The International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering annual congress was held in April, in Manchester. This congress is an international reference in structural engineering and, once again, TYPSA has actively participated, presenting integration of sustainability criteria in the structural design, in a seminar entitled “Sustainability as a key design factor from the structure conception stage”.
The presentation was part of the main theme of the congress “Construction’s Role for a World in Emergency”, focusing on the urgency to include sustainability as a key criterion in structural design together with the most important sustainability criteria therein. The design of the Caterpillar in the HS2 S2 RL4009 project was shared as a successful real case study, where a carbon footprint reduction of more than 50% was achieved compared to the original reference design.
This success story has attracted great international interest, both for the relevance of the structure and for the international visibility of the HS2 project. Structure and its sustainability-oriented functional efficiency was the subject of an article a few months ago in the New Civil Engineer publication (‘Caterpillar’ shaft saves carbon and space on HS2’s west London site | New Civil Engineer)
Subsequently, given the technical interest of the presentation, a TYPSA technical structural online training session (“Aula Técnica de Estructuras”) was scheduled on the TYPSA Learning platform to share the presentation internally together with the most relevant information obtained from the congress regarding the application of sustainability design criteria. A recording of the session is available on the TYPSA Learning platform for any colleagues interested (https://typsa.net/tlearning/#7284–35008)
It is noteworthy that the presence of Spanish engineering companies in the IABSE is quite small, despite the enormous visibility that this event has in the international arena, with the main structural engineering companies worldwide participating regularly and constantly in these congresses. In fact, TYPSA has been the only engineering company of Spanish origin present at this important congress, since the other two presentations from Spain were made by subsidiaries of foreign companies.
Our colleague Iñaki Navarro, from the Valencia Structures team, gave the presentation, leaving an excellent impression of the quality and capacity of the TYPSA Structures team and its commitment to sustainability.
I take this opportunity to thank Alejandro Ramos and his team for the excellent design work and perseverance with this HS2 structure, of which the whole Structural department is proud, and we hope that we will see more success in the future, together with increased visibility by and trust from other potential clients in TYPSA to go beyond the boundaries and raise the bar, as our Anglo-Saxon colleagues say.
