Architecturally Exposed Structural Steel

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Terri Meyer Boake discusses questions on sustainability concerning environmental issues that have implements on the use of steel in the construction sector.

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Terri Meyer Boake discusses questions on sustainability concerning environmental issues that have implements on the use of steel in the construction sector.

Image courtesy of interviewee. May 20, 2024

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This video video details the professional journey of an educator in architecture, focusing on the integration of structural materials, particularly steel, into design processes. The speaker, who has taught building instruction since the 1980s, discusses their involvement with the Canadian Institute of Steel Construction (CISC) to address the challenges architects, engineers, and fabricators face in specifying exposed steel in buildings.

They emphasize the need for visual references rather than dense text documents for architects to better understand steel aesthetics and functionality, leading to the development of visual guides and presentations across Canada and internationally. The speaker went on to write several books on steel design, collaborating with diverse organizations while promoting better understanding and use of exposed structural steel (ESS).

The narrative highlights the importance of collaboration among architects, engineers, and fabricators to improve design and detailing, as well as the author's efforts to educate students about the practical aspects of steel construction. The goal is to empower new architects with knowledge about materials and their applications, bridging the gap between architectural education and real-world construction practices. The speaker concludes with an ongoing commitment to spreading awareness and understanding of steel design through lectures and published works.

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Well, I started off, I teach building,

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building instruction at a school of architecture.

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I've done that since the 1980s.

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And a lot of the major focus of my work has been in terms of

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how helping students

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to incorporate structural materials into their design so

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that they, they become an integrated part

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of the entire design process coming through the 1980s, sort

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of late seventies and eighties when I graduated was a time

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of high tech architecture.

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And so there was an awful lot of really funky work in steel

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by people like Foster and Rogers and piano.

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And I think that was really, that really began to inform

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what I started to think about when

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I was thinking about steel.

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So in around 2005, I became involved

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with the Canadian Institute of Steel Construction.

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And so this is a, a, a nonprofit organization

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that manages sort of the interests of steel in Canada.

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And I was involved in a, a series of round tables

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because they were looking at problems

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that their fabricators were having, as well as engineers

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and architects in specifying exposed steel in a building.

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Because up until this point, it was either this sort

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of really wacky high tech stuff

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that not everybody was keen on using at all,

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or it was, it was a cava.

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And so it was this over the top sculpted material.

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And when you look at the specification of steel as a,

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as a structural material

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and in the specs you get worldwide, it's, it's only

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as a structural material.

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They don't really care what it looks like.

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And so if you were talking about aesthetics,

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there would be like a miscellaneous metal,

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but that doesn't affect the, the structure

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or the columns and the trusses.

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And so we all set about some engineers and fabricators

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and architects to try to come up with some sort of a set

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of rules that would help to simplify the, the process.

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And so that's where I started to, to fit in as sort

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of an educator and architect speaking

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to fabricators and engineers.

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And you know, when it all came down to the end, we had a,

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a series of text-based documents that would be fine

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for the fabricators and engineers,

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but I said to them like, architects aren't gonna read these.

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They're just, they're too dense

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and they're too, nitpicky maybe as I would say, in,

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as in an architect's view.

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So I said, what they really need is a visual reference.

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They need some pictures in order to understand

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what you mean when you're talking about

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different aspects of it.

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So that's how I started to work with CISC.

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And I, I helped them to create a visual guide.

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So I did the all, I did all the photographs pretty well,

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and I even did the own inde, my own InDesign document,

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which I probably would never do again

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'cause that was a lot of work to do everything.

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Um, but, but in the end that sort of got out

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and we did a series of presentations across Canada

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and even as far as I got invited, with a colleague

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of mine who had actually spearheaded the entire

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Suite of documents.

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Her name is Sylvie Boulanger.

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And we both went to Tour Australia

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and New Zealand to, to we, we redid the document for them

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and did a tour to try to promote it.

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So it was around 2009 then that I was doing a lot of sort

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of presentations and, you know, symposiums

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and things like that across the country.

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Then I got a sort of, sort

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of a random email from an editor at Berk Hauser,

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Andreas Mueller who said, you know, said to me like, Hey,

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would you like to write a a, a book

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for Berk Hauser on steel design?

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And I'm thinking like at, at first glance you go like,

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I said Nigerian uncle or something that's passed away.

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Like, you know, Berk Hauser wants me

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to write a book on steel.

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That would be cool. And, and, and so I ended up doing that

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and it was, it was to start a really interesting, you know,

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relationship with my editor who was living in Berlin.

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And so I would write and I would go over and visit

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and we'd sit around the breakfast table

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and edit my document.

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And I worked, worked all of these images and texts and,

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and it was great, you know, researching.

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'cause a lot of it was firsthand stuff that you,

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you don't normally get to do as an academic.

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So for me, the most fun I have in my,

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besides teaching, which is wonderful,

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is getting on job sites

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and, you know, seeing the way things go up.

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Because the only way that you can really teach students

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about materials and

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and construction is

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to actually show them how things go together.

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And I think when they, when they begin

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to understand in more detail, it's, it's really empowering

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to them because then they sort of have a real good,

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good grasp of the way everything goes together.

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So I finished the book on Understanding Steel in 2011

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and then sort of, I did a second one I said done,

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I had basically taken my entire slide library of images,

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which around 2011 there were still not

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that many a ESS projects

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'cause it was still coming coming of age I would say.

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Um, and people just weren't confident in,

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in really exploring it.

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So I said, no, I'm done. He said, no, you're not.

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He said, you, you owe me three more books.

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So I said, okay, I'm game for that.

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So I I, I knocked off one on dia grid structures,

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in 2013, which were sort of a real up

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and coming new structural type

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that all the students were using.

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And there were only like 20, 22 buildings in the whole world

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that used DIA grid.

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So I made sure that I visited about 20 out

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of the 22 before I wrote the book.

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And then after that I did the one on a ESS.

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And so what I did with that one,

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and that had to be, I think of all the books I've written,

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it was the one that just sort of flowed out pretty naturally

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because I'd already done the guide for CISE,

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I'd done the guide for New Zealand

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and Australia, I'd been working

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with the American Institute of Steel Construction.

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And they also have the same almost identical system that we

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Do. In fact,

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they started it in around 2002

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and we kind of built on it

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and then, you know, it ball bounced back there

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and we have almost equivalent systems now.

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And so, and I'd been just traveling and taking photographs.

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So every conference I go to

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and I picked my locations based on, yes, the conferences is

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interesting, but also what else is there to see in this,

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in this city and what job sites can I get on?

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And so I'd acquired an awful lot more really interesting

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projects because as the ball gets rolling

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and people start to use it, the work gets better and,

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and more compelling and provocative.

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And so, and I had, I travel, I can't believe

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how much I traveled in and around that time.

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And so just always sort of picking up on, on projects so

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that the book on a ESS,

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came out in 2015, I believe was 2015.

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And it basically took the, the method that we developed

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for CISC and just made an entire book out of it.

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So instead of just having a few little thumbnails here

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and there to say, well this is what this should look like,

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I've got sort of multiple, multiple images,

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multiple projects and case studies.

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So anybody going through that should have a, you know,

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a really great idea how to go about, you know,

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designing exposed steel.

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So the, the way that we decided to make it simpler

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for people to understand, we, we started

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to incorporate something that we call the distance factor.

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And that means if it's up close

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and you can, you can touch it so that it's say below, well

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for you to be really tall, but below 20 feet or,

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or or six meters.

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So at a, a ceiling level, then you would be able

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to really be able to see what the surface was like.

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You'd be able to see if there was a bump or, or a, or a weld

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or any, any imperfections on it.

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And when you get above that, then you can kind

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of soften the, the, the fabrication requirements.

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The idea is that what we didn't want was something

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to be priced out of possibility.

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And so if you focus your attention down low

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and kind of make a categorized system based on distance, so

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we define four major categories.

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A SS one, which is basic,

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which you would find in a big box store, a Walmart

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or a Best Buy

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or a Costco, something that's just using the regular steel.

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It's being painted, it's being nicely organized,

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people are thinking about spacing.

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So it's, it's pretty basic stuff.

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A ESS two takes that up a a bit higher level,

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so it's a little bit more fastidious.

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You might find some welded details,

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but everything is pretty well straight.

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You're going to go from at the bottom levels, more sort

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of wide flange or universal sections,

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and say open web steel joists

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to when you get into two you might find more hollow

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structural steel sections 'cause they look a little cleaner.

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And then there's a break line when we get into a

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ES S3 and four

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About grinding.

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So one of the ways that you can really like blow the money

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on making a, an exposed steel project is by saying,

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okay, I'm gonna weld these two pieces of steel together

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and then I want to grind the weld

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away and pretend it didn't happen.

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If you prepare the steel properly in advance for that,

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you can do that, but it costs a lot of money

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and it takes a lot of time and it can't be done

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after the fact because the weld

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is actually holding the steel together.

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It's structural. And so at a categories a ES S3

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and four, which would use a lot more welding,

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you are then permitted to ask for that to happen.

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So there's, and those would be sort of feature,

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materials that would be generally viewed under sort

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of 20 me 20 feet in height under six meters.

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So they'd be up close. So you'd find them in airports

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and museums and, you know, more high,

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high profile kind of buildings.

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And then when you get up to a SS four, which is sort

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of the top category, most of those are going to be made out

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of custom plate material.

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So instead of just using a hollow structural section,

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and one thing about a hollow structural section is

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that the corners are rounded.

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It just because they have to take the, the plate steel

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and as they bend it, the thicker it is,

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the more rounded the corners.

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Well, if you want something that's really crisp and clean

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and cutting edge, that's not gonna cut it for you.

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So you would have to go to plate material

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and then you're making everything by hand in order

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to make those really, really crisp corners.

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And so that requires an awful lot more work.

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And so then everything sort of gets,

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gets graded up the line.

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And so that would be the sort of the, the four major,

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a SS categories.

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And then along that there's a whole series

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of characteristics that again, build up in a matrix so that,

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you know, if you're doing this one,

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then this one gets added on,

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this next one gets added on up to the top.

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So it becomes, it doesn't completely simplify the discussion

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between the architect, the engineer and the fabricator,

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but it does cut down on the

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questions that you need to debate.

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You know, 'cause if I'm doing this category, all

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of these things are automatically included.

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So let's talk about this

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odd condition over here on this member.

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So it it's proven to help communications, an awful lot.

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Well, if we think of use workforce and,

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and cost as questions, one of the other,

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aspects I'll bring in, which is a design question

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is something I call a multiplication factor.

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And that leads into cost.

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So if you're making one really complicated detail

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or you're grinding one connection that has a certain cost.

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So it's not like when you wanna go to a, a copy shop

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and you've got one color print to be made, then that's $1.

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But if you make a thousand,

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then the price per copy goes down to 2 cents

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when you're making multiple connections all

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in, they, they're just, that's

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Just just a times factor.

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It's a multiplication factor.

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So if it's, you know, a hundred dollars extra on this

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connection and you've got a thousand connections,

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it's times a thousand

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because it's, it translates into sort of person hours.

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Uh, and so that's one of the ways that we, we look at cost.

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And the other way we look at cost is again, kind of

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grading it so that you, you put the more money down

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where you see it and we, we make it less expensive

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to fabricate the further away.

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'cause if people go into this and,

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and some people will still say,

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I just wanna cover, I wanna cover my butt.

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I'm gonna speck all a SS four

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because then it'll, you know, it'll, it'll all be perfect.

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Well, to do that on a, on a, you know, a,

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a big box story, just no.

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Um, and, and most projects just don't need that kind of,

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of detailing or, or can afford it.

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Um, so really that's how we begin to look at cost.

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And I mean, I've done some,

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study on things like connections, connection, detailing

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and splicing, and there's just sometimes there's slightly

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more economical ways to put things together.

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Um, whether you're doing bolted connections

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or welded connections, it, it, it really does,

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tie really tightly in with the, with the aesthetics

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that you want to achieve.

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Uh, because, you know, sometimes you might want some steel

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that kind of looks rough and angsty

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and maybe you want some, a galvanized coating

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and you want bolts and,

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and that's, you know, you're doing sort of a,

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a punk rock venue or something like that

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and you're like, this works,

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but you know, you don't need to have everything all smooth

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and with high gloss paint on it.

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So, you know, it really is something

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that the more architects can understand

13:30.735 --> 13:32.395
how they can, how they can use this.

13:32.485 --> 13:35.435
Again, it begins to empower your design.

13:35.435 --> 13:37.635
Because I mean, part of the issue

13:37.635 --> 13:40.355
with most architectural educations is

13:40.355 --> 13:43.635
that when we teach structures, we teach it

13:44.135 --> 13:47.155
as like civil design, super light.

13:47.735 --> 13:51.635
So it is a numbers crunching ex exercise as opposed to

13:51.735 --> 13:53.635
how does this building system go together?

13:54.455 --> 13:57.515
And so a lot of architects don't feel confident,

13:57.595 --> 13:59.395
I don't think, in exposing the steel

13:59.945 --> 14:01.995
because they don't know how it's put together.

14:02.975 --> 14:05.115
And, and a lot of the eng engineers,

14:05.115 --> 14:07.875
civil engineers are typically not educated in it either.

14:08.695 --> 14:12.195
And so maybe the fabricator in the end knows the most, but

14:12.375 --> 14:15.115
unless you can get a really good intelligent conversation

14:15.115 --> 14:18.475
going around, you're, you're kind of, you know, not working

14:18.475 --> 14:20.075
with, with, you know, all, all,

14:20.455 --> 14:22.595
all the pistons aren't working at the same time.

14:23.215 --> 14:26.675
Um, and so the more educated they we all are,

14:26.905 --> 14:28.395
then the more you can kind of debate it

14:28.395 --> 14:29.555
and say, well, maybe we could do this,

14:29.655 --> 14:32.395
or how about that, maybe this would work slightly better.

14:32.915 --> 14:35.595
I could substitute this membership or this alignment.

14:36.295 --> 14:37.555
So, you know, you can get a lot

14:37.555 --> 14:39.075
more interesting things going on.

14:39.575 --> 14:41.835
And, and you can see that with the way that high tech,

14:41.975 --> 14:44.115
the high tech, architects have developed

14:44.115 --> 14:45.235
their trade over the years.

14:45.935 --> 14:48.115
You know, they've gone from, you know, pretty,

14:48.335 --> 14:50.675
it was pretty wild at the time, but it was just

14:50.675 --> 14:53.405
Basically tubes and, and you know, cross bracing

14:53.465 --> 14:56.925
and very sort of very light technical looking materials.

14:57.465 --> 15:00.325
And you can see how the work has, has matured as they begin

15:00.325 --> 15:01.725
to finesse it and understand it.

15:01.945 --> 15:03.565
We really do, you really do need

15:03.565 --> 15:06.725
to be collaborative in order to make a ESS work properly

15:06.725 --> 15:08.525
because it's a discussion that you have to have

15:08.595 --> 15:10.405
with your engineer and your fabricator.

15:11.225 --> 15:13.205
Um, because the fabricator is the one

15:13.205 --> 15:14.405
who actually knows the trade.

15:14.425 --> 15:15.805
And they can say, well, no,

15:15.905 --> 15:18.165
the way you've got these things aligned doesn't work.

15:18.345 --> 15:21.645
Or sort of a, a simple example would be if you were

15:21.645 --> 15:23.805
to put a, a, a trus together

15:24.105 --> 15:26.365
and you would be using all, say, square sections.

15:27.315 --> 15:30.405
Well, if you have them all the same dimension,

15:31.045 --> 15:32.655
they're all exactly the same size,

15:32.655 --> 15:34.815
that works fine on your rhino drawing, right?

15:35.155 --> 15:36.375
You can just make, they're all square

15:36.875 --> 15:39.055
and on your rhino drawing, they've all got crisp corners,

15:39.475 --> 15:41.255
but when it comes to actually putting them together,

15:41.255 --> 15:42.415
there's no room for the weld

15:43.055 --> 15:46.545
because the weld is gonna like bleed over the over the edge

15:46.705 --> 15:49.865
because it's, there's curved surfaces coming together.

15:50.485 --> 15:52.665
So the, you know, the steel fabricator might say like,

15:52.665 --> 15:56.255
you know, if you just made those inner members, you know,

15:56.335 --> 16:00.175
a few millimeters smaller in diameter, they would work fine.

16:00.195 --> 16:02.135
And then we would have room for our, our weld

16:02.135 --> 16:04.535
around the perimeter and it would look nice as opposed

16:04.595 --> 16:06.455
to looking like, you know,

16:06.455 --> 16:08.015
something is bleeding off the edge.

16:09.015 --> 16:12.195
Um, so, you know, simple things like that can be really,

16:12.705 --> 16:14.835
they can make or break a project and,

16:14.855 --> 16:16.675
and make it look really good in the end.

16:16.675 --> 16:18.715
This is if they don't, if you don't understand it

16:18.715 --> 16:21.515
and you say, no, I must have them all the same dimension,

16:21.515 --> 16:24.625
they'll go, okay, you get, you're gonna get what you asked

16:24.625 --> 16:26.175
for, right?

16:26.515 --> 16:28.895
So, you know, yeah, it has to be, you have

16:28.895 --> 16:30.215
to go into it knowing what you're doing.

16:30.215 --> 16:32.735
Well, I mean, I think that the use of a ESS is getting more

16:32.735 --> 16:34.695
and more popular, but the more i I go

16:34.695 --> 16:36.655
to different conferences, the more I realize

16:36.655 --> 16:39.015
that most people don't understand it very well yet.

16:39.515 --> 16:42.895
So sort of my trajectory, right now is,

16:42.955 --> 16:45.975
is doing a fair number of speaking engagements,

16:46.115 --> 16:48.415
and trying to get the, get the word out there.

16:48.535 --> 16:49.975
I mean the, the book is out there.

16:50.555 --> 16:52.535
The, the processes are out there slowly

16:52.595 --> 16:54.095
but surely we're, you know, we're,

16:54.095 --> 16:55.495
we're getting more people educated.

16:56.075 --> 16:58.895
And I teach an entire course at University

16:58.895 --> 17:00.335
of Waterloo at School of Architecture.

17:00.335 --> 17:01.455
I've got third year students

17:01.515 --> 17:03.975
to get 12 three hour lectures on it.

17:04.935 --> 17:07.475
And, you know, by the end, I, I tell 'em, you know,

17:07.475 --> 17:11.395
more than 99% of the architects in the world about,

17:11.565 --> 17:13.955
about this go out there, go at it.

17:14.295 --> 17:16.795
Um, and so, you know, trying to get out to, to more,

17:16.905 --> 17:19.595
more places, whenever I can.

17:19.655 --> 17:22.075
So I, I speak a lot at Canadian conferences.

17:22.235 --> 17:25.075
I, I speak every year at the National Steel Conference in,

17:25.175 --> 17:28.275
the United States, and hopefully the books are out there

17:28.535 --> 17:31.755
and, you know, I do hear from, from people like, Hey,

17:31.875 --> 17:33.315
I found that one or my students

17:33.315 --> 17:35.315
that do work terms all over the world, they'll, they'll go

17:35.315 --> 17:36.755
to a book shop and they'll see my books

17:36.755 --> 17:37.955
and they'll send me a photograph.

17:38.195 --> 17:39.595
I found your book in the shop.

17:41.015 --> 17:42.115
So it's, it's, it's fun,

17:42.255 --> 17:44.795
but, just getting people out there and, and,

17:44.895 --> 17:48.155
and getting them using and understanding the system is sort

17:48.155 --> 17:49.515
of the goal at this point.

Quick Answers

Educating Architects on Steel Design Integration

00:00:00 - Well, I started off, I teach building, building instruction at a school of architecture. I've done that since the 1980s. And a lot of the major focus of my work has been in terms of how helping students to incorporate structural materials into their design so that they, they become an integrated part of the entire design process coming through the 1980s, sort of late seventies and eighties when I graduated was a time of high tech architecture. And so there was an awful lot of really funky work in steel by people like Foster and Rogers and piano.
00:00:33 - what I started to think about when I was thinking about steel. So in around 2005, I became involved with the Canadian Institute of Steel Construction. And so this is a, a, a nonprofit organization that manages sort of the interests of steel in Canada. And I was involved in a, a series of round tables because they were looking at problems that their fabricators were having, as well as engineers
00:01:06 - Because up until this point, it was either this sort of really wacky high tech stuff that not everybody was keen on using at all, or it was, it was a cava. And so it was this over the top sculpted material. And when you look at the specification of steel as a, as a structural material and in the specs you get worldwide, it's, it's only as a structural material. They don't really care what it looks like. And so if you were talking about aesthetics,
00:01:37 - but that doesn't affect the, the structure or the columns and the trusses. And so we all set about some engineers and fabricators and architects to try to come up with some sort of a set of rules that would help to simplify the, the process. And so that's where I started to, to fit in as sort of an educator and architect speaking to fabricators and engineers. And you know, when it all came down to the end, we had a, a series of text-based documents that would be fine
00:02:08 - but I said to them like, architects aren't gonna read these. They're just, they're too dense and they're too, nitpicky maybe as I would say, in, as in an architect's view. So I said, what they really need is a visual reference. They need some pictures in order to understand what you mean when you're talking about different aspects of it. So that's how I started to work with CISC. And I, I helped them to create a visual guide. So I did the all, I did all the photographs pretty well,
00:02:39 - which I probably would never do again 'cause that was a lot of work to do everything. but, but in the end that sort of got out and we did a series of presentations across Canada and even as far as I got invited, with a colleague of mine who had actually spearheaded the entire Suite of documents. Her name is Sylvie Boulanger. And we both went to Tour Australia and New Zealand to, to we, we redid the document for them

Journey to Writing About Steel Design

00:03:11 - So it was around 2009 then that I was doing a lot of sort of presentations and, you know, symposiums and things like that across the country. Then I got a sort of, sort of a random email from an editor at Berk Hauser, Andreas Mueller who said, you know, said to me like, Hey, would you like to write a a, a book for Berk Hauser on steel design? And I'm thinking like at, at first glance you go like, I said Nigerian uncle or something that's passed away.
00:03:40 - to write a book on steel. That would be cool. And, and, and so I ended up doing that and it was, it was to start a really interesting, you know, relationship with my editor who was living in Berlin. And so I would write and I would go over and visit and we'd sit around the breakfast table and edit my document. And I worked, worked all of these images and texts and, and it was great, you know, researching. 'cause a lot of it was firsthand stuff that you, you don't normally get to do as an academic.
00:04:13 - besides teaching, which is wonderful, is getting on job sites and, you know, seeing the way things go up. Because the only way that you can really teach students about materials and and construction is to actually show them how things go together. And I think when they, when they begin to understand in more detail, it's, it's really empowering to them because then they sort of have a real good, good grasp of the way everything goes together. So I finished the book on Understanding Steel in 2011
00:04:46 - I had basically taken my entire slide library of images, which around 2011 there were still not that many a ESS projects 'cause it was still coming coming of age I would say. and people just weren't confident in, in really exploring it. So I said, no, I'm done. He said, no, you're not. He said, you, you owe me three more books. So I said, okay, I'm game for that. So I I, I knocked off one on dia grid structures,
00:05:18 - and coming new structural type that all the students were using. And there were only like 20, 22 buildings in the whole world that used DIA grid. So I made sure that I visited about 20 out of the 22 before I wrote the book. And then after that I did the one on a ESS. And so what I did with that one, and that had to be, I think of all the books I've written, it was the one that just sort of flowed out pretty naturally because I'd already done the guide for CISE,
00:05:49 - and Australia, I'd been working with the American Institute of Steel Construction. And they also have the same almost identical system that we Do. In fact, they started it in around 2002 and we kind of built on it and then, you know, it ball bounced back there and we have almost equivalent systems now. And so, and I'd been just traveling and taking photographs. So every conference I go to and I picked my locations based on, yes, the conferences is interesting, but also what else is there to see in this,

Designing Exposed Steel: Insights and Innovations

00:06:23 - And so I'd acquired an awful lot more really interesting projects because as the ball gets rolling and people start to use it, the work gets better and, and more compelling and provocative. And so, and I had, I travel, I can't believe how much I traveled in and around that time. And so just always sort of picking up on, on projects so that the book on a ESS, came out in 2015, I believe was 2015.
00:06:55 - for CISC and just made an entire book out of it. So instead of just having a few little thumbnails here and there to say, well this is what this should look like, I've got sort of multiple, multiple images, multiple projects and case studies. So anybody going through that should have a, you know, a really great idea how to go about, you know, designing exposed steel. So the, the way that we decided to make it simpler for people to understand, we, we started
00:07:26 - And that means if it's up close and you can, you can touch it so that it's say below, well for you to be really tall, but below 20 feet or, or or six meters. So at a, a ceiling level, then you would be able to really be able to see what the surface was like. You'd be able to see if there was a bump or, or a, or a weld or any, any imperfections on it. And when you get above that, then you can kind of soften the, the, the fabrication requirements. The idea is that what we didn't want was something
00:07:58 - And so if you focus your attention down low and kind of make a categorized system based on distance, so we define four major categories. A SS one, which is basic, which you would find in a big box store, a Walmart or a Best Buy or a Costco, something that's just using the regular steel. It's being painted, it's being nicely organized, people are thinking about spacing. So it's, it's pretty basic stuff. A ESS two takes that up a a bit higher level,
00:08:30 - You might find some welded details, but everything is pretty well straight. You're going to go from at the bottom levels, more sort of wide flange or universal sections, and say open web steel joists to when you get into two you might find more hollow structural steel sections 'cause they look a little cleaner. And then there's a break line when we get into a ES S3 and four About grinding. So one of the ways that you can really like blow the money
00:09:03 - okay, I'm gonna weld these two pieces of steel together and then I want to grind the weld away and pretend it didn't happen. If you prepare the steel properly in advance for that, you can do that, but it costs a lot of money and it takes a lot of time and it can't be done after the fact because the weld is actually holding the steel together. It's structural. And so at a categories a ES S3 and four, which would use a lot more welding, you are then permitted to ask for that to happen.

Understanding Steel: Cost and Design Considerations

00:09:37 - materials that would be generally viewed under sort of 20 me 20 feet in height under six meters. So they'd be up close. So you'd find them in airports and museums and, you know, more high, high profile kind of buildings. And then when you get up to a SS four, which is sort of the top category, most of those are going to be made out of custom plate material. So instead of just using a hollow structural section, and one thing about a hollow structural section is that the corners are rounded.
00:10:07 - and as they bend it, the thicker it is, the more rounded the corners. Well, if you want something that's really crisp and clean and cutting edge, that's not gonna cut it for you. So you would have to go to plate material and then you're making everything by hand in order to make those really, really crisp corners. And so that requires an awful lot more work. And so then everything sort of gets, gets graded up the line. And so that would be the sort of the, the four major,
00:10:38 - And then along that there's a whole series of characteristics that again, build up in a matrix so that, you know, if you're doing this one, then this one gets added on, this next one gets added on up to the top. So it becomes, it doesn't completely simplify the discussion between the architect, the engineer and the fabricator, but it does cut down on the questions that you need to debate. You know, 'cause if I'm doing this category, all of these things are automatically included. So let's talk about this odd condition over here on this member.
00:11:13 - Well, if we think of use workforce and, and cost as questions, one of the other, aspects I'll bring in, which is a design question is something I call a multiplication factor. And that leads into cost. So if you're making one really complicated detail or you're grinding one connection that has a certain cost. So it's not like when you wanna go to a, a copy shop and you've got one color print to be made, then that's $1.
00:11:45 - then the price per copy goes down to 2 cents when you're making multiple connections all in, they, they're just, that's Just just a times factor. It's a multiplication factor. So if it's, you know, a hundred dollars extra on this connection and you've got a thousand connections, it's times a thousand because it's, it translates into sort of person hours. and so that's one of the ways that we, we look at cost. And the other way we look at cost is again, kind of grading it so that you, you put the more money down where you see it and we, we make it less expensive
00:12:19 - 'cause if people go into this and, and some people will still say, I just wanna cover, I wanna cover my butt. I'm gonna speck all a SS four because then it'll, you know, it'll, it'll all be perfect. Well, to do that on a, on a, you know, a, a big box story, just no. and, and most projects just don't need that kind of, of detailing or, or can afford it. so really that's how we begin to look at cost. And I mean, I've done some,

Understanding Steel Design and Collaboration

00:12:50 - and splicing, and there's just sometimes there's slightly more economical ways to put things together. whether you're doing bolted connections or welded connections, it, it, it really does, tie really tightly in with the, with the aesthetics that you want to achieve. because, you know, sometimes you might want some steel that kind of looks rough and angsty and maybe you want some, a galvanized coating and you want bolts and, and that's, you know, you're doing sort of a,
00:13:19 - and you're like, this works, but you know, you don't need to have everything all smooth and with high gloss paint on it. So, you know, it really is something that the more architects can understand how they can, how they can use this. Again, it begins to empower your design. Because I mean, part of the issue with most architectural educations is that when we teach structures, we teach it as like civil design, super light. So it is a numbers crunching ex exercise as opposed to
00:13:54 - And so a lot of architects don't feel confident, I don't think, in exposing the steel because they don't know how it's put together. And, and a lot of the eng engineers, civil engineers are typically not educated in it either. And so maybe the fabricator in the end knows the most, but unless you can get a really good intelligent conversation going around, you're, you're kind of, you know, not working with, with, you know, all, all, all the pistons aren't working at the same time.
00:14:26 - then the more you can kind of debate it and say, well, maybe we could do this, or how about that, maybe this would work slightly better. I could substitute this membership or this alignment. So, you know, you can get a lot more interesting things going on. And, and you can see that with the way that high tech, the high tech, architects have developed their trade over the years. You know, they've gone from, you know, pretty, it was pretty wild at the time, but it was just Basically tubes and, and you know, cross bracing
00:14:57 - And you can see how the work has, has matured as they begin to finesse it and understand it. We really do, you really do need to be collaborative in order to make a ESS work properly because it's a discussion that you have to have with your engineer and your fabricator. because the fabricator is the one who actually knows the trade. And they can say, well, no, the way you've got these things aligned doesn't work. Or sort of a, a simple example would be if you were to put a, a, a trus together
00:15:27 - Well, if you have them all the same dimension, they're all exactly the same size, that works fine on your rhino drawing, right? You can just make, they're all square and on your rhino drawing, they've all got crisp corners, but when it comes to actually putting them together, there's no room for the weld because the weld is gonna like bleed over the over the edge because it's, there's curved surfaces coming together. So the, you know, the steel fabricator might say like, you know, if you just made those inner members, you know,

Promoting Understanding of Exposed Steel Structures

00:16:00 - And then we would have room for our, our weld around the perimeter and it would look nice as opposed to looking like, you know, something is bleeding off the edge. so, you know, simple things like that can be really, they can make or break a project and, and make it look really good in the end. This is if they don't, if you don't understand it and you say, no, I must have them all the same dimension, they'll go, okay, you get, you're gonna get what you asked for, right?
00:16:28 - to go into it knowing what you're doing. Well, I mean, I think that the use of a ESS is getting more and more popular, but the more i I go to different conferences, the more I realize that most people don't understand it very well yet. So sort of my trajectory, right now is, is doing a fair number of speaking engagements, and trying to get the, get the word out there. I mean the, the book is out there. The, the processes are out there slowly but surely we're, you know, we're, we're getting more people educated. And I teach an entire course at University
00:17:00 - I've got third year students to get 12 three hour lectures on it. And, you know, by the end, I, I tell 'em, you know, more than 99% of the architects in the world about, about this go out there, go at it. and so, you know, trying to get out to, to more, more places, whenever I can. So I, I speak a lot at Canadian conferences. I, I speak every year at the National Steel Conference in, the United States, and hopefully the books are out there and, you know, I do hear from, from people like, Hey,
00:17:48 - that do work terms all over the world, they'll, they'll go to a book shop and they'll see my books and they'll send me a photograph. I found your book in the shop. So it's, it's, it's fun, but, just getting people out there and, and, and getting them using and understanding the system is sort of the goal at this point.

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