ASHRAE Journal - April 2021 - 68

REFRIGERATION APPLICATIONS
COLUMN

Andy Pearson

The Art of Not
Constructing
BY ANDY PEARSON, PH.D., C.ENG., FELLOW ASHRAE

Last month I wrote about the economics of engineering and the well-known saying
about engineers doing it cheaper, but there were two aspects of this line of thought
that I couldn't fit into that one-page column. After some further consideration I
decided that they were too important to let pass.

ISTOCK: TONY BAGGETT

The first aspect is Wellington's observation that it is
a train crossing the bridge at the time. More than 100
better to consider engineering to be " the art of notyears later a suspended walkway in a hotel in Kansas
constructing. " This got me thinking about the conCity, Mo., collapsed under the weight of spectators
nection between good engineering and aesthetically
because the support detail had been changed (and
pleasing design. Beauty is, of course, in the
cheapened) in a way which resulted in the
eye of the beholder, but I struggled to think
loading on the drop rods being double the
of an example from any of the engineeroriginal design intent. This caused 114 fataliing disciplines that I considered to be well
ties and 216 serious injuries, the highest
engineered but ugly. On the other hand all
death toll for a non-deliberate structural
of the systems, devices, constructions and
collapse in the United States. This is the real
machines that I think epitomize good design
peril in the idea that cheaper engineering
are also elegant, stylish and not over-blown
equals good engineering. It might be more
or excessively complicated. Simplicity in
apposite to say that " a good Civil Engineer
Albert believed in doing
things
well,
simply.
itself leads to a well-engineered result,
might spend a pound avoiding the mistakes
whereas complexity in the design concept is
that a fool makes to save a penny. "
best addressed by eliminating the need for it.
The two aspects are apparently contradictory, but they
The second aspect was summed up in a version of
can be resolved by understanding that the true skill of
the saying allegedly said by a founding member of
the gifted engineer is to know what can be jettisoned
the Institution of Civil Engineers in Britain: " A Civil
without compromising the whole enterprise. Perhaps
Engineer can do for a penny what any fool can do for
the last word on this subject should be given to another
a pound. " The problem with expressing economics in
frequent victim of misattribution, Albert Einstein.
these terms is that civil engineering, together with every Einstein almost certainly did not say " Everything
other branch of the profession, is littered with case
should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler, "
studies where someone did it for less by cutting corners,
although he expressed a similar thought in a much
and then disaster struck.
more complex way in a 1933 lecture. The next time you
The Tay Bridge collapse in Scotland in 1879 was the
are faced with a tough value engineering challenge
result of the design engineer cheapening the arrangeremember the art of not constructing, but only in a way
ment of the tie rod ends that cross-braced the center
that would get Einstein's seal of approval.
columns of the bridge, which subsequently collapsed
Andy Pearson, Ph.D., C.Eng., is group managing director at Star Refrigeration in Glasgow, UK.
during a storm killing the 75 passengers and crew on
68

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