, fascination and joy in their surroundings
- Michael Cook
Seven Bridge. The most courageous example of engineers pushing the boundaries of knowledge. As a school boy I saw the wind tunnel model at NPL and was very excited.
- Michael Cook
Readers Digest Atlas of the British Isles. Pre-internet this book laid out the way the country works how industry, transport, people , nature all interact to make a nation. It kept me occupied on wet winter days and was in introduction to the way we better understand complex things by drawing them out together.
- Michael Cook
Frei Otto the first real architect I met. He had a unique vision about using nature as the guide to good design this hooked me into something that has never left me.
- Michael Cook
Mannheim Gridshell. My first project without which I wouldn't have met Ted Happold, I wouldn't have been inspired to turn to structural engineering and things would have been very different
- Michael Cook
Spiders webs and Snail shells Nature knows how best to use limited resources effectively. Millions of years of evolution ensure this. They use materials, form and recycling to full advantage. What better inspiration does an engineer need?
- Michael Cook
Teaching They are the future of engineering….
- Sean Mulligan
Isambard Kingdom Brunel From railway tunnels to bridges to ships. Ahead of his time, applying to apply fundamental engineering principles on a grand scale.
- Sean Mulligan
Millennium Dome / O2 Arena Innovation: thinking outside the box
- Sean Mulligan
2012 Olympic Stadium 90% less steel, 70% less energy than its predecessor. Long term resilience that looks after our environment.
- Sean Mulligan
Louvre (Abu Dhabi) How thoughtful design can create both function and beauty to enhance the feeling of calm in a space.
- Sean Mulligan
Apollo Missions Engineering that put man on the moon with less computing power than a calculator….
- Sean Mulligan
Bicycle: Elegant engineering that provides fitness, transport and inspires exploration.
- Sarah Sachs
Lego: A childhood toy which inspired me to design and build.
- Sarah Sachs
Guggenheim: A landmark piece of architectures as a hub for new art and ides.
- Sarah Sachs
Machu Picchu: An engineering marvel; city in the sky.
- Sarah Sachs
Oyster Shells: Am fascinated by the recycling of oyster shells to restore oyster beds.
- Sarah Sachs
The iPad – access to the world in the palm of your hands!
- Robert Okpala
Masdar Sustainable City – A vision for the young people in the Middle East to build on the potential for government, private industry and community to work hand-in-hand to create and maintain the sustainable cities of the future.
- Robert Okpala
The Roland TR-808 drum machine – became one of the most influential sounds of dance music, because it was affordable and attracted young music enthusiasts to create their own music – not the original marketing intention, but it reminds us that sometimes our ideas can be taken to a new paradigm by a different perspective.
- Robert Okpala
Tokyo – The City of Technology and Innovation!
- Robert Okpala
British Museum Great Court – One of the first projects I was involved in at BuroHappold that showed me the true potential of what well integrated architecture and engineering brings to the built environment.
- Robert Okpala
Driverless Cars – I am excited about the possibilities that technology can bring to solving some of the biggest challenges for the cities we live in.
- Robert Okpala
Digital farming is transforming food production, reducing the need for pesticides and weed killers and with field mapping by drones is making the use of fertilizers more efficient.
- Ian Liddell CBE
“The Work of Frei Otto”. MOMA NY, 1972. Contains pictures of Otto’s work which was based on equilibrium form-finding of surface stressed structures. Otto’s last projects were culture clashes with the impact of computer-generated geometry used by his collaborating architects.
- Ian Liddell CBE
Clive Irving, “Wide Body, The making of the 747”.An amazing leap in technology in 1966 that nearly bankrupted Boeing. It went into service in 1970 and 46 years later is still the most used aircraft in the world. I recently heard that Joe Sutter below is still alive and occasionally comes into the office provided there are no finance guys present.
- Ian Liddell CBE
First to Fly – James Tobin John Murray 2003 Tells the story of the Wright Brothers development of powered flight. Around the year 1900 there was a number of people around the world grappling with the task of powered flight. In America there was Samuel Langley, a prominent scientist and head of the Smithsonian Institute who was running a well funded programme in Washington and the Wright Brothers from Dayton, Ohio who ran a cycle building shop. The Wright brothers were self-funded and self-taught. They built a small wind tunnel to measure the lift and drag of wing sections. Patiently they tried out ideas for gliders, developed a suitable engine and propellers. The key to their success was that they realised that they had to have control of the craft about three axes, lift, yaw and roll. The last they dealt with by wing-warping which on their light flexible biplane could be achieved by pulling on wires. By the time they flew their craft around the Statue of Liberty they realised that wing warping was not going to be the future of flying and while their achievement was recognised but their later life was troubled with vexatious law suits.
- Ian Liddell CBE
Henri Loyrette, “Gustave Eiffel”, Rizzoli, NY 1985. Gives a vision of the fin-de siècle engineering. His structure for “Liberty lighting the World” see below, is a steel the armature that supports the sculpted copper shell, This system has been used for many times since for art and complex architecture forms such as the Guggenheim museum at Bilbao where the external surface was titanium sheeting
- Ian Liddell CBE
‘Structures’, Pier Luigi Nervi, the Dodge Corporation, 1956 see also Tullia Lori’s book published by Motta in 2009 The great man’s autobiography of his early life translated by Giusepina and Mario Salvadori. Describes the research and development of the technology for some of his iconic structures. In this case below the small sports pavilion in Rome
- Ian Liddell CBE