Designed To Be Built

Usually more than one, and working that out is part of the first conversation. A house extension or a wall coming out is structural design and a certificate. A new development adds civil engineering for the drainage, roads and water connections the planning application has to show. A frame with repeating floors is where precast and the 3D model start to pay for themselves. Tell us what you are building and we will say which of the five it touches, and which it does not.

The structural engineer designs the building itself: the foundations, the frame, the floors and the connections that hold them together. The civil engineer designs the ground it stands on: levels, drainage, roads, access and the connections to water and wastewater. Most projects need both, and the council assesses the civil work at planning alongside the architecture. Here the two are drawn off the same set, so the foundations and the drainage runs are not designed by two offices guessing at each other.

On most new buildings and extensions, yes. The architect designs the layout and the appearance and usually leads the planning application; the engineer makes it stand up, sizes the foundations and beams, and certifies the structure. On a smaller structural job, such as opening up a load bearing wall, an engineer on their own is often enough, and we will tell you if that is your case.

Because most of what goes wrong on site happens at the joins between designers. When the frame, the substructure, the precast package and the model come from one office, the foundations are sized for the frame that actually lands on them, and the service penetrations are in the precast units before they are cast rather than drilled afterwards. You also have one engineer to ask, rather than three offices each pointing at the others.

Yes. We work inside the architect's or the contractor's team rather than around it, take part in the BIM coordination, and issue the structural information in whatever format the project runs on, including IFC models for the federated model. Principal engineers stay on the job at every stage, so the team always has the engineer doing the work on the other end of the phone.

Yes, on both the structural and the civil side. We prepare the structural reports and drawings a submission needs, along with the flood risk assessment, SuDS design, drainage and watermain layouts and the Irish Water liaison. If the council comes back with a further information request on the structure or the drainage, we write the response. The architect or planning consultant normally leads the application, and we work alongside them.

No. We are a design office, not a precast plant, and we prepare the design to the production format and factory standards of whichever supplier the job goes to. The package runs from the early layouts through fabrication drawings to the production information and CNC files the plant manufactures from.

Yes. A single package is a normal appointment: a feasibility study before a site is committed to, a value engineering review of a scheme that has come in over budget, temporary works design for a contractor, or a condition report on an existing building. Each is priced on its own and does not commit you to the rest.

Both. We inspect existing structures and write up what we find: pre purchase surveys, detailed structural condition reports, crack and subsidence reports, assessments of derelict homes before renovation, and Opinions on Compliance, declarations of identity and Land Registry maps for a sale or a refinance. Where a defect ends up in dispute, we write the expert report and stand behind it. Where the report finds something that needs fixing, the same office designs the repair.

Whatever the job needs to be built and signed off: calculations, structural drawings and construction details, reinforcement drawings and bar bending schedules, fabrication drawings for the precast, the coordinated 3D model, quantities you can price against, and the Civil and Structural Ancillary Certificates under BCAR for the elements in our scope. The list is set out in the fee proposal, so you know what is coming before we start.