The evidence is all around us that the “art” of component design continues to advance. This I clearly witnessed last week in a Northeast Atlanta suburb. Down the road from a jobsite I visited over 40 years ago, a highly customized project is rising (see photos on page 20). In the same amount of time that we designed just the trusses in 1973, Jim Dooley’s crew at BMC/Stock designed the entire structure - floors, roofs and walls. The truss design was really a small part of their job.
Several hundred miles North in Metro DC, Scott Austin’s team at Structural LLC is also taking component design to a new level on highly complex, $800,000 town house units. Scott insists that one person control the structural model for a project, even if that individual may depend on the specialized expertise of other team members. This enables the deepest understanding of these intricate projects and insures the best coordination of all 3 component systems with mechanical trades.
These are just two of the increasing number of component manufacturers who are stretching the capabilities of their designers to understand the whole structure. This understanding has dramatically elevated the component design function, especially for turn-key suppliers. A skilled designer can now specify all of the building materials in the 3D model, including hundreds of SKUs. What a highly valued role the skilled individual can now assume in the building process; a quantum leap from the humble duties of the truss designer of 40 years ago.