Manchester – the city has been on the cutting edge since the birth of the industrial revolution. From John Dalton’s Atomic Theory in 1803, to the invention of Graphene in 2004. More recently it has given the world the greatest music ever made.

Home to 2.8 million people in 1.2 million dwellings over 500 square miles, Greater Manchester is the heart of the Northern Powerhouse and has a bigger economy than the whole of Wales… but this economy does not work for everyone.

As well as a bigger economy, Manchester also has a bigger homelessness problem. Years of declining social housing stock, coupled with a growing population, and now the impact of Covid-19, has seen the problem evolve into a full crisis.

In this episode we speak to new housing developer EDAROTH – Everyone Deserves A House Over Their Head – to learn about how modern methods of construction might help unlock unwanted brownfield sites and solve this problem for good.

Guests

Mark Powell, Managing Director, Edaroth

Mike McNicholas, Managing Director – Infrastructure, Atkins

Supporter

Atkins, part of the SNC-Lavalin Group, is one of the world’s most respected design, engineering and project management consultancies.

Employing over 18,000 people across the UK, North America, Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific and Europe, Atkins utilities the latest technology to deliver major capital projects, and provide expert consultancy for clients across the energy, transportation and infrastructure sectors

Resources

Shelter UK – Building for our Future: a vision for social housing (Jan 2019)

UK GOV – MHCLG report – Modern Methods of Construction – introducing the MMC definition framework (March 2019)

The post #64 EDAROTH first appeared on Engineering Matters.

When Dan Harmer received a call in March that told him to clear his schedule and prepare for a meeting, he knew it would be important, but had no idea quite what would be asked of him.

With Covid-19 spreading exponentially, and the National Health Service looking increasingly vulnerable, he was the man chosen to build an emergency Nightingale hospital in Birmingham. The catch? He had less than two weeks before the first patients were expected to arrive.

This is the story of how the construction industry, sometimes criticised for poor productivity, gave everything it had to meet a seemingly impossible deadline when the country needed it most. And how technology enabled the immense human effort to win through.

Special thanks to Autodesk Construction Solutions, Interserve Construction and the National Health Service.

Guests

Dan Harmer, Project Manager, Interserve Construction
Matt Keen, Construction Industry Strategist, Autodesk Construction Solutions
Michelle Jeffs, Account Manager, Autodesk Construction Solutions

Supporter

Autodesk is the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry’s partner in the future of design and construction.

The post #63 Nine Days to Build a Hospital first appeared on Engineering Matters.

Hundreds of millions of people in the most economically disadvantaged places in the world spend up to 20 hours per week washing clothes by hand. This task, traditionally forced onto women, is back breaking and monotonous.

Then in 2018 a promise made in a rural village in southern India has led Nav Sawhney to leave his dream job at a world-beating engineering company and launch an ethical start-up. The Washing Machine Project was born.

Nav’s plan is to mass produce a crank-operated washing machine that will liberate women from these hours of drudgery.

Started on a bootstrap, and paying people with samosas, their mission is to create a manual machine that is efficient, portable, high-capacity, and most importantly – cheap. 

But to succeed, they need as much support as possible. If you can help, their JustGiving page is in the resources section below.

GUEST

Nav Sawhney, Founder, The Washing Machine Project

SUPPORTER

The Royal Academy of Engineering is an organisation that aims to harness the power of engineering to build a sustainable society and inclusive economy that works for everyone. It works to grow talent and develop skills for the future, to drive innovation and build global partnerships, as well as influence policy and engage the public.

RESOURCES

The Washing Machine Project JustGiving page: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/the-washing-machine-project?utm_term=GqwpADbBr

Did you enjoy this podcast? Let us know what you think by answering this short listener questionnaire: https://forms.gle/feJhShZQiY3xs1Ew9

The post #62 The Washing Machine Project first appeared on Engineering Matters.

On 28 October 1971 the UK conducted its first and only successful orbital launch, firing the Prospero satellite into low earth orbit – LEO on a Black Arrow rocket. Since that time, the country has lacked a native launch vehicle.

In this episode we speak with Joe Laynton, a mechanical engineer working for Skyrora, an Edinburgh-based company that aims to correct just that, and return launch capability to the UK by 2023.

Joe tells us about a journey that had led him from playing with Lego and watching sci-fi as a young boy, to working at the cutting edge of the British space sector.

This episode is supported by the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Ingenious programme. Ingenious is an awards scheme for projects that engage the public with engineering while at the same time providing engineers with skills and opportunities in public engagement.

Did you enjoy this podcast? Let us know what you think by answering this short listener questionnaire

GUEST
Joe Laynton, Mechanical Engineer, Skyrora

SUPPORTER
The Royal Academy of Engineering is an organisation that aims to harness the power of engineering to build a sustainable society and inclusive economy that works for everyone. It works to grow talent and develop skills for the future, to drive innovation and build global partnerships, as well as influence policy and engage the public.

RESOURCES
To find out more about Skyrora and their orbital ambitions, click here.
Interested in the way in which engineering impacts our society? Check out ‘This is Engineering’.

The post #61 Countdown to British launch first appeared on Engineering Matters.

Britain is emerging from some of the toughest social restrictions placed in peacetime history. As people come out of their homes, they are eager to meet friends and loved ones, and head back out into the world – but they are scared.

To help keep people safe in a world gripped by Covid-19, and to adapt to the new behaviours of the population, episode partner Atkins (part of the SNC-Lavalin Group) has been advising local authorities on how best to modify their public spaces, and to cope with the new normal.

We learn about some of the recommendations from new public guidance, the support available from government, and how some of Britain’s built environment is more prepared for a post-Covid world than expected.

GUESTS

Neil Manthorpe, Associate Director – Landscape Architecture & Urban Design, Atkins
Robbie Claase, Associate Director – Infrastructure, Atkins

SUPPORTER

Atkins, part of the SNC-Lavalin Group, is one of the world’s most respected design, engineering and project management consultancies.

Employing over 18,000 people across the UK, North America, Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific and Europe, Atkins utilities the latest technology to deliver major capital projects, and provide expert consultancy for clients across the energy, transportation and infrastructure sectors.

LINKS

Coronavirus: Safer Public Places – Urban Centres and Green Spaces 

The post #60 Covid 19: Creating safer spaces first appeared on Engineering Matters.

Engineers are in a uniquely powerful position. Able to shape our built environment and so influence the direction of civilisation, the impact that their expertise can have for the good of society and the environment is incredible.

But people are human, and if a negative culture is allowed to thrive in the organisations that employ them, or if no attention is paid to understanding how problems are approached, history has taught us that fatal disaster can be the result. It is vital that every member of the profession is ethically competent, working in a way that assures a positive outcome.

For this episode we have teamed up with consultant Mott MacDonald and the Inter Disciplinary Ethics Applied Centre at Leeds University to explore how engineers can be empowered to practice ethically and we uncover the true story behind Canada’s mysterious iron ring ceremony.

GUESTS

Mike Haigh, Executive Chair, Mott MacDonald
Leonard Sharah, Chief Warden, Corporation of the Seven Wardens
Emma Crichton, Head of Engineering, Engineers Without Borders
Jim Baxter, Professional Ethics Consultancy Team Lead, University of Leeds
Rob Lawlor, Lecturer in Applied Ethics, University of Leeds
Peter Bonfield, President, Institution of Engineering and Technology
Mark Enzer, Chief Technical Officer, Mott MacDonald
Shannon Chance, Visiting Professor, UCL

PARTNER

Mott MacDonald: Opening opportunities with connected thinking.

Mott MacDonald is a US$2bn engineering, management and development consultancy involved in: 

• solving some of the world’s most urgent social, environmental and economic challenges
• helping governments and businesses plan, deliver and sustain their strategic goals
• responding to humanitarian and natural emergencies
• improving people’s lives 

Its expertise by sector includes buildings, communications, defence, education, environment, health, industry, mining, oil and gas, power, transport, urban development, water, wastewater and more. Its skills encompass planning, studies and design, project finance, technical advisory services, project and programme management, management consultancy and beyond

The post #59 Empowering Ethical Engineering first appeared on Engineering Matters.

Since mid-2019, over 900 architectural practices in the UK have made a declaration of climate and biodiversity emergency, acknowledging the extreme seriousness of our situation and making a public commitment to positive change.

Now joined by declarations from other disciplines in the construction industry, the growing movement needs coordination or it risks becoming siloed.

In this episode we interview the man coordinating these engineering declarations: IStructE Gold Medal winner Mike Cook, and we look at a career spent trying to work with nature, rather than against it.

Guests:

Dr Mike Cook, Project Principal, Buro Happold

The post #58 Construction declares climate emergency first appeared on Engineering Matters.

The coronavirus pandemic that has torn through society has also seen supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE) depleted at an alarming rate. As doctors and nurses are forced to improvise, and traditional suppliers struggle to meet the sudden increase in demand, help has arrived from an unexpected group of enthusiasts. The 3D printing community has come to the rescue.

Thousands of volunteers are sacrificing their sleep to produce emergency PPE, and to buy time for supply chains to adjust to a new reality. We speak with three people who may be changing the way manufacturing works for good.

GUESTS

Tony Thompson, Engineering and Electrical Assessor, Northampton College

Mark Hester, Technology Director, The Imagination Factory

Richard Hague, Director of the Centre for Additive Manufacturing, University of Nottingham

NOTES

If you would like to support Tony and Lyn Thompson, click here

To donate to their organising group, Print for Victory, click here

And if you would like to lend your aid to 3D Crowd UK, click here

The last time we spoke to Richard Hague from the University of Nottingham was in episode #19 Future of 3D Printing

The post #57 Printing versus the pandemic: COVID 19 first appeared on Engineering Matters.

Biodiversity in the UK is facing an emergency with around 30 percent of native species becoming extinct since the 1970s. This loss of wildlife, which echoes trends all over the world, could have catastrophic impacts on food, air quality and the environment. However for the UK change is on the horizon with a new Environment Bill seeking to reverse this with requirements for developers to deliver an increase in biodiversity on their projects –  a concept known as biodiversity net gain.

This update on our episode from August 2019, gives additional insight into the details of the new requirements. It finds that although the current COVID 19 induced crisis is reducing global carbon emissions and bringing some environment benefits, biodiversity remains under threat.

Guests
Dr Julia Baker, Author, Biodiversity Net Gain: Good Practice Principals for Development
Tom Butterworth, Technical Director for Biodiversity, WSP
Caroline Maghanga, Senior Ecologist, Mott MacDonald

The post #56 The Biodiversity Emergency first appeared on Engineering Matters.

How data from satellites can track structural movement, and give early warning of potential failure. New research shows that catastrophic bridge collapses could have been prevented if engineers had been paying attention to the right information, information that is currently being collected by satellites orbiting our planet. Satellite monitoring is one of the many innovations to come from the burgeoning space sector, and we explore a new tool developed between the UK’s Satellite Applications Catapult and Canada’s National Research Council that will allow asset managers to turn to data produced in orbit, to protect bridges back on earth.

In this episode we speak to the engineers making this possible, and their terrestrial counterparts now tasked with figuring out how best to use this new perspective.

Guests

Cristian Rossi, Principal Earth Observation Specialist, Satellite Applications Catapult

Daniel Cusson, Senior Research Officer, Construction Research Centre of the National Research Council Canada

Paul Febvre, Chief Technology Officer, Satellite Applications Catapult

Andrei Popa, Senior Bridge Engineer, Atkins

Anna Fitzgerald, Highways Systems Manager, Oxfordshire County Council

Charlie Davies, Innovation and Research Engineer, Costain

Stuart Martin, CEO, Satellite Applications Catapult

Lucy Edge, Chief Operating Officer, Satellite Applications Catapult

Sam Li, Senior Innovation Lead, Transport for Greater Manchester

Sam Adlen, Chief Strategy Officer, Satellite Applications Catapult

Partner

Satellite Applications Catapult

The Satellite Applications Catapult is a technology and innovation company, created to drive economic development through the exploitation of space. The Catapult is a not-for-profit organisation that works with businesses of all sizes to realise their potential from space.

Resources 

• Combined InSAR and Terrestrial Structural Monitoring of Bridges
• Pre-Collapse Space Geodetic Observations of Critical Infrastructure: the Morandi Bridge, Italy
• Historic assessment of Tadcaster Bridge

Brigital project Funding Sources

• Innovate UK
• National Research Council Canada
• Transport Canada
• Infrastructure Canada

The post #55 Saving Structures with Satellites first appeared on Engineering Matters.