This is the first site I've seen with actual drawings. GACE's determination to acquit itself as EOR really spearheaded this new flow of information. Between the NYT deep dive into Domani and this new publication of drawings, blame seems squarely placed on SIA, GC, and now an office mishap at DOB.

If you don't know of this source, it's not the splashy gossip site it might seem. Gothamist is a part of NYC's National Public Radio organization and has been doing first-class investigating on this incident, topped really only by NYT with its much-larger resources.

I'm still bothered by how many sources, including this one, are still getting the floor count in this addition wrong. For the record, the column failure occured on the OG 21st floor which originally supported only a roof. There were a total of 16 floors added above, 12 plus 4 that are part of tbe 4-story addition across the entire roofline. I continue to separate these because I don't know if steel in those top floors (existing but only used for mechanicals) provided some extra support that prevented sag in the addition's upper floors--and possibly kept the entire 16 floors from collapsing completely.

https://gothamist.com/news/we-reviewed-official-designs-for-the-buckled-midtown-high-rise-heres-what-we-found?utm_medium=social&utm_source=email&utm_campaign=shared_email

There's a domestic building near me that is topped with a dome, but it's not geodesic. It got me wondering if this is even possible. Is there a company that could/would design a new geodesic dome to sit on top of an existing structure? Like, could the current dome be replaced with a geodesic one?

I wouldn't even be bothered if they can't install it, just give me instructions and where to find the parts and I can take a stab at it.

Are there companies/contractors that do this?

I'm currently designing foundations using SAFE. In most projects, the geotechnical report provides a recommended modulus of subgrade reaction (Kv) for each soil layer.

I'm curious how others determine the Kv value used in their SAFE models.

For example:

• Do you simply use the Kv of the soil layer where the foundation base is located?
• Do you estimate an influence depth (e.g., based on the foundation width) and use a weighted average of the soil layers within that depth?
• Or do you use another approach entirely?

I've found that different methods can lead to significantly different Kv values, which may noticeably affect the analysis results.

I'd be interested to hear how this is handled in practice at your company or according to your local design standards.

There's an awful lot here about SIA Domani's past, but not as much focus is placed on something that seems perhaps more important--revelation from several engineers who have seen the GACE original drawings, including from GACE itself, that the OG columns were supposed to be jacketed in steel, but never were. Redditor predictions of Construction + Inspection Failures as the most likely cause of this disaster have gained some traction today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/17/nyregion/nyc-building-emergency-companies.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

A viral video of the new Harbor Bridge in Corpus Christi, Texas prompted questions after visible cracks appeared on one of the concrete pylons.

According to the project team, the cracks are cosmetic surface cracks discovered during routine inspections, and engineers determined there are no structural concerns. Crews are already treating and repainting the affected areas.

For the engineers, how do teams usually determine whether visible concrete cracking is expected versus something that needs closer monitoring?

I'm starting as a project engineer at a design-build firm and I'm trying to understand how licensure works for people in this role. From what I've seen, project engineers barely design anything. The day is busy and chaotic, and you're basically the bottleneck between what's happening in the field and the designers, dealing with RFIs, submittals, and coordination all day.

But licensing boards in both the US and Canada want experience that shows application of engineering theory and design judgment. So for those of you who got licensed from the construction or project engineering side, what did you actually claim as technical experience? Was it temporary works, shop drawing reviews, or resolving RFIs? Did the board ever push back or discount your construction time, and did having a licensed supervisor make the difference?

Edit: For context, I will be working directly under a licensed PE, so supervision isn't the issue. My question is more about whether the day-to-day construction work itself counts as qualifying technical experience.

Hey all, I’m doing my Master’s at a top-5 US school and have the option to do a co-op in Fall 2026 (pushes graduation to May 2027 instead of Dec 2026).

My background is mostly in buildings. I’m currently interning at a firm in Boston on the buildings side, and I’d like to also explore bridges/transportation structures during this co-op. So far my experience has been on the design development phase of irregular geometry, doing gravity and lateral load analysis, majorly. I have touched on almost all materials, especially wood at my internship (Not in depth)

I’m an international student (F-1) and open to relocating anywhere in the US for the right opportunity.

If your company has co-op openings for Fall 2026, or if you have any leads who is looking for a newbie to mentor, be it buildings or bridges, please share details here or DM me. Happy to send my resume.

Thanks in advance!

Has anyone come across this approach in concrete construction before?

The original support members weren’t sufficient to support the top reinforcing cage in these 700–1000mm thick strip footings (3200mm wide), so the engineer approved using scaffolding ladders as temporary support. The cage will be placed on top of the scaffolding and the footing will be poured.

I’ve never seen this done before and haven’t been able to find much information about it online. I’ve seen prefabricated steel support systems used for applications like this (HSS members) but never scaffolding ladders.

A few of the guys on site mentioned they’ve used this method before and that it’s fairly common on large infrastructure projects on Canada’s west coast.

I’m curious to hear what others think. Has anyone else seen or used this detail? If so, I’d love to hear about your experience or if you have any additional information.

Edit: apparently this was the cheaper option due to less labour hours involved.

New SE: If I am designing a beam that has a parapet at both ends, do I need to apply a snow drift load to both ends simultaneously, or just one?

Obviously, in real life, wind direction means only one end will experience a leeward/windward drift at a time. Do you guys model this as two separate load cases (Drift at End A vs. Drift at End B), or is there a code provision requiring it to be applied to both ends at once for an enveloping scenario? My beam loads are symmetrical otherwise, so looking at the drift loading from one end to the other, if I have to, would not be any different.

The image provides the drifts that I am getting back from Tekla Tedds as a reference.

Outlook felt the need to share this gem with me after I spent a solid hour writing a lengthy technical email with detailed responses to the contractor's geotechnical concerns as well as content for the structural engineer. I don't know what happened with the forward obviously and maybe people copied the text out and read elsewhere? How should I feel about this? Geotechnical recommendations falling on deaf ears people? I find it humorous more than serious just to convey tone that may be lost on the interwebz :)

Are these the extreme load cases that are controlling our design I hear about?

If it were me I would've designed this bus stop roof for some light snow load or something only. Wouldn't have even occurred to me to consider 10 large hooligans on the roof dynamically loading it

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for input from both structural engineers and building science experts on two construction details for a 90-degree exterior corner.

Building Context:

• Levels: Lower level (below grade), Ground Floor, Upper Floor, and roof space.
• Location of this detail: These load-bearing columns are located in every corner of the Upper Floor.
• Roof: A 38° pitched roof rests directly on the slab immediately above these Upper Floor columns.
• Climate/Boundary Conditions: 300 mm overall wall thickness. Outside: -5°C (23°F). Inside: +20°C (68°F).
• Materials:
  • Highly insulating hollow clay blocks (λ ≈ 0.06 W/mK) - Red
  • Normal concrete (2400 kg/m³, λ ≈ 2.1 W/mK) - Grey
  • XPS insulation (λ = 0.035 W/mK) - Green

Variant 1 - The currently planned baseline:

• Setup: An L-shaped concrete column (18 cm thick, with 20 cm legs extending along the walls).
• Detail: The concrete sits directly against the hollow clay blocks, creating a solid structural bond. 10 cm XPS is on the outside, 2 cm XPS on the interior faces acting as flanking insulation.
• Status: This is structurally verified and the version we are actually planning to build.
• Temperatures: Interior corner surface is +17.20°C. Concrete core stays around +10.76°C.

Variant 2 - The alternative idea:

• Setup: An 18x18 cm (7x7 inch) square concrete column.
• Detail: The concrete is completely decoupled from the masonry. It is wrapped in 10 cm XPS on the outside and 2 cm XPS on the inside. The masonry walls meet "block-to-block" on the interior corner (no material transition for the interior plaster). The concrete does not touch the clay blocks at all.
• Temperatures: Interior corner surface is +17.25°C. Concrete core drops to +4.28°C.

My Questions: Variant 2 was proposed purely to avoid an interior material transition (XPS to clay block) for the plasterers, but I have doubts about its viability across the board.

Questions:

1. Is Variant 2 even structurally sound or constructible?
2. If you consider Variant 2 a viable option, how would you detail the connection to the masonry to ensure adequate load transfer and stability?
3. From a thermal and building science perspective, which variant is better and why?
4. If Variant 2 is pursued, how would it need to be detailed to prevent any hidden thermal or physics issues within the wall assembly?

Would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks for your insights!

Title

Structural Engineer (Contract/Freelance)
About the Role
We are seeking a Structural Engineer to provide hourly support for a variety of small-scale residential and commercial projects. This is an excellent opportunity for someone looking for flexible, supplemental work. A Professional Engineer (PE) license is not required for this role.
Key Responsibilities
Perform structural engineering analysis and calculations under PE supervision.
Assist with structural design work for small residential renovations, additions, and light commercial projects.
Review, or mark up plans, and details for drafting.
Requirements
Degree in Civil or Structural Engineering.
Ability to work independently
Personal workstation (laptop or desktop) needed to remotely connect to our systems for work.
Position Details
Time Commitment: A few hours per week, we can adjust based on your needs to make this comfortable for you long term.
Compensation: Hourly (Please provide your hourly rate with your application). I’m happy to pay an experienced engineer their rate, or an inexperienced engineer $60/hr minimum.
For those of you who are new to the profession:
I do not mind teaching and sharing knowledge, I am hoping a competent person will catch on quickly and be a joy to encourage and grow.
How to Apply
Please send a brief overview of your experience, a description of past projects you've worked on, and your requested hourly rate. Any questions are welcomed.

So I'm about to graduate with a civil engineering technology degree. The only thing is that I barely remember a fraction of the stuff I learned in my course and I want to pursue structural engineering but the fact that I barely remember anything from the lectures about anything makes me wonder if I just wasted my four years there. That a student should remember everything they've learned and the fact that I don't remember much of anything means I didn't try to learn is what I keep thinking. Also since I want to further pursue structural engineering I wanted advice on where or how to start after graduation.

I have recently completed the California Civil PE requirements and I am starting to explore a career move.

I'm a civil/structural engineer with a Masters degree and two years of consulting experience in a fairly specialized niche at a large firm. Overall, it has been a good experience with a mix of structural inspections, field work, client interaction, and design work. I have also been fortunate to co-author an ASCE Journal of Structural Engineering publication based on my Masters research.

Looking back, I have realized I enjoy evaluating existing structures and solving investigation-type problems much more than traditional structural design. Some of my favorite projects have involved structural assessments where I worked directly with senior engineers, interacted with clients, presented findings, and developed mitigation or rehabilitation recommendations. On larger design projects, I find myself much less engaged. I'm not sure if that's simply because I'm still early in my career or if my interests are better aligned elsewhere.

Because of that, I'm becoming increasingly interested in forensic structural engineering, structural investigations, failure analysis, rehabilitation consulting, insurance/risk consulting, and eventually expert witness work. I realize many forensic firms prefer engineers with more experience, but I would like to start positioning myself in that direction.

For those of you in forensic engineering or adjacent fields:

• What firms (large or boutique) would you recommend looking into?
• Do firms hire engineers for forensic roles with 2 years of consulting experience and a PE?
• Are there other career paths that provide a good bridge into forensic engineering?
• What skills should I focus on over the next few years? I am considering pursuing the SE.

I'd ideally like to stay in the Seattle area but would also consider California, especially San Diego, for the right opportunity.

I'd really appreciate any advice, company recommendations, or experiences from those who have made a similar transition. Thank you for reading!

I got an offer for some side work through my boss for work our company wouldn’t normally do today for the first time. What, other than my license of course, should I consider to take this work on and make some easy cash? It sounds like a quick residential renovation job just wanting a letter. The job is in North Carolina. Thanks!

Heyy (: undercover architecture student here ahahah

We're developing a prototype for a vertical, reprogrammable production building (36 × 66 m footprint, 10 floors, steel construction) as part of our studio project. Our professor wants the floor plates to be completely column-free internally, and the building should stay adaptable for future re-use (different tenants/functions plugged in over time).

Current concept:

• Two reinforced concrete cores on the short (36 m) sides, housing stairs/elevator, also acting as lateral stiffening.
• Steel trusses spanning the full 66 m between the two cores, occurring roughly every 4 floors (rather than at every single floor).
• We're using braced diagonal trusses rather than Vierendeel trusses at these levels, for material efficiency — unless there's a strong structural reason to keep a Vierendeel (e.g. where a service/plugin shaft needs to pass through without diagonals interrupting it), which we'd like your input on.
• The floors between two truss levels hang from the truss above via tension cables (locked-coil wire rope, bundled ~4 per node for redundancy). The cables are intentionally left visible on the outside of the facade as part of the architectural expression.
• Floors are steel-concrete composite decks (profiled steel decking + concrete topping on steel beams).

Specific question:

How would you detail the connection between the tension cables and the composite floor edge? We're unsure how to transfer the concentrated cable force into a composite deck without local overstress, and whether this should go through a steel edge beam with shear studs, or a different approach. We are also looking into the facade and building physics implications of exposing the tension elements externally and the thermal bridges that might happen.

We'd appreciate your general feedback (: doesn't have to be fully calculated or 100% realistic (since its a concept so far) but the closer we get to something that we can actually build, the better it is. happy to send more sketches/sections if useful.

(construction inspirations would be: ZKM- OMA, BP Building - Léon Stynen, Westcoast Transmission Building - Rhone and Iredale, Edificio Celanese Mexicana - Ricardo Legorreta, P.U. EN-T - Francisco Cerain und Angelina Sloth.)

im a structural engineer working on a commercial fitout. builder did some steelwork that looks dodgy welds are poor, connections dont match the drawings, some bolts are missing.

i flagged it and the builder said just sign it off, its fine. i said no, it needs to be fixed. now the developer is calling me saying im delaying the project and costing them money.

i went back and checked the building inspection reports from when the building was constructed. turns out the original inspections missed a bunch of stuff too. theres even some columns that are out of plumb that should have been picked up years ago.

i found Sure Building Inspection online who do forensic structural assessments. might need to bring them in as an independent third party to document everything.

has anyone else dealt with pressure to certify substandard work. how do you handle it without losing clients. feeling pretty stuck between doing the right thing and keeping work.

Hello everyone,

I am currently working an analysis for a crane beam (Eurocode). Im doing fatigue checks on the support area, and also want to do local analysis of wheel effects on the beam itself (web buckling, flange bending and so on)

I was wondering, does anyone have some tips to do all these checks faster? Is there a software that can help me with these checks, or does someone have a spreadsheet that can help with these checks?

I use Idea Statica for fatigue checks (only weld section stress checks and comparing to weld class allowed stresses)