____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ AI
In the built environment, that questioning instinct matters just as much as processing speed.
A profession built on questioning
Healthcare infrastructure reinforced the importance of questioning early in my career. Designing a new ward or a plant room extension means engaging with the people who use and maintain the building every day. Those conversations uncover the constraints, risks and practical realities that seldom appear on a drawing. Practical knowledge shapes the design as much as the technical requirements.
This is the part of structural engineering that often goes unnoticed. We spend as much time interpreting drawings and assessing existing conditions as we do on running calculations. The work is fundamentally interpretive and that requires human presence, not just processing power.
Where AI fits, and where it does not
Let’ s take cladding remediation as an example of AI limitations. A desktop assessment relies on the information available and assumes a build-up matches the records. When the wall is opened up on site, it often doesn’ t match
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