How Integrated Design Enables and Inspires High Performance Building Systems

Join EPMA on November 10th as we host Glenn R. Bell, CEO of Simpson Gumpertz & Heger Inc., for a presentation focused on high performance buildings. A brief description of the presentation and speaker bio is below:

How Integrated Design Enables and Inspires High Performance Building Systems

Three current trends present opportunities for architecture-engineering teams to realize their creative potential through integration of new building technologies. First, technological advances allow more sophisticated engineering considerations in design and construction. Software, modeling, and automation enable us to conceive and analyze ever-more complex shapes and systems; permit advancements in energy conservation and indoor environment; and enable the construction of complex geometries and non-repeating elements. Second, rising energy costs and shrinking energy resources, combined with greater awareness of environmental responsibility, mean that we must build buildings that are more resource-efficient in construction and operation. Third, today’s society is technologically focused. Expressing technological themes explicitly in our architecture is an appealing concept for our times.

However, there are significant obstacles to these opportunities. Our processes for design and construction are highly fractured. Architecture, engineering, and construction are increasingly viewed as commodities.

Yet there are glimmers of hope. Architects, engineers, and constructors who collaborate on specialized building systems like fabric structures, structural glass, and bioclimate double curtain walls have produced new, technologically advanced systems with spectacular results. In bringing engineering-driven architecture more mainstream we can learn much from their success. Bell will examine the challenges to technologically-driven architecture and discuss the leadership needed to overcome them.

Speaker Bio

Glenn R. Bell is CEO of Simpson Gumpertz & Heger Inc., a national consulting engineering firm engaged in engineering of structures and building enclosures. Glenn joined SGH in 1974 and served as a design engineer working closely with architects to develop structures such as SpaceShip Earth, the geodesic dome at Walt Disney World Epcot Center, and Steven Holl’s MIT Simmons Hall. Glenn’s other engineering assignments include working with architects and contractors on design of building envelope systems, seismic design and risk assessment, materials analysis, and investigation of distress and failure of building systems. He was a principal investigator for the investigation of the walkway collapse at the Hyatt Regency, Kansas City, and part of the SGH team that performed a progressive collapse analysis of the World Trade Center Twin Towers for the National Institute of Science and Technology.

In 1982, Glenn helped to establish the ASCE Technical Council on Forensic Engineering, which is concerned with improving professional practice based on the lessons we learn from performance problems of constructed works. In support of this objective, he authored or co-authored several papers, including, “Engineering Investigation of Failures,” Chapter 6 of the Forensic Structural Engineering Handbook (McGraw-Hill, 2000).

Glenn is a registered professional engineer in nine states and a Certified Structural Engineer with the SECB. In addition Glenn has served on many other professional committees and boards for organizations including ASCE, BSSC, and Pennsylvania State University, Department of Architectural Engineering.

Glenn became CEO of SGH in 1995. Since that time, the firm’s revenue has quadrupled, while its expertise is broadening beyond structures to many engineering disciplines that support construction of buildings, infrastructure, and special structures.