Computer Graphics Related to an In-House Drafting System

‘Back in the good old days you could design a beam on the back of an envelope: it was just a matter of WL/8. Now it requires pages of calculations and probably a computer to do the same job’. A.W. Beeby

Subsidence of residential property In October, Mr J. Arnold drew our attention to some of the difficulties encountered in adopting economic remedial measures for dealing with building subsidence. Two of our readers have responded to this letter. Mr J. B. Johnson writes from Dudley: I am surprised that the matter has arisen because, in my opinion, strengthening of existing structures because of subsidence is not subject to Building Regulations control. The original construction was subject to previous legislation, and by this action was deemed to have been approved. Verulam

I am honoured, as a non-engineer, to be invited to give this lecture. Engineers, like the medical profession, attract, in equal measure, respect and suspicion. We all know that one day we will fall into your hands-we have to cross your bridges, live in your radical new buildings, cooperate with your exciting machines, just as we all know that, one day, we will end up on some surgeon’s table or in some physician’s clutches. And yet you are men and women like us, not inhabitants of the rarified world of n dimensional space like mathematicians, or of the vast expensive labyrinths constructed by experimental physicists for their own pleasure underneath the Alps. You are practical men dealing with practical needs, and we think we know what you are talking about when you get together in your meetings. Michael Posner