Ove Arup Foundation

Professor Ian M May & Dr David Johnson - Report Summary

Ian May and David Johnson approached The Ove Arup Foundation to seek our support for this paper. We were attracted by the proposal because we were already providing funds for a separate paper outlining research into the teaching of design to engineering undergraduates, and structural analysis is one of the essential building blocks for good design in engineering and architecture.

In particular, it enabled us to encourage the authors to think about how the teaching of structural analysis might be framed to encourage students to develop a feel for how structures actually behave. This framing would in turn foster a culture of simplicity and elegance of thought and outcome. Our suggestions were very warmly received, and were adopted by the authors. We hope their paper will help both teachers and students to exploit the opportunities that modern analytical techniques provide – including the power of computing – and not themselves to become a servant of them.