(sorry - I could not resist the ghastly title)

I joined the Tuesday Group committee perhaps six months ago when they were organising speakers for talks this academic year. I suggested I asked Chris Wise and, later, he kindly agreed. The Tuesday Group is the students and graduates group of the South West branch of The Institution of Structural Engineers, and aims to instil interest and passion in structural engineering in the young members as well as generally promoting careers in the industry. These aims are met by holding talks, debates, social evenings and site visits. The Tuesday Group is the envy of other branches and, I expect you agree, a very worthy cause.

This evening saw the season being kicked off with the Annual Students Evening, of which the main event was a talk from Chris: Engineers of the Future. It was really cool having such a character come talk to us - he is impressive as the blurb from our poster hopefully conveys:

Chris Wise, the familiar TV face of structural engineering, has an addictive passion about the profession from design to construction to education.

He joined Ove Arup and Partners in 1979 becoming Arup’s youngest-ever Director in 1992 and later appointed one of five board directors. In 1999 he co-founded Expedition Engineering born out of a desire to raise the quality of creative engineering involvement in projects. He has worked closely with leading architects Richard Rogers and Norman Foster, among others, on award-winning projects throughout the world. His team’s engineering has twice won the Construction Industry Building of the Year award, and also the RIBA Stirling Prize for Architecture. Key projects include the Commerzbank HQ in Frankfurt (Europe’s tallest building and the first green skyscraper), the slightly wobbly Millennium Bridge in London, the American Air Museum in Duxford, and the 290m Barcelona Telecoms Tower. With his new practice he has projects in such exotic locations as Antarctica, Barcelona and Stockton on Tees.

Not content with designing moving bridges in Italy and constructing mighty Roman relics of which Caesar would be proud, Chris Wise is increasingly involved in defining a 21st Century curriculum for undergraduate engineers encouraging a free hand, butter paper and felt tip pen, common sense approach trying to bring aesthetics and engineering together on a wave.

I introduced Chris (as Toby is on holiday and and and) as well as plugging the other talks (hope to see you there). Here I gave Chris a vote of thanks (and South African red wine) for his time and effort.

Chris’ talk did not reach a succinct conclusion (he did say it would not) nor did it have a clear intention. It was, in Chris’ rambling, humorous way, an assortment of his views, ideas, feelings, pains and love of engineering. Not the nitty-gritty nuts and bolts of hard engineering we, as students and graduates, are accustomed to, but rather the (oh I don’t know) essence of engineering. He talked about: who we are; why we are here; maths vs. design; science vs. engineering; engineering is cooking and football; take an interest in what is going on around engineering; patterns; engineers in society, our status and duty; historic trends and notions on the future; how engineering has changed and needs to change; how education should change; recognition or the press’ fault of accrediting architects in way of shorthand; the design process and what university teaches us; what university does not teach us. And so much more. You simply should have been there.

I am sure his strong views, both positive and negative, were a welcome breath of fresh air into the lungs and minds of students wondering what it is all about and, especially for the final year students, showing a career in new light that they can see themselves in. The title the Tuesday Group advertised for his talk had one more word than Chris used - inspiring. I do think he inspired us to be the next Chris Wise.

All in all it was a good evening with a healthy turn out.

Chris gave his company’s definition of engineering:

The art of changing the physical world for the use & benefit of mankind

I like it.