Engineering projects
Everything created by nature is beautiful, and every element is on its place and holds the whole system in balance, like bearing pads. Shapes and forms that obey nature’s law are not only beautiful but also perfect, which means valuable for engineering. Copying these forms may eliminate the need for an engineer to reinvent what was already invented by the nature Engineering. Mankind tends to steal the ideas and designs from nature to use them in its own engineering efforts. Among the examples are seal’s ear and hydrophone, whale fin and plane wing, etc.
Sometimes, however, an engineer should go against the natural laws. Renzo Piano says that this process feels iconoclastic, meaning that for structures to be efficient ( having ideal correlation of weight, form, space, materials used, etc.), their construction needs to be reduced in terms of weight, changed in shape or even made against the laws of natural or human tradition. Among the examples of iconoclastic engineering are hollow designs. A process opposite to “removing” is composition - the combination of seemingly incompatible materials such as metal and plastic designs for the sake of reaching higher degree of efficiency. Sometimes construction strength may be reached not by means of materials, but by means of architectural forms. For example, massive cathedral domes may easily hold their own tremendous weight because of the ideal mathematic parameters of their self-sustaining forms. No matter if the architectural piece adheres to all or some of the abovementioned principles, it can be beautiful as highlighted in the palettes around how to buy custom essay . Both ancient cathedrals and modern edifices like Burj Dubai prove it. The rules that govern good engineering are hidden in finding the ideal mix of aesthetics and efficiency.
Engineering projects are seldom born perfect. As a rule, the designer has to bring the project to the state of perfection by means of corrections. Corrections are integral parts of the engineering process. The quantity of corrections per project is not limited. Actually, it may take one minor correction or hundreds of major corrections to finish, for example, a bridge – be it the Golden Gate Bridge or a bridge over a pond in one’s garden. Nature never stops improving its designs and keeps reshaping them continuously by means of evolution. Unlike nature, the majority of human architects do stop their work on the project as soon as they understand that their creation has reached the peak of perfection. One can understand it in two ways. The first way is purely intuitive. An architect looks at his creation and feels astonishment mixed with the feelings of satisfaction and fulfillment. The second way is more methodological and “technical”. The creator critically assesses the result of his work, and if the idea of this project has exhausted itself, and no detail has an objectively better, more efficient or beneficiary alternative, then the work is done. The visions of perfection differ. According to Saint-Exupery, “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away”.
