Your Beam Is Too Big: Architects & Engineers

Send us a text

Start with a flooded hotel room, end with a four‑metre cantilever, and in between unpack the messy, creative space where structure meets form. We sit down with structural engineer Joel Marsh of Pocket to map out how architects and engineers can move beyond transactional deliverables and into a truly design‑led process that saves money, reduces RFIs, and produces cleaner, more elegant buildings.

Joel opens the playbook: meet early, sketch by hand at 10–15%, and use those concept drawings to align intent before any modelling lock‑in. From there, general arrangement plans become a shared workspace for spatial fit, and detailed coordination happens before consent so builders aren’t left juggling “garden salad details” on site. We talk real value vs low fees, the hidden cost of conservative members, and why a readable calculation package should tell a story of load paths, stiffness, and performance that architects and builders can follow at a glance.

Materials get a clear‑eyed treatment. Timber is brilliant when it fits the constraints; steel and concrete still win in the right places. Joel walks through post‑tensioned slab logic, a prefabricated mountain hut helicoptered into place, and what it took to pull off a four‑metre cantilevered floor. We also touch on AI’s limits: it can automate parts, but it can’t replace the creative judgement that balances cost, constructability, and design intent. The through‑line is respect and shared language—because the best buildings reflect a professional consensus, not a one‑sided mandate.

If you care about better drawings, simpler details, fewer RFIs, and a smoother path from concept to construction, this one’s for you. Subscribe, share with your project team, and leave a review to tell us the one collaboration habit you want to see more often.

https://pocketeng.co.nz/

Please Like and Subscribe it really helps :)

Follow us on @designpriciplespod on Instagram and if you wish to contact us hit our DMs or our personal pages. We love to hear from you it really encourages us to keep going and the ideas and feedback we get from the listeners is awesome!

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_05 (00:00):
Meek Dashound, a collab between Air New Zealand

(00:02):
and Parrot Dog.
Short-bodied and high-flying,this NZIPA burst with tropical
fruit notes and a relaxedbitterness.
Brewed with NZH 109 hops forsmooth landings and laid-back
getaways.
Read one exclusively on selectedflights and the main Air New
Zealand lounges.
Nice.
This week we chat withstructural engineer Joel Marsh

(00:25):
from Pocket.
Joel brings a point of view tothe relationship between
architecture and engineeringthat all in the design field
would appreciate.
We kick things off just as Joelhas had to relocate hotel rooms
due to a bit of a plumbingissue, and then dive into
creativity, collaboration, blackholes, and the burning question,
what is the biggest cantileveryou have designed?

(00:45):
We hope you enjoyed high drama.

SPEAKER_00 (01:02):
So I've literally just got myself into another
room now.
But they moved you.
I'm not joking.
It was a swimming pool in there.
It was hilarious.

SPEAKER_05 (01:12):
Absolute panic stations.
That's the worst place.
Are you on are you are you onlike an upper level?

SPEAKER_00 (01:17):
I was like 10th floor.
Shit.
And now down.
I was thinking, it's gonna floodall the other rooms, it's gonna
go down through the floor.
It's like just volumes of water.

SPEAKER_05 (01:26):
A funny story.
I had a friend who um like ran abath in a hotel and then fell
asleep and forgot that she'd runthe bath and just it just kept
going and absolutely tanked theplace.
I can't remember what she said,but it was it was in like the
hundreds of thousands of buttonsworth of damage.
Man.
It's brutal.
Brutal.

SPEAKER_00 (01:45):
Why wouldn't are you up there for a bit?
Just at night, just tonight.

SPEAKER_05 (01:49):
So you're still running the washing machine.

SPEAKER_00 (01:52):
Yeah, I am I'm yeah, so I'm just just here for a
night.
I sort of come up, I try andcome up every couple of weeks if
I can.
Because we've got we've got aguy on the pocket team that's
based up here, so it's normal.
St.
Helias.
In St.
Helias, yeah, that's right.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 (02:10):
I walk past pretty much every day, so.
Do you go past it?
Yeah, well that's well, youknow, like uh walk down the
waterfront and back.

SPEAKER_00 (02:18):
Nice one.
Yeah, so how do you find likeworking working with a remote
team?
I guess we're j I guess likewe're getting to grips with it,
you know.

SPEAKER_01 (02:27):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (02:27):
I don't want to sort of sit here and say it's it's
all roses.
Like there's definitelychallenges, more like more
challenges, I guess, than if youwere just in person.

SPEAKER_01 (02:36):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (02:37):
But I I've got to be thankful for Daniel.
He's been up for that, and he'sbeen up for the sort of unknown
of that and just how we kind offigure it out and navigate it.
So I think overall, overall it'sbeen good, but yeah, certainly
some stuff to to figure out.
And I guess like one of thebiggest things is just you know
helping him feel like he's partof the fold.

SPEAKER_05 (02:56):
And yeah, it's a tough one.
Yeah, not feeling isolated.

SPEAKER_06 (03:00):
Is he new?
Did you say?

SPEAKER_00 (03:03):
He's actually been with us 18 months now.
Okay, that's different.

SPEAKER_06 (03:07):
He's well integrated.
He's he's been like, that's likeas old as my whole company.

SPEAKER_00 (03:12):
Yeah, he's been with us a wee while.
Yeah, time time goes quicker.
I think one of the things we'vedone reasonably well is just try
and get him down, like everyevery so often.
So he'll normally come down fora couple of three nights or
something, can just kind of meshin and be in the be in the team.
Yeah.
And do you have jobs?

SPEAKER_06 (03:29):
Do you have jobs up here?
So at least you can kind of lookafter them if you do.

SPEAKER_00 (03:34):
Yeah, we've got a few.
We've got a few we've got a fewrunning.
I guess that's been new as well,just trying to I guess get to
get to new.
Enter a new market.
Enter a new market and become anational firm.
I think that's um uh maybe a bitstrong, but I think no, we we we
we we'd like to.

(03:54):
We would we would like to.
I think for me with Daniel, I'dmet him and it was kind of like
well, he he's he's really wellaligned.
He he kind of understands whatwe're trying to do and I kind of
shifted into how do we how do weget him on the team rather than
the reasons we can't, sort ofthing.
Just try to think outside thesquare.
I could sense he was up forthinking a bit differently as

(04:15):
well, and just yeah, bit thebullet and went for it.
But it's it's not it's not easy,you know.
You come in, you know, we wecame in like knowing we needed
to try and drum that work uphere.
It wasn't going to be sort of asustainable thing to kind of
feed in with work fromChristchurch, so we needed to
work on relationships and justgetting out there and getting

(04:35):
our name out there and all that.

SPEAKER_05 (04:37):
Quite a cool way to drive it though, with the you
know, the ambition of whatyou're looking to do.
Forefront rather than coming upgetting the work and then trying
to fill the void.

SPEAKER_00 (04:46):
Yeah, I think I think so.
There's probably pros and cons,I reckon.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, we've we've definitelywe've definitely p picked up
some some good stuff.
Yeah, we're we're more known inChristchurch than we are in
Auckland, that's just reality atthe moment, but we're just
trying to trying to get theprofile up there.
I guess the key thing is justtrying to communicate what what

(05:08):
we're about and why it'sdifferent, maybe.
Yeah.
To kind of maybe some otherengineers, I guess.

SPEAKER_05 (05:14):
It's a good segue into what we're gonna chat
about.
Yeah, that yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's good.
That is good.
That's the long-winded intro.
Thanks, Joel.
That's good.
No, I think prison that I wantedto get you on for been thinking
about this chat for a while, butjust wanted to have a chat about
the uh intersection ofarchitecture and engineering,
really, and you guys being areally design-led engineering
firm where you know thearchitecture outcomes just as

(05:38):
important as making sure thething doesn't fall over.
Um, it's always been somethingthat's been really forefront.
And we've worked together in thepast and known each other for a
while and thought it'd just becool to get you on and pick your
brains and have a yarn about ourtwo sectors and how they can
combine and create betterbuildings, really.

SPEAKER_00 (05:56):
Yeah, man, I think it's definitely my favourite
subject.
I think that I think the biggestthing is I think it starts with
just like trying to understandfrom an engineer's perspective.
I think it's trying tounderstand what an architect is
wanting to do.
And some of it I feel boils downto some almost quite basic
stuff, but is often, I think,not done or not done, not done

(06:17):
well.
So like a big thing we talkabout is just let's have some
good comms, especially at thestart.
Like let's like we we're we'rewe're pretty big on, hey, can
can we actually have a meeting?
Can we just because we'd justlike to hear from from you guys
what it is you're trying toachieve.
Because I think so often yousort of receive a a set of
architectural plans and straightaway with that, it's also almost

(06:39):
unknowingly, you're makingassumptions about about what's
important.
You just do, and you sort of goin there and you start, you
know, you start doing yourengineering thing, you go, well,
I'll put this in here and andthen actually put put that 300
AB in in here.

unknown (06:56):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (06:57):
I was just I was just complaining to Ben
complaining those spans.
I was just complaining to BenJoel that we've got this, it's a
small batch in Riversdale, andthe engineer for that is
designed 410 UB for about a it'snot that big of a span, it might
be eight to ten meter beam, andI'm like, that is just it's just
too big.

SPEAKER_00 (07:16):
Absolutely savage.
Yeah.
Yeah, and I think you know, theskillful bit is is understanding
what the constraints are, youknow.
And we we think we have learnedyou can't do that without
without conversating.
So that's been a massive,massive thing.
And then I think what thatunlocks is you kind of you can
then get a feel for what it isyou're actually trying to

(07:37):
achieve.
So even if something that's onpaper at that stage, it might be
that we can propose or saysomething else and still be
achieving that that objective,even if what's shown on the
paper isn't quite aligned tothat at that point.
And you definitely can't reachthat place without conversation
and really understanding whatyou're trying to achieve.

(07:57):
So I think it's just trying toreach that nice balance.
And I think in the early days,like straight up, like I think
we probably um fell a little biton the side of we'll just make
what what work, you know, whatthe architect wants on these
plans, we'll make it work, butsometimes it does it just
doesn't stack up likefinancially or whatever, and so

(08:18):
and so and we've we've had toreally grow in our skill of just
like being confident to to talkand kind of really express some
of the thinking behind it.

SPEAKER_06 (08:27):
And like when someone's trying to, I don't
know, keep like a ceiling thinor a wall thin or something, so
you kind of have to like throw alot of structural elements in
there in order to make itachieve what the their design
outcome essentially and thatends up costing a lot more money
than expected.
Is that the kind of thing you'retalking about?

SPEAKER_00 (08:47):
I think so.
And sometimes that solution'salready on paper, and then it's
like, oh crap, we need to changethat.
But actually, if we'd just had aconversation, we'd have
understood, well, that wasn'tactually that wasn't actually
quite as sensitive as we hadassumed.
Think I I I think some of it issounds like 101 stuff, but just
communicating really well.
I think the other thing we'vedone that um I heard a big

(09:09):
syndrome a lot was what I callthe engineering black hole,
which is which you probably geta feel for what it is straight
away, but it's like it goes offto an engineer and it literally
goes into a black hole and thenit pops out the other side and
it's precisely what you didn'twant.

SPEAKER_04 (09:23):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (09:24):
I was about to say this when you're talking about
this collaboration side ofthings.
I mean, so often and a lot of itI think stems from when, from my
point of view, I try and controlthe project team as much as
possible.
Because you want to work withpeople that you one work well
with, know what outcomes you'regonna get, and ultimately it's
gonna be the best for bothworlds.
But you know, you've got torespect it as a client's

(09:46):
decision at the end of the day.
And those times when you do getsaddled with uh, well, it's
maybe a bit critical, butthey're saying it's saddled with
someone, you know, that youdon't necessarily jail with, or
maybe that's not that into butworking collaboratively, you're
right.
You literally like go, here areour plans, let's have a chat
about it, and you don't hearfrom them for months.
And then all of a sudden there'sa there's a solution that's

(10:06):
given, and you're like, what isthis?

SPEAKER_00 (10:09):
A big thing I talk about is there's a quite a
famous quote actually, butbasically it's this idea of that
there's many engineeringsolutions to problems, right?

SPEAKER_04 (10:19):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (10:19):
So so a lot of people seem to think, I think,
that engineering solutions aresingular.
They're not, right?
What I mean by that is there'smany solutions to a problem, but
the trick, I think, is finding agood solution to the problem
that is balancing theconstraints.
And I don't think you can comeup with a good solution without
really understanding from yourguys' perspective as architects

(10:41):
what it is you're trying toachieve.
That's a massive, massive thing.
And then I think there's a driftor there's this tendency in the
industry, um, which which I findupsetting, but like let's just
name it, it's there where itbecomes quite transactional
between an architect and anengineer.

SPEAKER_01 (10:57):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (10:58):
And like we're trying to work on it being
relational.
Um, you know, there's thatdifference between we're
actually trying to understand umyou guys, you know, what's
important, what's what yourdrivers are.
Whereas when it's transactional,it's like, you know, here's the
architectural plans, I'd, youknow, I'll get my engineering
back.
It doesn't, it doesn't lenditself to good solutions.

(11:20):
It might may well be a solution,but chances are it's not a good
one.

SPEAKER_05 (11:25):
I always find it frustrating when the engineers
or and it goes both ways,really, when you're asking for
drawings at key endpointsstages, they're like, when
you've finished your detaildesign, give me the drawings and
I'll do my blah blah blah.
Or like once you finish yourdetails, then we'll do our
engineering.
Well, we should really beworking in tandem to make sure

(11:46):
that this thing sings, you know,and I think that's where, you
know, that's that's where thesuccessful outcomes get will
fall will fall down, is whenit's transactional.
I mean, based on that, Joel,when ideally for you, what's the
what's the best time to getinvolved in day one?

SPEAKER_00 (12:01):
I think as reasonably early as you can,
like obviously I don't thinkwe're gonna be there quite as
early as you guys, because youyou're doing that really
formative stuff of of ofunderstanding what a client
wants to achieve.
So it probably wants to be in ain a you know, having a drawing
obviously is is a is thestarting point.
And sometimes we do actually getpeople to come to us and know
drawings and we just have tosay, well, we need to sort of

(12:23):
see something.
But then I so then I think so Ithink as early as reasonably
possible, because I think it'soften overlooked, but like a
good engineer can actuallyunlock some opportunities, and
the earlier you're in, the thethe higher the chances are that
you can, especially if it'scoupled with having good
conversations.
And then I think another bigthing we've learned to sort of

(12:45):
like mitigate that whole issueof the black hole syndrome is
like just really working on ourstages and how we break it down.
So for us, we have a reallydeliberate like concept design
stage, and that's always done bythe senior experience engineers,
and they that's that's that's amassive just thinking stage.
So it's kind of like post we'vehad this conversation with you

(13:07):
guys, and then the experiencedengineer goes away and comes up
with the structural solution tothe problem, and we'll actually
hand sketch that and deliver itto you very early on, like super
early, like at 50-15%.

SPEAKER_05 (13:20):
That was something that I was gonna raise because I
know that you guys do that, andwhat I like about that is
engineering can sometimes feelso final, it has to be that way
because ultimately the buildingcan't fall down, you know.
Or you know, the the structuralsolution has to work, but I like
the fact that you guys do dothat, you know, you do it by
hand because it it doesn't, eventhough obviously a lot of

(13:41):
thinking and everything's goneinto it, it doesn't feel at that
stage set in stone.
There feels like there'sflexibility, which is quite nice
from an architect's point ofview, because you I feel like we
can then challenge things andcontinue that dialogue and that
conversation a little bit more.

SPEAKER_00 (13:54):
Definitely.
I mean, you know, like that'sour interpretation of that
problem at that stage, and we weissue that, and that's really I
mean it's really sounds silly,right?
It sounds basic, but we issueit.
So we issue that that set, andwhat it and and the whole
purpose is to facilitate furtherconversation.
Go, you know, how how does thishow does this work?
You know, obviously we want toachieve the 101 stuff of is this

(14:17):
working with your envelope, thatkind of stuff.
But just getting that in earlyrather than this black hole
thing, all the design's beendone and got to the end.
We want to try and be making commaking conversation through the
process.
And I think we've found itreally good.
It's an opportunity for earlycollab collaboration and
coordination really early on, sowe kind of can shape it into the

(14:40):
right space early rather thantoo late when it when it is too
late.

SPEAKER_06 (14:44):
Yeah.
Do you find that you haveengineering style, so to speak?
So I guess like is it like moreof an exposed aesthetic where
you're kind of like trying toexpose more of raw structure
whenever possible and actuallyhave the structural engineering
elements become part of thearchitecture itself, as opposed
to you know just concealingeverything, or is that kind of

(15:08):
thing driven from the I thinkthat's an all- I think that's an
awesome question.

SPEAKER_00 (15:10):
It comes up a lot.
I think the skill is been to tryand understand what is driving
you guys because on a particularproject you you may be wanting
to actually have some expressstructure.
You might you might, and thatmight be part of the solution.
Other times we've got otherguys, they just want it totally
hidden, and that's a certainlevel of skill, certain level of
skill as well.

(15:31):
But I think it goes back to theearlier bit of like the real
skill is understanding, havingcommunicated that.
Do we understand what you'retrying to achieve?
And if we have, then we're farbetter placed to get a good
solution rather than one that'sum something that's particularly
driven by us.
Does it make sense?

SPEAKER_05 (15:52):
Yeah, I like that level of flexibility.

SPEAKER_00 (15:54):
I think that's a higher level of skill as well.
Like, you know, one of thethings I talk about with the
team a lot, you know, is if adetail becomes all and more
important if it's in your livingroom, right?
Like if if you can see it andit's in your living room, we
gotta get that right.
It can't be some hoary, likeweldy, well above your beard
thing.
You know, that might workstructurally, but we we we've

(16:14):
got to have a bit more finessethan that, and that probably
leads me on to my next point oflike how we layer up from there.
So we have that concept stage,but then we have a very definite
developed design stage where weproduce a 3D model, but we only
issue general arrangement, whatI would call general arrangement
drawings, plans and sections,elevations, and it's solely with

(16:37):
the purpose to get it spatiallycoordinated with you guys.
So it's it's it's again, it'slike I'm saying it as it feels
so basic, but the good thing isyou haven't detailed you haven't
detailed so the the primarypurpose at phase is we then
issue that to you and we do itin PDF but also like in a PD
format, you can bring it in andjust check is it is everything

(16:58):
fitting nicely.

SPEAKER_05 (16:59):
There's still flexibility there, right?
You know, there's still thatroom for coordination.
I think the the black holesyndrome, that the coordination
completely goes out the windowbecause there's a point in the
project where both parties arefinished but they haven't really
talked to each other.
Whereas if you're continuingthroughout the course, you know,
I think that's pretty cool.
And I like I kind of like thefact that you're never you're

(17:22):
not ever giving away it's notthat you're never giving away
the full picture, but it's nodifferent than the way that we
operate in the sense that wevery rarely we could go for
directly from concept design todetailed design if the client
wanted to.
But the old design outcome isgoing to be far lesser because
you haven't had the time todevelop and go through nuance

(17:43):
and come up with real, you know,proper, clean, well-considered
solutions.
But I feel so often, from anengineering point of view, what
you're speaking to is you youguys kind of follow our pattern
of project stages rather thanthe more traditional, maybe not
traditional, but for maybe morecommon engineering approach
where it's sort of like, okay,yep, this is the structural

(18:05):
solution conceptually, andhere's how it's done.
And that's basically it, youknow?

SPEAKER_00 (18:11):
Yeah, I think I just see it like it's a layered, it
should be a layered up process,right?
How can you how can you possiblymove from A to B without having
touch points in between?
Like you've you've got to, in myopinion.
And then I think what it does isit creates confidence.
So if we have a really goodcoordination stage there, just
spatially getting the structurefitting within the envelope,

(18:35):
then then both parties aredetailing with confidence.
We start detailing withconfidence.
We're not like you do not havetimes I've seen details done,
and then fundamentally thisposition of a member just
doesn't work.

SPEAKER_06 (18:49):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (18:50):
It's useless, man.

SPEAKER_06 (18:51):
You're definitely reducing the need to redo
anything.
So it definitely makes a lot ofsense to me.

SPEAKER_00 (18:57):
It does, and like, you know, we again before we go
for consent, we'll issue youdetailed design sets, so it's
fully detailed, and it's like Ithink what we find often is a
lot of the details you guyswouldn't be too fussed about
because it's it's hidden orwhatever, but it might be a
handful where it's like that's areally important detail, how
that looks, and and you can seeyou know how we're proposing to

(19:20):
do that.
And again, it's an opportunityfor you just to go, yeah, that
works really well, or you mightneed to tweak that because of
this, which we haven't quiteunderstood or seen or whatever.
And again, it's just just it'sjust how you layer up, you know,
what you're focusing on at whatstage, you know, you want to go
big picture and you want to beyou want to be coming in.
Whereas like if you just goback, like we could go straight

(19:43):
to a solution, we could, andjust like detail it in the dark.

SPEAKER_03 (19:47):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (19:48):
But and and it and it it might be alright, but it's
probably not gonna be alright.
Yeah, it's like what you'rebattling with at the moment,
Ben.
Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (19:56):
Just kind of general arrangement plans.

SPEAKER_06 (19:58):
What general arrangement details?
There's so much.
Yeah, at the moment, we've gotsome engineering issues on a
quite a big project that we'veuh we've got under construction
at the moment where they've justused a lot of typical details,
and so it's so ambiguous thatit's impossible to know what
typical detail uh is required atwhat junction.

(20:20):
And so, like four or five timesa day, we're getting these
little hand sketches from theengineer being like, use this,
use this here, use this there,and it's just such a handbrake,
it's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 (20:30):
Man, do you know what I call that?
I got an expression for that,it's called garden salad
details.
Yeah.
But it is it's like that.
It's like lit, but you know, andI think so so that so then the
hard bit of it, I think the hardbit that we then face, because
we're doing something a bitdifferent and wanting to operate

(20:51):
a bit differently, put in theindustry, we rubber again, like
we want that more relationalapproach and more considered to
get a better outcome, which Ithink overall is better, if you
see what I mean.
But obviously, there's morenaturally there's more cost
involved.
Yeah.
So there's more than that.
You have to be more rigorous upfront.
Exactly.
There's more cost involved forus.
And and right now, we're gettingsavaged because the market's

(21:14):
difficult.
So everyone goes bang, we justgo, race to the bottom, race to
the bottom, super transactional,transactional.
And then we are we have we havea real quandary because that's
not that's not our offering.

SPEAKER_06 (21:27):
Yeah.
It's funny that literally wehave to sell ourselves, you
know, as architects more or lessin the same light.
Unless you've got a reallywell-established reputation and
you've got clients kind ofknocking on your door.
I literally had, you know, madethat exact same spell like a
couple of weeks ago.

(21:48):
The expectation is you're likeyou're working for next to
nothing.

SPEAKER_05 (21:51):
But it's a matter of then being able to appropriately
portray your expertise and yourniche and why you're going to
you is a better solution.
And I think what we're leadingto, Joel, there is okay, a
little bit of extra fee upfront, sure.
But ultimately, in the end ofthe end of the day, you're not
going to have a shit ton of RFIson site or through council, or

(22:13):
the engineering solution isgoing to be massively
over-engineered.
So instead of us taking the timeto consider and think about a
smaller member here or timberover steel there or whatever,
the cheap engineer might justgo, just whack something
conservative in there, andyou've ended up paying for
double the amount of steel youneed to, kind of situation.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (22:30):
Speaking of yeah, we'd lose we lose context for it
totally.
We a good solution might saveyou 200 grand.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (22:38):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (22:39):
That's mental.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So well, if you if you if yourfee was, I don't know, 10 grand
more, it's a no-brainer, right?

SPEAKER_06 (22:47):
I guess like from their perspective, the
expectation might be that ifthey're getting the same
engineering service fromeveryone.
Sure.
So you have to sell yourself asto why you're ten thousand
dollars more than otherengineers.

SPEAKER_00 (23:01):
That's the Ben, that's so topical.
Like that's something we'rewe're really looking at because
we we're we're confident in whatwe're doing.
The biggest thing for us is welike what we do, like we've seen
the benefits of it.
Like it makes the whole processmore enjoyable.
Like a big a big part of it iswe're there to make uh um life
easier for architecture, but itshouldn't be we shouldn't be at

(23:25):
loggerheads.

SPEAKER_05 (23:25):
No, you know, and I think that's what so often
architects will bitch and moan.
Uh I was bitching and moaningtoday about an engineer.

SPEAKER_03 (23:34):
Yeah, I get it.

SPEAKER_05 (23:35):
So often, so often we'll do that when ultimately we
are on the same team.
We're trying to build the samebuilding.
What why are we why are we atloggerheads?

SPEAKER_06 (23:44):
Oh man, that is that's yeah, that's throwing
other people under the bus tomake yourself look good is
classic construction.

SPEAKER_00 (23:53):
It's insidious in the industry, isn't it?
Yeah, it's so bad.
I did this, um we were in theHere magazine, the last one up,
and they and they had sort ofasked me a couple of questions,
and one of the ones that camethrough, which I thought was
really good, is exactly what youjust said, Sam, like engineers
and architects are often seen inopposition.
And there was this quote that Igave, which I think is at the

(24:14):
heart of it, which is uh StephenCovey quotes, he's like this
leadership guy, and he basicallysays that um you you need to um
seek first to understand, thento be understood.
But the problem is most of us,and even just outside of in life
in general, but if if you thinkabout engineers and architects,

(24:34):
we want to be we want to beunderstood first before we then
understand.

SPEAKER_04 (24:38):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (24:39):
So there's this thing of like just flipping the
script and going, yeah, I thinkdifferently to Sam and I think
differently to Ben, that's agood thing.
But the fact that Sam and Benthink differently to me is also
a really good thing.

SPEAKER_03 (24:51):
Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (24:51):
And the skill, the skill is to be able to come
together and try and understandlike language is a big thing.
Like, why do we sketch?
We want a common language.
I don't want some technical,bloody like yeah, there's some
technical aspects toengineering, but I want some
commonality in where where wecan meet.
Yeah.
In a zone that we can bothunderstand and we can we can

(25:14):
start working on our language.
But you know, some of thisstuff, it just it's not a it's
not a thing for people, right?
Like, and we just go into thatdefault mode of Yeah, I'll go to
my corner and you'll run to yourcorner and we'll all be throwing
shit at each other.

SPEAKER_06 (25:30):
Yeah, it's it's like this little little speech I used
to like tell the councilinspectors every time every time
we weren't agreeing.
I'd be like, look, mate, we'resitting on the same side of the
table.
Like, we both want the samething.
We want to achieve the samething.
Like, let's just work togetherto find a solution.

SPEAKER_05 (25:50):
It's funny because it's yeah, it's not just
architects and engineers, it'severybody.
It's literally every consultant,it's sometimes the client, it's
counsel.
Everyone seems to, at some pointanyway, seems to be working
against each other.
It's like this is common goal.
What are we doing?

SPEAKER_00 (26:05):
It's no, it's absolutely no good.

SPEAKER_04 (26:07):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (26:09):
I mean, you can see why that happens and why it
plays out, and it takes forsomeone in the mix to be brave
and and do do it differently,right?
Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (26:18):
Do you reckon that's why you, Joel, you seem to like
when you set Pocket up, youseemed to start it with the
approach of kind of like and theway that you structure the your
deliverables as well, mirroringthe architectural process.
Was that fully intentional totry and like marry the two a
little bit more?

SPEAKER_00 (26:37):
I think definitely so, Sam.
And um, but there was thisaspect for it for me is like
always this feeling like thiscould be so much more
collaborative and so much morefun.
And it's like as old as thehills, right?
As a thing, you know, likeeveryone, everyone loves to say
collaboration is great, but whencollaboration needs to be great
when the rubber hits the road,you know, and we need to be able

(26:59):
to like we need to be able tocome together.
Like, I think for an engineer,we've got to understand, we've
got to understand architects.
We've got to understand whatyou're thinking about things.
And the other thing, the othernuance about that is of course,
like, like every engineer is notthe same, not every architect's
the same, right?
So, and there's differentdrivers.
So a big thing I talk about withthe team is you've got to treat

(27:21):
every project on its merit.
Every project's different, everyproject's unique.
Like, there's no cookie, like,we don't do any cookie cutter
stuff.
So we've got to be skillfulenough to understand the
particular constraints or thebalance of those constraints on
every project we work on.
And that's a skillful place, youknow.
Like, if I just go hammer andtongue, right, I'm gonna do this
exactly like I've done onanother project, I'm gonna get

(27:42):
it precisely wrong.

SPEAKER_05 (27:43):
Yeah.
In a world where design speakslouder than words, what story
does your space tell?
At Ortex Acoustics, they believegreat design is more than
aesthetics.
Every product they createstrikes a perfect balance
between form, function, andsustainability.
Made to enhance how spacesounds, looks, and feels from

(28:04):
using recycled materials topioneering carbon negative wool.
Their commitment is to help youshape environments that inspire
people and respect the planet.
Explore the future of acousticsdesign at ortexacoustics.co dot
nz.

SPEAKER_06 (28:21):
I noticed on your website that you obviously work
with some amazing architects.
You've done numerous um stufflike the likes of Bill O'Sulli
Sullivan, you know, First Lightand Ari Mae.
And do you find that when youhave a you're working for, you
know, a repeated architect thatyou kind of already somewhat

(28:41):
understand what they're lookingfor, or do you kind of go in
with fresh eyes every time?

SPEAKER_00 (28:46):
I think that's a brilliant question.
Again, I guess it depends alittle bit like whether the
relationship is new.
And obviously, if it's newer,then we're we're doing more of
that, doing more of thatunderstanding work.
Where we've got relationshipswith people where we've done
sort of multiple projects, Iguess we start to get a feel for
you know what what will beimportant to them.
But I'm I'm just yeah, I thinkit's really key that we still

(29:08):
just are trying to have thoseconversations and and the
biggest biggest red flag for meis just assumptions.
If I sniff assumption if I sniffassumptions getting made, I'm
crawling all later.

SPEAKER_06 (29:20):
That have never done done me any favours,
assumptions.

SPEAKER_00 (29:23):
They they don't they don't do anyone any good.

SPEAKER_03 (29:26):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (29:26):
And I'm not I'm not exactly sat here going it goes
perfectly every time because wethe other thing is it it's that
classic, you know, it takes twoto tango, right?
Like we we can have thatoutlook, but then if the
architect doesn't, then the uhthe transactional thing and the
corners thing just actually endsup happening because you you've

(29:48):
you've gotta you've kind ofgotta come together and go,
right, let's do this together.
And um it's not it's not alwayseasy, right?
Like you you you you sort of tryand um I guess explain Express
how you want to be and and howyou want to do things.
Do you ever get projects wherethe architectural concept is not
possible?

SPEAKER_05 (30:09):
Or if not necessarily possible, it's not
possible with the within thevision of what the architect's
trying to achieve, you know, ina real in a real sense.
Because I think that's somewherewhere obviously that conflict
could arise and where you knowyou're talking about like the
creativity and uh approachingevery project on its on its
merits, but is there ever anycase where you're just like,

(30:31):
sorry, mate?

SPEAKER_00 (30:33):
No.
I think it does happen.
I think in the early days weprobably fell on the wrong side
where we'd make we'd try andmake things work at all costs,
and that and therefore I thinkwe've had to grow and like
balance that with also beingbrave enough to say, you know,
just as a as a thought, if youwere if you could you could do

(30:54):
this instead, does this stillachieve, you know, like a
classic might be that glasspanel ain't gonna hold that
building up?
Yeah, or or like there's a postand it's like four metres back
from the edge, but actually, ifit was at two metres, it really
makes it more efficient, but youstill you still achieve that
like can receiver effect orever.
And that that sort of thing onlycomes through conversation, I

(31:17):
think.

SPEAKER_01 (31:17):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (31:18):
Did you know what I mean?
If you're just in there andyou're like assuming things or
or whatever, you just and we'rewe're getting, you know, we're
secure enough to go say that andthen hear it back and go, no,
that's really important.
I need that to be like this.
Fine, great.
Nothing ventured, nothing gainedin terms of just you know, being
brave enough to kind of say.

SPEAKER_06 (31:40):
Um yeah, it's also might get them thinking about
alternative design solutionsanyway.
So you can get creative with itand kind of you know, if
something's not working, thenyou have to figure out the best
possible outcome to make itwork.
So part of the process.

SPEAKER_05 (31:58):
How often are you, Joe, exploring new, like new
avenues for that structuralsolution?
I mean, if you think about if ifif we go to the basic, you know,
it's concrete, there's steel,there's timber, whether it be
mass or whether it be stick.
Like, do you guys with it evenwithin that band, but outside of
that, like how how much are youguys doing your own sort of RD

(32:19):
and research or ex explorationinto new or alternative
structural techniques?

SPEAKER_00 (32:26):
Yeah, we're we're we're up for it, uh, for sure.
I think um uh I'd I'd I'd alsosay that this is sort of I
something to say to the team isthat there's nothing new under
the sun.

SPEAKER_04 (32:39):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (32:40):
Right?
That that that's there's nothingnew under the sun.
And I think sometimes it'sreally easy engineers in
particular like to do say, like,right, engineering is about
having a brand new idea, butvery rarely is that that's super
unlikely to happen.
That I've I I've talked aboutthe guys like defining an idea
more like more like thecombination of things and in in

(33:05):
a sense like you kind of thethings that have have worked,
but it's the combination of howthose things come together to
suit that particular projectthat's innovative.
So that kind of makes sense.
So yeah, that's been reallyhelpful because it's moved us
away from this.
I think there can be a bit of atendency in industry or
something, or particularly withengineers where I need to do
this new fang-dangled thing.

(33:27):
You actually don't.
You you can be innovative usingtried and tested things, yes,
exactly.
But it's how they go togetherand how they fit within the
constraint.
And that's been really great forthe team in terms of unlocking
this idea that ideas um we areoften imagine brand new things.
And I'm saying actually an ideais often how you take old things

(33:50):
and put them together in a newway.

SPEAKER_04 (33:52):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (33:53):
And that's been really enlightening for us.
It's like meant we can, yeah,it's just like unlock things for
us and gone, okay, you know, wecould think about it like this.
Could we do that?
And then suddenly we'rethinking, oh, that was an idea,
but it might not have been, youknow, the newest of newest
things.

SPEAKER_06 (34:10):
Just adding to Sam's question, I guess, do you think
that like the you're theengineering structural engineers
kind of being influenced oranything by the likes of AI or
anything like that?
Do you think it's kind of havingany effect in the industry?
For for architecture, there'sthat doesn't seem to be too
much, you know, significantstuff happening that's got an

(34:32):
immediate effect, but there's alot of innovating.
There's a lot of innovating likehappening around us that could,
you know, in the near futurechange a few rules.

SPEAKER_00 (34:44):
Yeah, I think I think there's definitely I think
there's definitely things likecertain tasks and stuff that are
naturally going to lend itselfto AI.
But I think the fundamentals ofengineering, and it's not often
seen like this.
This is a big, this is a bigdifference, I think, in how we
think is it's a really creativeprocess, right?
Like it's often seen as thissort of black and white, here's

(35:04):
the scientific answer to thisproblem.
And it's and it's kind of waymore creative.
And you a computer's not gonnado that, you know.
Like you that's that's askillful space where you're I
talked to the guys about this,but it's hard um there's like
that circus trick where you'vegot like a set of like cups or
whatever, and you like throw oneup in the air, you like throw

(35:26):
one up in the air in the middle,and then you catch it again.
You know that circus trip?
Maybe not.
Catch it like you catch a cupwith a cup.
Yeah, yeah, catch a cup with acup.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I talk about that likethat's uh that's a bit like what
it's like when you do conceptdesign and how creative you're
being.
You've got all of theseparameters and constraints, and
a skillful bit is to be able tolike pick out all of that and go

(35:47):
bang, that's that's the cup outof the year.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
And because it changes on eachproject.

SPEAKER_06 (35:54):
I guess it like the it's probably similar to the
architecture industry, is thepeople that would probably
benefit from AI and current AIadvancements are probably the
group home builder or specbuilders, some you know, people
that are kind of repeating thesame thing.

SPEAKER_00 (36:11):
Yeah, I think maybe where you've got like a really
basic, um yeah, super basic setof constraints.
Yeah, it'd be interesting to seeinteresting to see where it
where it goes, I guess.

SPEAKER_05 (36:23):
But it's interesting because I feel like engineering
in its in the simplestunderstanding of it, it seems
like something that uh you knowcomputer could take over, but
like we're talking about, allyou're gonna get is those basic
solutions.
Whereas your approach to it isfrom the more creative sense,
it's just not gonna be the case.

(36:43):
And we've talked we've talkedquite a bit on this podcast
about it and how architecture,you know, obviously can benefit
from the caddy nature of of AIand how it can assist us on the
side, but ultimately like thesolution side of it and the
creative side of it, it it can'treally do.
Would you ever see it justrunning the numbers for you,
doing the nuts and bolts?

(37:04):
I mean, do you do you take anypleasure in producing all those
pages of calculations which weget given and quickly skim
through or is that always a bitof a chore?

SPEAKER_06 (37:17):
The council like to think they look at it.
Yeah.
We the council pretend they lookat it.

SPEAKER_00 (37:23):
We we do, but um that's again, we would sort of
see that whole calculation spacea bit differently anyway.
I think it's seen as very justdo the math, whereas for us it's
way more about storytelling.
So, yes, there's maths there,but it's more what story we're
telling about this structure andhow it's been designed.
So I guess I can see, yeah,there's yeah, maybe maybe some

(37:46):
things in there that would lenditself to that.

SPEAKER_05 (37:49):
That's quite an interesting take on like you
know the calculation side ofthat, Joel.
What do you what do you mean bygetting you know the cut
calculation side to tell thestory of the structure?
Because to me it seems just veryblack and white.

SPEAKER_00 (38:01):
I'm glad I'm glad an architect is asking me this.
This is bloody good.
I think uh what I see in theindustry is a lot, which you you
guys will be nodding at, is likeprint-offs from spreadsheets and
like computer calculations thatare just reams, you know, like
masses of stuff that no bugger'sever gonna read.
I'm an engineer and I'm notgonna read that.

(38:23):
So for us, it's yeah, we mighthave done some calculations
behind the scenes, but when weput a calculation package
together, we want it to tell astory.
So we want we want it to besupplemented with like really
good sketches of what we're whatwe're at, you know, what what
we've assessed or whatever.
And as you go through thecalculations, it actually should
be something that's nice to lookat.

(38:43):
And we're we'd be pretty unusualin that space.
So but that's a big thing we'vedone in the team.
Like just yeah, I think enjoyingthe craft of what we do and
having a bit more skill in,yeah, st I think storytelling's
a big thing for us.
Like, we want to tell a story,we want to tell a story with a
cow, because we want to tell astory with our drawings.
We want to, we want, we wantsomething to be a pleasure.

(39:05):
Like if you pick up a set of ourdrawings, we want it to be
appealing on the eye, andsomething that anyone in our
industry, and be it an architector a builder, whoever's gonna
look at our drawings and go, Iget that, instantly get that.
That's not it's not technical,it's not, it's not too it's it's
clear.
And and some of that I thinkyou're right, like it's easy to

(39:26):
arrive at complex, is what I sayto a team.
It's much harder to arrive atsomething simple than it is to
arrive at something complex.

SPEAKER_05 (39:32):
I think in doing that, you must make it easier
for to convince or to sell yourconcepts to the likes of us or
or the builders as well.

SPEAKER_06 (39:41):
Whereas if a structural solution's come up
with and we're given a, youknow, like you said, reams and
reams of calculations, I've gotno buy-in, you know, it's just
where is those I I think I thinkwhat Joel was trying to say
originally was if you readthrough, if you know what you're
looking for, which I wouldimagine you know, a good
engineer would, and you're likereading through those

(40:02):
calculations, I guess it'stelling the story about how all
of those structural componentsare working together, you know,
to form the actual the strengthor the backbone of the building.
I I think that's that's kind ofwhat I've picked up on it
anyway.

SPEAKER_00 (40:18):
Forgive me if I'm wrong.
No, no, no, you've got you'veactually you've actually nailed
that fundamentally.
That's what I say to guys.
All I say all, what we do is wecome up with a structure and we
just make sure it's strongenough and stiff enough for
whatever intended purpose.
It's real core if you reallyboil it down, right?
And and the people think it'sabout strength, but often it's

(40:38):
about stiffness.
You know, you've you probablyhad it where you know, if a
beam, if a beam deflects toomuch, cause problems, right?
So like that that's at the corewhat we do.
And so that calculation story isjust taking them on a journey of
saying, here's our structure,this is how it all interrelates,
and here's how we've made sureit's strong enough and stiff
enough to achieve its intendedpurpose.

SPEAKER_06 (41:00):
I think there's like there's almost a potentially a
disconnect on the architect'sfront in terms of how some of
those structural elementsactually work.
Because it's not until you havespent some time on site and
you've put those bracingelements in and you've connected
it to the ceiling diaphragm andbolted it down to the floor to

(41:25):
achieve that rigidity in bothdirections.
I don't know, that you reallyunderstand like how it's all all
those components are sort ofintertwined and working together
to form the the strength.
So I don't know, there'sdefinitely so much more that
that goes on behind the scenes.

SPEAKER_00 (41:43):
Yeah, I I th I think so.
And this is where you know we'dlove it if architects did more
of that.
But in the same way, you guysshould want it that we
understand what you're trying toachieve aesthetically, or you
know, you know, you talk to anengineer about bloody this this
particular room layout and whyit's done like that.
They're just like, what are youon about, mate?

(42:03):
Like just designing a structure.
But we've I think we've got tobe better at you know, we're not
gonna I'm not gonna I'm notgonna be good at that because
that's not the way my brainworks.
Yeah, but I sure as shit want tobe able to understand what's
your you guys are thinkingabout.

SPEAKER_05 (42:19):
Simple minds.
I do agree 100% what you'resaying though, Joel, that we
need to probably betterunderstand the engineering as
well.
Because I think we want it towork for us, but often don't
understand it well enough toenable it to work for us, if you
know what I mean.
And I think that a lot of thetime that's because we've either
come up or we've worked with inthe past, or maybe your

(42:41):
experience is only with thosesolution-based kind of
engineering outfits.
And so you've never had thatopportunity to really like
intrinsically understand howthis thing goes together.
And all you're caring about iswhether it gets consent, you
know, whereas rather than thelike you know, the fundamentals
of the actual performance of thething, and even in you know,
completely honestly, I've I meanI've been working in the
profession for over a decadenow, and I've only really

(43:04):
started paying attention, likeserious attention to deflection
recently, because I've realizedhow much it actually matters.
And you know, and it was theamount of and all it took was
one project where the floor wasjust a bit flexy and clients
didn't like, you know, it wasfine, the thing's not gonna fall
down, but it was a bit bouncy,right?
And and that was enough for meto go, oh should I actually need

(43:26):
to properly understand thisthing?

SPEAKER_04 (43:28):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (43:29):
Yeah, I think it's topical because I think one of
the things I've been thinking,like literally last two, three
months is and I've just beeninterested to get your guys'
feedback, but I'm I'm wonderingif there might be like a quite a
simple course sort of thing thatI can put together on sort of
structural basics for architectsand just be able to, I think,
just really in simplistic terms,just explain some of that stuff.

(43:50):
Because I kind of feel like ifthere's more understanding there
in the in the industry, and inthe same way, it would be
awesome if like there was anequivalent course back for
engineers.
It's just like, hey, how do wehow do we close this gap and and
and um start to generate moreappreciation for each other and
what um what we're trying toachieve?
I reckon there's definitelyspace for it.

SPEAKER_05 (44:10):
If you go back to even uh the tertiary educations
sector, we very if ever.
I mean, I think we did we didwhat well you kind of do that
one structural paper eachstructural coordination paper a
year that we did at university,but it's so high level that
really like the fundamental ourfundamental knowledge of it is
like gravity loadings anddeflection, and that's about it,
right?

SPEAKER_06 (44:32):
So I nailed it though, because my older brother
is a structure engineer at thetime.
So he would literally teach methe fundamentals, I guess,
things you were talking about,and it was so helpful.
It definitely went over my headfor a lot of it.

SPEAKER_05 (44:48):
But we did that, we did that coordination thing at
university because we weindividually had to really think
about it.
But then as soon as you get intothe professional sector, it's
like you stick to your lane,I'll stick to my lane, you know,
and we're not gonna we knowwe're not gonna harrow each
other, we'll just do do what wedo.
Whereas actually I think it'sway more important that from a
professional sense that we'reworking together more and

(45:10):
understanding each other more toget better outcomes.

SPEAKER_06 (45:13):
I think like we have an engineer that we work with
for just everything, and we havea really good working
relationship.
After listening to you, Joel,like I can definitely see like
that that also has likelimitation limitations where
we're obviously not trying tolike push the engineering to its

(45:34):
maximum capacity and perhapslike dropping the ball on the
potential for each designoutcome.
But it's a comfortablerelationship.
There's importance in that aswell, don't it's like the
communication is you know reallygood, which is what makes it so
functional, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 (45:53):
I think people nailing fundamentals takes you a
long way, right?
If it's communication's greatand you kind of get the
solutions you need, then that'sreally good.
But I think another thing I wasjust thinking then as as you
were you guys were both talking,is it wasn't it wasn't all that
long ago that the architect andthe engineer were the same
person.

SPEAKER_04 (46:12):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (46:13):
That's what I did my thesis on.
Right?
Yeah, so you did your thesis onit.
So it wasn't like in the annalsof history, yeah, it's a long
time ago to us, you know, orwhatever, we've been roaming the
earth not that many years, butlike in the annals of history,
like it wasn't that long ago thearchitect and the engineer were
the same thing.
It's only sort of in recent lastfew hundred years or whatever
that it's got gone gonedivergent.

SPEAKER_05 (46:35):
So But then you look at and then you but then you
look at architects who have avery strong either were
engineers or have a very strongunderstanding of engineering.
And then immediately jumps tomine is like Santiago Calatrava
and his work, you know, it's sophenomenal because he's able to
think like an engineer, but asan architect, you know.

(46:56):
There's a reason that his stuffuh, you know, works in the way
that it does, is because he'slooking at it from a creatively
practical mind, not mindset,which is pretty impressive,
really.
And there's not that many peoplethat approach it that way these
days, I'd say.

SPEAKER_00 (47:11):
That's rare.
But it sort of almost highlightsthe opportunity, you know.
If we can close that gap, right,we don't we're that we're there,
if we can close it to that, youthink about we what you can
achieve.
This thing is.

SPEAKER_05 (47:22):
And we're not saying that we're not saying that we
have to we have to we're notsaying I have to understand the
calculations, but it's just likeyou said before, the it's just
the fundamentals, right?
It's the it's the basicknowledge that enables that
higher level of understanding ofhow this thing goes together.

SPEAKER_00 (47:35):
And even better if you can get a tip, like imagine
imagine getting early contractorinvolvement on stuff where
you're bringing the build thebuildability aspect into it as
well.
If you if if you if you all justunderstand each other a bit
better, and actually a big partof it's respect, right?
I want to respect you guys asarchitects and your skill set,
but I want to be respected as anengineer, and the builders also

(47:59):
want to be respected, and we'vegot to give respect to them, and
we've each got our role to play,but it's flipping it's so often
it's like corners, yeah, that'smy priority, that's my priority,
and then we're scrapping it out.
Actually, let's just take a stepback.
What we're trying to achieve,how can we get on the same page
to achieve a good outcome,right?
Because all of the bestbuildings I've been involved in

(48:20):
it, they reflect theprofessional consensus of the
design of the design andcontractor.
Yeah.
See what I mean?
Like they're always the bestbuildings, right?
If it's just one leadconsultant, it's got to be my
way or the highway, they're crapoutcomes.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (48:34):
Often and and that's why, I mean, like Ben, you your
entire business model is themaring of the the the builder
and the architecture side.
And I've worked with a lot ofclients that are builders
themselves, and they're mythey're my favourite clients,
they're the best projectsbecause you know you're getting
that fundamental understandingfrom day one.
But you're you know, if you addthe engineer into that, then
it's just that extra level ofintricacy and and the project's

(48:58):
just gonna be that much better.
There you go, Ben.
You just gotta address theengineer.

SPEAKER_06 (49:02):
Go do an engineering degree.

SPEAKER_00 (49:05):
Go do an engineering degree, mate.
I don't have it in me, I don'tthink.
What one of the bits that's amajor problem in the industry is
that we we like we straight awaymake an assumption about the the
other party and what they'regonna be like.
And that w we start from anadversarial position normally.

SPEAKER_04 (49:26):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (49:26):
Like we've had it heaps.
I'm just saying to the guys,like people hate engineers.
Why do they hate why do theyhate us?
Or it but it's it and it's notlike it's us, like it's you
know, you joked about at thestart, you know, like we moan we
moan about architects,architects moan about builders,
builders moan about and we alldo it to each other, but we all
start from this place of likeit's ad it's adversarial, it's

(49:49):
like assuming that this is agood thing.

SPEAKER_05 (49:50):
I think it's engineers just never deliver
drawing sits on top.

SPEAKER_02 (49:55):
Yeah, well that doesn't help.
That doesn't help though.
Stop it.
Sorry, I had to get it.
No, no, no, no, no, no, it's allgood.

SPEAKER_00 (50:07):
It's all good.
But I think I think uh it to meI always think of it as
opportunity.
You do need you know, you doneed people to want to come
together and and have that havethat outlook, you know.
Oh, totally.

SPEAKER_05 (50:22):
Yeah, no, I completely agree.
And I think I mean I think it'sprobably a pretty good summary.
We'll probably wrap things up,even there, Joel.

SPEAKER_06 (50:29):
Well, actually, hold on, hold on.
Pon's got some the mostimportant questions you got to
ask.
Go for it.
Gotta um, you know, capitaliseon the opportunity.
Joe, Joel, I need to know whatis the biggest cantilever you've
designed.
There we go.
That basically if you'vedesigned a big cantilever, you

(50:49):
should just put that at youropening page on your website and
you'll be flooded with work,surely.

SPEAKER_00 (50:56):
We've done we've done we have done four meters
and it was a floor, so that waspretty that was pretty there.
Look good.
But I can't it did it.
It does look amazing becauseit's literally like a box going
that way, and then a box goingthat way, and it's cancelled
ring out four meters, and it'sgot a really great it's got a
really great aspect out into theocean stuff.
But I think but then what I'dI'd balance out by saying like

(51:18):
the actual engineering solutionwasn't it was quite it's quite
no, it's quite basic, it's quitebasic.
It was beams, it was beams, youknow.

SPEAKER_06 (51:25):
Yeah, yeah.
I was I was like we could justyou know have another podcast
and just just talk about how toachieve a great cantilever.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (51:35):
Yeah.
Uh that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 (51:36):
I mean that's yeah, you can, and there's always ways
of ways of doing it.
But um yes, there's there'sskill involved.
That was quite tricky because itwas a floor, so if it's a roof,
it's it's a lot a lot morelightly loaded.
When it's a floor, you've gotmore load on there, so you've
got to be gotta be quitecareful.
But I think it yeah, I think itled to quite a good outcome.

SPEAKER_05 (51:58):
Do you have a preference for steel or timber
or concrete?

SPEAKER_00 (52:01):
There's obviously a growing trend in the industry
towards towards timber, which Ithink is which I think is great.
Um I have a more wider outlook,which is just that um it should
be the it should be the rightmaterial for right job for the
right job and the and the givenconstraints, and I'm less sort
of I'm less sort of it must betimber at all, you know, for for

(52:25):
all costs.
Timber might be the rightanswer.
Timber might absolutely be theright answer, but there's other
scenarios where it's not for forfor other reasons.
And I think we're we're we're inthat place where we're trying to
um yeah, I just guess understandwhat what what's the what the
drivers are and try and make thebest decision that we can.
There's some amazing obviouslythere's some amazing timber

(52:47):
timber products and stuff outthere and that innovation keeps
keeps growing, but thensometimes you meet a reality
like if you've got a four-metercantileva floor, you're um
pretty tough to do that one outof timber.

SPEAKER_05 (52:58):
I'm not doing that out of timber.

SPEAKER_00 (53:00):
Yeah, just like just straight up, you know, and you
it's sort of say out say it howit is a bit.
Um quite yeah, just think it'suh each project on its merits.
Like we've done CLT, PLT, sips,we're doing all of that stuff.
Like there's some of the LVLproducts are amazing.

SPEAKER_06 (53:17):
I was in Sydney last weekend and a friend of ours was
talking about how they but thisis getting real technical, maybe
we should talk about this after,but how that all of their
concrete floors and theirhigh-rise buildings are all
post-tension.

SPEAKER_00 (53:31):
Yes, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_06 (53:32):
We don't do that in this country.
It was so interesting.
He was walking me through theprocess, and I was like, holy
moly, that's so cool.
They basically like string wirein grids through the concrete
and then bunction it to theperimeter.
And then you don't you the theyou just don't need any support.

SPEAKER_00 (53:51):
Yeah, it's super clever because it's kind of
basically saying it basicallysays, look, concrete's really
good in compression.
Let's really wind the thing upso that when load comes on, we
actually never reach a pointwhere it's intentional, we only
just reach a point it'sintention, so you can get that
much more span out of it.
So it's really clever, andthings like that, you don't want
that kind of innovation to die,just with the with the trend

(54:13):
towards it just having to betimber or whatever.
Like we've still we've still gotto get balance in the mix of it
all, I think, where we're makingthe best decisions for for a
given project.
And I just feel like everyproject is different.
And we've done loads of like youknow, we we did a mountain hut
and we did it purely in timber,and it was the right solution

(54:35):
because they had itprefabricated, yeah,
pre-fabricated, and we had ithelicoptered in.
So it was an absolutely amazingsolution because then the brass
monkey monkey the brass monkey,yeah.
Yeah, cool.
Nice.
And it and it like the feedbackwas, and it that that's actually
such a great example of where itcan work well.
So we collaborated with uhGraeme Jacobs, he was the

(54:55):
architect, and then we we hadthe builder involved uh really
early on, and like we we wequite quickly understood look,
the main constraint is how do weget this thing on site is 1600
metres up, right?
So that's like the main driver,right?
How can we do this thing?
And he flipping prefab thesepanels um at his place, and then
they got and craned in, and itit went together so well, but

(55:18):
you see that decision was backthere, you know, like all the
way back concept, you know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
The beginning, yeah.
That's such a great thing.
Sure.
Yeah.
Yeah, and it um, you know, it'sjust like the feeling around it
is just one of just realsatisfaction amongst the team
because we just know that well,I suppose we know we've nailed

(55:38):
it.

SPEAKER_05 (55:39):
Like it's it's it's proof of concept.
Projects with the proof ofconcept is about hands down the
most satisfying, I reckon.

SPEAKER_00 (55:45):
Yeah, and there's so many ways we could have done
that.
We could have had steel inthere, we could have had I don't
know, it could have been allsorts, and and there's there's
been other scenarios where allthat sort of thing has not gone
well, built in situ, like tryingto build it at 1600 metres.
Well, you know, you can do that,but it's if you get you know,
you're bound to get some prettygnarly weather weather
conditions that's gonna put thekibosh on that.
Whereas if you just got thispanelised thing and you can put

(56:08):
it together in a in a in in inin a really short space of time,
it's a clever solution, right?
And that's what I mean, I think.

SPEAKER_06 (56:14):
Imagine if the um if the engineering profession
actually like started before thearchitect, so engineers get in
there, they design theengineering, what makes sense
for the building though better.
And then the building comesalong, then the architect comes
along and designs around theengineering.

SPEAKER_00 (56:34):
This has the potential to make me sound high
and mighty, but the problem withit, right, with that, is we were
to build square boxes, right?
That's what so in allseriousness, this is this is
literally how I see it.
Like I talked to.

SPEAKER_06 (56:47):
But Gustav Eiffel, he was an engineer, right?
Eiffel Tower, amazing.
Some of my favouritearchitectures like designed by
engineers.

SPEAKER_00 (56:56):
It's it's a good reminder almost to finish on is
I would say to team, we needeach other.

SPEAKER_04 (57:01):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (57:02):
You guys need us, but we sure as shit need you.
Like we don't want bo I don'twant boring buildings.

SPEAKER_05 (57:07):
No, no, no.
We don't want square boxes.
Unless I'm nice square boxes.

SPEAKER_00 (57:11):
We don't, we don't.
We don't.
We need you guys to be we needyou to be creative, and we need
you to understand what we're upagainst sometimes and just let's
come together and let's flip andcome up with a solution
together.
Like it's not rocket science,but let's do it.

SPEAKER_05 (57:28):
Yeah, that's it.
Awesome, man.
Well, thanks very much, Joel.
That's been yeah, that's been agreat chat.
Uh we absolutely pretty muchexactly the way I was hoping it
would.
That was a good company.
I really enjoyed it.
Like, I'm not sure what I'msaying.