NEWSLETTER 05, SUMMER 2008

From the Course Director

Welcome to the IDBE Newsletter. May and June are prime recruiting months so please pass this on to anyone who may be interested in joining the course. But be reassured – I’m not planning to produce newsletters ever two months as a routine.

The March-April residential week had as its studio project the feasibility of using ski-lift or cable-car technology as a means of public transport to support waterfront regeneration in the Medway towns, Rochester and Chatham. It was run by Jeremy Purseglove and Ian Hesling-Gibson from Mott McDonald, and was a project they had undertaken commercially.

Visionary proposals for stations in the Medway towns

A number of interesting proposals emerged, although most teams identified a wide range of issues to do with capacity, maintenance and visual intrusion which appeared insoluble. No prior examples were found of their use in urban contexts, and the shared conclusion across the teams was that these systems are only feasible as tourist attractions. Commuters, shoppers and other local users would benefit from more prosaic options like river taxis and/or bridges.

The future of public transport in Chatham

The theme of the residential week was sustainability. We heard from a variety of specialists - academics, an agent for major developers, an architect and an engineer – their perspective on the sustainability agenda. David Adamson presented the findings of a series of nationwide workshops supported by Urban Buzz to report back to government on the views of various key stakeholders from the public and private sectors. Ian Cooper facilitated a discussion about priorities in relation to climate change. 

Where are they now?

Profile: M.T. “Vijay” Vijayendran, New York State Department of Transportation

M.T. “Vijay” Vijayendran (IDBE1, 1994-1996) grew up in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) but moved to London in 1972 at the age of 17. He studied civil engineering at the Polytechnic of Central London, graduating in 1977 and passing the final exams of the IStructE in 1979. Two years later he moved to Canada to work in the petrochemical industry, and two years after that to New York, where he worked on curtain walling for several prestigious projects. 

In 1989, a section of concrete from the Williamsburg Bridge came loose, fatally striking a motorist waiting at a traffic intersection below. The New York City government created a Bureau of Bridges to monitor infrastructure deterioration, and Vijay joined them, spending two years inspecting and repairing 14 major crossings within the City limits.

In 1992 he transferred to the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT), where he has been ever since. From 2000 he was project engineer in charge of the 600 state bridges in Long Island, and five years ago became Senior Transportation Maintenance Engineer, with a team of 70 employees maintaining all New York State highways and related structures in West Suffolk County.

Vijay had always maintained strong ties to the UK including as a US representative of the IStructE. In the IStructE journal in late 1993 he saw an advertisement for the IDBE course, faxed his details, flew to the UK in March 1994 to meet the course team, and joined the first IDBE cohort in September 1994.

For his IDBE thesis, Vijay planned to write about bridge joints, but was persuaded instead to study bridge aesthetics in design. He joined a committee within the NYSDOT created to review this same topic. During an early review meeting of proposals for the Roslyn Viaduct for Oyster Bay, Vijay argued the sheer size of the structure would cast deep shadows on the surrounding area. Although surprised by the criticism, committee members were eventually convinced and the bridge was redesigned to be physically lighter and more transparent.

Shortly after receiving his MSt, in 1998 Vijay took on the reconstruction of the two-mile long Robert Moses Causeway over the Great South Bay. He discovered that an earlier design inspection had underestimated the true extent of deterioration. Costs were forecast to triple from $36 million to $100 million, bringing a halt to the project. Vijay set about painstakingly researching the entire history, and documented his findings in layman’s terms, modelling his narrative on IDBE course work. His report persuaded the State Comptroller to finance the project, and auditors who interviewed Vijay considered his exemplary methods should be adopted by the Department throughout New York State. On 30 June 2000, the bridge was reopened, bringing Vijay numerous accolades, and promotion.

Robert Moses Causeway over Great South Bay

Amazingly, Vijay was also involved in the aftermath of 9/11. Because of his responsibilities for bridge safety, he had received training from the New York State’s Police Academy on handling emergency situations, such as those related to extreme weather conditions and vehicle accidents. At the time of 9/11, he was director of bridge maintenance, and had equipment and crews ready to respond to bridge emergencies. On the night of 9/11 he was asked to assist the emergency service personnel clearing the damaged zone around Ground Zero.

Profile: Mark Key, Copeland Borough Council

For Mark Key (IDBE12, 2005-2007), a fascination with buildings began as a child growing up on the west coast of Cumbria. His grandfather, a mason, took Mark with him on jobs he carried out for friends and family in his spare time.

Mark began his career as a bricklayer for a Cumbria-based building firm in 1983, and moved on to become a construction technician for two civil engineering firms.

With the regional economy in recession in the 1990s, he took a post in 1995 as clerk of works and project officer for Copeland Borough Council and became a building control officer in the Western Lake District area of Cumbria.

In April 2008 he was appointed Building Control Manager, with responsibilities for building standards on construction projects ranging from domestic extensions to large commercial projects at the Sellafield Nuclear Plant.

He is also project managing the procurement and installation of new software for the Council’s Building Control, Development Control and Legal Departments.

In 2001, Mark enrolled on a distance-learning BSc in building and conservation management with Nottingham Trent University at York College. His dissertation addressed the role of lime mortar in 21^st century construction, focusing on the relative merits of it in comparison with cement mortar. His account earned him first class honours and he was awarded the York Guild of Building’s 2005 silver medal.

Just as Mark was completing his BSc he read Ken Hannah’s article in the Chartered Institute of Building Journal ‘Construction Manager’ about the IDBE programme. He saw this as an opportunity to continue his research into contemporary masonry, and enrolled in September 2005 as part of cohort 12.

His thesis, Investing in Bricks and Mortar: Sustainable Options for Low/Medium-Rise Masonry Buildings explored what types of materials are most effective in terms of providing a protective and energy-efficient surface for building structures, while also being adaptive in terms of maintenance and renovation.

“Masonry needs to evolve,” Mark explains. “The old way of solid masonry and solid wall systems needs to be reconsidered to ensure future adaptability and accessibility for insulation, and so on. However, achieving an aesthetically pleasing masonry finish externally by placing the insulation on the internal face of external walls can result in the loss of thermal mass. Finding the best solution will be a major challenge for the masonry sector.”

The Folly, Duddon Hall

Award-winning restoration and extension of 'The Folly' at Duddon Hall in the Lake District, for which Copeland Borough Council is the building control authority.