Isac (00:09): Hey, what's up Isaac here. Civil Engineering Academy. Again, mobile here, office, I guess if you want to call that. Hey, I just wanted to jump on. I have a great podcast episode for you today, Dr. Joshua Schultz joins me from Gonzaga, a professor there teaching structural engineering. He has specialized in lightweight structures and he details a new book that he's got coming out. This is kind of a field of study that is niche, but it is very fascinating field to go into, especially if you're going to the structural engineering world. So I wanted to bring him on. I also have my brother on as well, and we kind of go ask a bunch of questions about Dr. Schultz's life experiences, how he ended up in this kind of niche world of dealing with lightweight, lightweight structures and all of that. So, I don't wanna spill all the beans. It was a fascinating episode. If you have any interest in structures and lightweight structures in particular using, say, glass or anything of that nature, there's just an interesting world there between structures and lightweight structures that structural engineers get involved in. And he's been a part of that even all the way doing some fascinating things with the Birch Khalifa. So it's a fascinating episode. If you've, again, had any desire to be a structural engineer or interested in this topic, this is gonna be one for you. And he has a fascinating book to help us out with that. If you need help though on your journey to get those first steps, FE PE done definitely took us [email protected]. We wanna make sure we're helping you. We have exams and courses there for you. But without further ado, let me get to my interview with Dr. Joshua Schultz coming up right after this. We'll see you in there. Bye.

Isac (01:41): Hey, before we actually dive into this week's episode, I just wanna ask you something, and that is, are you actually gearing up for the civil FE exam and do you still have a ton of questions about it? What is it like really taking the exam? What's the testing room like? How is the AM and the PM portion broken down? What score you possibly need to pass? There's a ton of questions that you could be asking, and that is exactly why we actually started a free guide for you. It's called the Fe Startup Guide. Everything I've gone through, we put in there, but over 10 years of experience plus helping out other students that have come through our courses, have everything you need. These are engineers just like you finally getting over the hump of passing this thing. So it's a complete breakdown of everything you need to know to get started to prepare for this exam. If you're serious about getting those EIT initials after your name, go check out and download this free guide. It's at civil engineering academy.com/epi guide. Go check that out. You're not gonna wanna miss it, and that is for free. So with all of that, let's get back to the episode and hopefully you go check out that guide. See ya.

Isac (02:47): Alright, we are rocking and rolling. Joshua, thanks for joining me today. And Mark on the Civil Engineering Academy podcast, appreciate you doing this with us.

Mark (02:55): Yeah,

Dr. Joshua (02:55): Happy to be here. Thanks. Thanks for having me.

New Speaker (02:58): Yeah, I would always love to kick these off. I mean, our audience may not know who you are or what you do, but I always love to kind of kick these off. I'm obviously mobile today, but I love to kinda kick these off as you introducing yourself. Let us know where you're working. How did you end up there? Why did you go this route? Like, what's going on? How did Joshua end up doing what he's doing?

Dr. Joshua (03:23): Yeah, a bunch of happy accidents, I think is how it worked. But yeah. So I'm in my office at Gonzaga. I'm a professor of engineering at Gonzaga University in Washington State. So generally I can get people, if they're college basketball fans, they've probably heard of us. So we're a college basketball program with an engineering program attached kind of thing. But it's great. So I'm originally from the Midwest. My wife is from Washington, so that's one of the reasons we ended up out here ultimately. But I'm originally from Wisconsin. So I was born and raised in Wisconsin. My dad was a contractor, so he did a home building. And I always wanted to be an architect. I wanted to be an architect for a very, very long time. I still really like and appreciate sort of the architecture and art side of what we do, like creating beautiful things is I think a goal of mine and what drew me to the profession and kind of keeps me in the profession. Um so yeah both architecture and construction drew me into structural engineering, which is kind of funny. So , so

Dr. Joshua (04:27): Perfect.

Dr. Joshua (04:27): The two other things drew me into structures. Basically what it was is I like the idea of you know, creating buildings. And so early on I only knew architects existed. I didn't really know structural engineers existed. And in college actually, I was exposed to architectural engineering. So I went to an AE program Penn State and some other schools, there's like 13 or 15 of them now. And so it's focused on buildings and the focus is on how you actually kind of put the building and have it stand up. When it was done there, I went to work at Skidmore Oil in Maryland. So I was in the Chicago office and got to you know, work with Bill and kind of the heyday of the Chicago offices, all the, you know, Birch Dubai and all that stuff was happening. Hmm. and I think the reason that that's worth bringing up is not because of the projects, but rather the mentality. So SOM is an AE firm, big, a little e so kind of emphasis on architecture and the engineers are there to collaborate. And I think that, and some of the other mentors I've had in my career have helped foster the latent desire I have to collaborate and work with architects. And there's some engineers who are predisposed to that collaborative, you know, sort of approach. And also I think culture goes a long way. And so a collaborative approach where we're brought in together doesn't mean we never get mad at each other. , you know, when you change the, can I move this wall while we're issuing at 5:00 PM theoretically, so it'd be great if you didn't. But rather I think it's that, like that idea of mutual respect and like, we wanna work together to build something pretty ba right?

Dr. Joshua (06:09): So so I did that. And then just from sort personal life happens, I think a lot of times it's really easy to talk about the professional. Like, you go, you get your degree and you da da da, da. But to me, as much as I love, I love structural engineering. I will geek out about buildings all day long. I do that ultimately and get paid for it. And so the things that are really important to me are those things like family and things like that. And so as family started to come along looking for kind of a different vibe, and this is a while ago. This is pre COVID, pre-work from home, pre hybrid, all that kinda stuff. So trying to figure out how to maximize the flexibility. I had gone to school and I got my degrees and I graduated and I had no intention of teaching. Um my students might, you know, still say I I, that's good 'cause I, I'm not . But no, I think we have a good time. But I think the goal was never to teach. The goal was I just kept wanting to learn more. I felt like there was more to learn. And so anyway, graduated, went to Chicago, SOM and then started having kids. And so my wife wanted to move back home by her family and looking for some more kind of work-life balance. And she says, Hey, you got this PhD, why didn't you, you know, apply some places and see how that works out. And so 10 years later, here we are at Gonzaga. So that's the day job. And then the entire time I've been in academics, I've maintained consulting. I have a huge bias. So I have a huge bias, particularly in engineering, that if we're not practicing at some level, I'm not entirely sure what we're teaching. Um especially now with, you know, the proliferation knowledge is everywhere. This is not the problem, right? Knowledge is everywhere. I think what school and what courses afford you the opportunity is one, it's like external discipline. If I pay to take piano lessons, I'll probably practice , right? And two, the kind of knowledge that you just get by making mistakes and, you know, and so the best way to learn is learn from other people's mistakes and then go make some new ones rather than making old ones. I think. So. so that's what I do. And so, so that's kind of how I got here in a short-ish version.

Isac (08:31): Do you have, I mean, just I think that story, your life story is fantastic. I'm just, you mentioned architecture is a big emphasis. Is there anything in the structural world that you feel like you gravitate to? Even, even what you're teaching?

Dr. Joshua (08:46): Mm-Hmm . Yeah. so I'm a buildings guy. So theAE experience in all my design world, I'm a buildings guy, so you know, don't, I don't touch bridges any horizontal kind. I'm a vertical guy. And then with that through, again, kind of happy accidents through, it's like the Bob Ross career here, you know, through, through all these happy accidents throughout my career, I've had the opportunity to work on kind of increasingly niche projects, I guess. And so I started out again I worked for a company, Stukey Engineering, and I did a bunch of glass, structural glass. And now we're talking, this is in like 2010, so this is before even, this is early ASTME 1300. And so back when it was really pretty a specialty. So I got to see a lot of projects because of that. 'cause You'd get, in fact, that's how the connection to SOM ultimately came up is we would do a bunch of their facade work. But so I did a lot with structural glass, that was my, my master's degree as well. Which was again, inspired by professional kind of work in, in consulting. And then through that, as I migrated through, I ended up doing more and more lightweight structures. And so cable nets, grid shells, space frames glass, not lightweight, but it gives the appearance of lightweight . And so, so that, and then most recently, especially ever since heading out to the Pacific Northwest, I've been involved with mass timber now for, since 2013. Which also kind of nicely ties into lightweight, particularly like timber grid shells and things like that. So that, that's kind of where it's seems

Isac (10:28): To be more and more popular too, the use of mass timber as well. I think using glass is very beautiful. I, you know, if you're looking at that, I could see where that ties into your architectural look.

Dr. Joshua (10:40): Yes

Isac (10:41): Those are all...

Mark (10:42): I'm actually doing a mass timber project right now up in park City, Utah for a ski resort. And it's a very it's, it's not a common type of construction yet. And so the suppliers and just that, that supply chain tends to be a little more specialized. And there's a limited amount of qualified suppliers that can, that can provide those mass timber elements. And sometimes that leads to, you know, a little bit of a problem . It's like sometimes, you know, the more suppliers you have of a particular product. So if it's structural concrete, structural steel, I mean, there's a ton of suppliers and a ton of steel erectors and concrete construction firms. And you can get pretty good service that way if you're a general contractor. But CLT and, and Mass Timber, it is kind of a niche, niche, kind of a an area of structural engineering and architecture right now. It's sometimes it's tough to get that stuff built. We're, we're putting it together, it's coming together, but sometimes it could be tough.

Dr. Joshua (12:03): Yeah. Yeah. I think getting it to pencil and then there's this interesting chicken and egg. Up until recently I served as a technical director for a mass timber manufacturer supply, you know, supplier. And I think it's interesting, I might lose about half the audience or more here, but I'm gonna make an analogy with where Mass Timber is now to where, and so the more mature folks need to stay with me here. So to where cold form steel was, you know, in like the eighties and nineties. So cold form steel's an interesting one. If you track that kind of evolution, where early on it was the material was really tied to fabricators and what they would do for tolerances and sizing and things. And kind of in the eighties and the nineties, we had the North American spec and all this kinda stuff. And so it took decades for it as an industry to cohere where when I buy a cold form stud from company X, Y, Z, it's effectively the same as A, B, C, you know, stud and, and whatever. And so I think mass timber's really interesting right now in the US even though it's ostensibly been in the US now for what, you know, 15 years or so depend on, you know, what company we're looking at. I think it's still, like you were saying, Mark, that the specialization and how tied it is to the manufacturer spec is interesting because you really have to almost pick a supplier or a manufacturer, you almost have to go, so you know what you're designing with, right? So panel size, all this other kind of stuff.

Mark (13:32): Yeah, yeah. We had to do that. We had to pick our supplier early and they were involved in the entire process and then yeah. And we had to conform to their fabrication schedules and their, their, their demands were, we were kind of at their mercy in a lot of ways because because it's such a specialty product still, and it, it'll get more and more ubiquitous as we go along. But yeah, right now it's just, it's really specialized. So.

Isac (14:05): Well, I have another question that may be tied to what you do for your career, but I'm always interested in like the students entering the civil engineering world. I'm curious what you've seen as a professor in terms of like the draw of people coming into structural engineering. Do you see that has been increasing, decreasing, staying the same? How do we build I guess more excitement around entering the structural engineering firm? Because everywhere I look ASCE and such, we're trying to draw more eng people into engineering. I'm just curious your thoughts around that whole topic since you're in, in that world.

Dr. Joshua (14:46): Yeah, the pipeline, right? This talent pipeline,

Isac (14:48): The pipeline,

Dr. Joshua (14:49): And yeah, I think ASE just, not just, but they released, you know, last year's statistics and so it's like, you know, about an eight to 10% deficit in how many engineers were producing annually. And the good news of course is then median salaries are up 20%. And so I think that like most things so my dad's given me a, my dad's given me a lot of advice throughout, throughout my life. And I think some of, some of his good advice, one, one phrase he always said was, try to find a job that you can enjoy three days a week. The other two days are why they pay you. And I actually find that to be pretty realistic, right? So I don't think this side of a trust fund, there's probably any job that you just wake up every day. Um but I do think that civil engineering in general and structural engineering in particular it kind of checks all these boxes where you've got, it's a nice, stable career. Demand is not going away. So far we're pretty AI resilient. Um and you're contributing meaningfully, fundamentally, right? Like we're building the built world. And I think that's something that increasingly resonates with now as I've been teaching long enough that I've starting to, I'm not the generation, the youngest generation anymore, right? And so the younger generations I think appreciate the, they want, you know, can we do something meaningful? What is that like that, that real deep search for meaning? And I think civil engineering and structural engineering really provide that. 'cause We're fundamentally meeting that need. So I think it, my data point for the last 13 years kind of being in higher redat, at university, my data points have shown that we've staye, pretty consistent in our class sizes. So a lot of other engineering degrees have, you know, were really popular and then maybe we're more susceptible to AI. And so they're diminishing. But I think the demand and the you know, sort of number of students going into civil seems pretty steady. And so what that means too is consistently less than we need . But, and also I should say their, you know, job placements and things like that are, are, are really good. So I think from a student perspective, it's been interesting too to watch maybe like what drives you, you know, everyone's got their own life story, which is totally great. But I do think sometimes there's trends. And so I remember, I'm a first gen, so I was a first gen, I still am, I guess I'm a first gen college student. And you know, my dad said, work with your mind, not with your back, all that kind of stuff,

Mark (17:33): Which is very true.

Dr. Joshua (17:35): Especially I can, I used to just hear that. Now I start to feel that. But anyway . So, so I think like my cohort, when I was going through school, there were a goodly number and I, you know, I went to school in rural, rural Wisconsin, and so we had a lot of farm kids and we had a lot of first gen, and we all this, but, but a lot of the driver to the interest behind engineering in my cohort was we wanted to like, take stuff apart and build stuff, like usually more of the building than the taking apart. But we wanted to like do stuff, swing a hammer, et cetera. I still to this day think you should be really suspicious of an engineer who hasn't swung a hammer. And maybe we'll get the, we'll get to that in a bit, but I think increasingly the draw to engineering has maybe become a bit more academic or a bit more theoretical. Like, it's a safe or secure job, or you're good at math and I think that because civil engineering and structural engineering, fundamentally we are designing stuff that needs to be built. I think that one of the best things we can do for our students and for our workforce is to, one, get that exposure. And also the experience that comes there, right? So it's like, I could give a 50, I could giv a riveting 50 minute lecture on how to swim. I can lecture you how to swim, mark.

Mark (18:59): Yeah,

Dr. Joshua (18:59): , there we go. But at some point, like, you need to get wet, right? And so I think that that I, my experience has been, there used to be more of that you came in with some of that desi, you know, tinkering or taking apart or building, and maybe there's a little less of that. Maybe there's less opportunity, quite frankly, for students now. And so it, it's become a bit more theoretical or cerebral as to why you wanna be a engineer.

Mark (19:27): Yeah, I really like what you said though about trusting an engineer that's, you know, never swung a hammer in my, my career. And I, and I like to think I'm one of those engineers that I've swung a hammer, I've put some things together, so I think I understand how things fit together and how things are supposed to sequence. And that really, really helps in anything that I'm designing, anything that I'm consulting on. And I deal with design teams that have engineers that have come from more of an academic background that, you know, there may be more into the theory than into the practical boots on the ground, putting things together, kind of knowledge. And they're not quite as good as those guys that have had some field experience and kind of know how things spatially kind of how things fit together. Um those guys tend to be, you know, way more valuable and way more effective in their design work. They just, they just are. So, in my mind, the, the, the best engineers are ones that have the practical side of things, along with the theoretical, they've made this perfect marriage, right? And, and that makes you the most dangerous as an engineer is if you've got both of those sides of your toolbox put together. So I like hearing that from you. 'cause That's, I think it's true if that's, is that an old saying from your dad too?

Dr. Joshua (21:01): The not trusting Yeah. ,

Mark (21:02): Yeah. Hammer.

Dr. Joshua (21:03): Yeah. He see's full of them, yeah. So.

Mark (21:05): Yeah.

Dr. Joshua (21:05): Just little bit.

Mark (21:07): Yeah. no

Dr. Joshua (21:09): But you know, I think too on that point, and we might be getting far afield, but I apologize here, we could get back. But I think the other thing too, even if we're talking to maybe more of those, 'cause I don't wanna overplay it too, like, so I grew up in construction and all that kinda stuff, but what draws me is the beauty. Like I wanna like architects and artists and structural engineering. Like, I like crafting that. So the intellectual side and the optimization, all that kinda stuff, I can geek out. I think what is maybe one way toexplain that, so with a common language is in school too, I think we spend a lot of time focusing on solve the math problem, right? Here's a being, what's the deflect, da, da, da, right? So you're given something then you're, well, one is clearly you're not gonna be handed pre-framed problems in your career. So that's something that I think is, is important. But the other one is in school, because we have to get the technical stuff down pat, right? I need my students when they graduate to know that stuff. Stone cold. You've gotta be able to give me, you know, whateverPL you know, you, you've gotta know your deflection, you gotta know your stresses, you gotta do this. Okay. But, but I think the other reality is there's so many important design constraints beyond strength and deflection. And one of the huge design constraints, and this actually ties into kind of like my specialty of lightweight structures, is construction constraints and manufacturing constraints are huge. We already talked about one manufacturing constraint, which is like, Hey, can you get the CLT that you mean? And I think the other idea of like, well, how would you sequence this? How could you build this? I've had a number of really fun in retrospect projects that were, ended up being very creative because the construction constraints actually drove a good chunk of the project. It wasn't necessarily even, you know, cost or strength or something like that. So and I think the way you you discover that is like, you go out and you experience school structure.

Mark (23:06): Yeah. And actually that's probably the most rewarding type projects I'm involved with is exactly what you're saying. It it's those projects where you, you have the theoretical constraints in your, in your design, but it's really those construction constraints, those fabrication constraints, those industry standard kind of constraints that sometimes drive the design that those are the projects that I've been, that have been the most rewarding for me if I think about it. So, yeah.

Isac (23:38): Well, Joshua, I know your lightweight is kinda, it seems like your thing. Do you, do you have a couple favorite projects you've worked on that maybe you could share with the audience, get 'em excited about?

Dr. Joshua (23:52): Yeah, you bet. I like lightweight structures in general because it, to the conversation we've been having, right? It introduces all these, what sometimes appear to be ancillary constraints on equal footing, right? So, and, and I'll answer in specific too in a second here, but you know, when I, you know, if I'm designing a department store or a gas station or whatever, and I've got tilt up concrete and steel joists there's nothing wrong with that design and that can be useful and, and edifying. But when we're in kind of typical construction, the name of the game is, is usually how, how efficient, how uniform can I make it all that kind of stuff when I get to lightweight structures for it to be done well we really need an integrated design process, which means that I, as the engineer, need to be brought in with the architects very, very early on because the architecture and the, the structure really are one and the same. And so when you see this a lot you know, one of the projects we talk about in the book is if you've ever flown through CTAC there's this big cable net wall there, and it's a doubly curved and, and, and it's really quite beautiful. And at the time it was really, really innovative. And so the trick there, just as an example, and then I'll get into maybe some of my more, more favorite projects, but that is so it's in a, a seismic area and it also has very, very large wind loads. 'cause It's a very large spanning system. And so the idea there is, okay, well if you have something if you have a tight rope, you know, or a close line or a slack line or whatever, no matter how tight I tension that close line, as soon as I introduce some load on the close line, what's it gonna do? Gonna deflect some, right? Because the only way it can transmit the loads is by actually it has to deflect so that it can engage through statics those reactions. Okay? Similarly, so whenever we're dealing with curtain walls, right? Or I'm sorry, cable nets, not curtain walls, cable nets, which is literally glass hung off of cables. You don't actually get the resistance of the cable until it deflects a little bit. So the solution for the problem, or the challenge with the CTAC airport was, well, let's go ahead and let's curve it. And so it's curved in plan and it's also curved in and out. So you have this aplastic behavior, kinda like when you grab one of those pink petty racers and you bend it, it bends in both directions. That's the shape of that. So you get the saddle shape that and that gives you stiffness. And so again, these different constraints influence the design. And then that, you know, that plays with the architecture really nice. So I, I think there's just a, a bunch, but one of, one of my favorite ones is there's the Brooklyn Academy for Music. And so it's a really old building in Brooklyn, obviously, and it was designed by an architect whose name now escapes me, but it's kind of a traditional brick and stone building that's been around for, you know, a hundred, 150, 200 years this classical building. And so when I was working at Stu Ski, they wanted to develop this pavilion. And so we ended up with a glass serpentine pavilion that goes all down one facade. And so it ended up being really neat for kind of the layered approach, because keep in mind, this is a music academy, okay? And so what we ended up was we had these triangular pieces of glass and we had AHS around tube that was at the lip away from the building. And so these triangular pieces alternated every other, you know, to help follow that curve. So you had each point kind of tip to toe kind of thing as you went along to follow the curve. Well, in order to make that work, the glass had to be structural and it had to be part of the load path. And so you ended up with this glass being, you know, the tension component. Then you had the steel to be the compression component. And so in order to do that, we had to address a couple things. 'cause This is not, we had to address first if you have this glass and if one of those lights break, 'cause you know, death taxes, concrete cracking and glass breaking, these are things you can rely on.

Dr. Joshua (28:10): And so even perfectly designed glass will break, you know, probabilistically. So the question is, if I've got this, and that's my load path, if one of those breaks, how do I avoid an unzipping effect, right? Where one breaks and now it sheds the load and you just, the whole thing falls down, which would be, you know, suboptimal to say the least. So what we ended up doing is we ended up with these Bellevue washers, which are these kind of flat washers and some nice hardware from some specialty contractors, again, working with your manufacturer to use the constraint. So what we ended up doing was we had the glass and we designed the wash, these like rubber washers, basically, these springs, right? And so we designed those and they did two things. One, they addressed if a piece of glass breaks, that's a dynamic failure. And so what it did was it arrested that failure so it wouldn't propagate through, so it wouldn't, plus you have fail. And two, when we're installing this, you need tolerances again, the kind of constraints you don't learn about in school, as it were. So you have these cases like, well, how the, how the heck do you build this ? Right? And so we had these, these washers, these belleville washers, these springs that you would, you would literally adjust the stiffness of each spring as you build it. So one of the reasons I like the project, and if you Google the Brooklyn Academy music, you'll see this kind of serpentine thing. And you know, it was in like the abacus magazine back in the day and all this kind of stuff. But so you see, it's beautiful, number one. Number two, I love the layered like symbolism of we were designing this canopy for a music academy and the actual installation and the way we made it work was by tuning the structure. Right?

Mark (29:56): That's awesome.

Isac (29:57): That's cool.

Dr. Joshua (29:58): So it kind of has kind of I think it sums up kind of all the things I appreciate about structural engineering right in, in there. So

Isac (30:06): That's cool. Oh, sorry. I was just, I wanted to bug you about your book. Could you tell us a little more about the book that you got and.

Dr. Joshua (30:17): Happily

Isac (30:18): Tell everyone, tell everyone about it?

Dr. Joshua (30:21): Yeah, you bet. So it's it's entitled structural Design of Lightweight Architecture. When you, when you start to throw those words around, a lot of them have been taken, so like structural architecture and architectural structure, so structural design of lightweight architecture. And the idea is to try to convey the architect, the line blurs between architecture and structure, particularly in these lightweight projects. So again, there's a chapter on space frames, there's a chapter on cable nets, there's a chapter on grid shells, there's a chapter on membranes, specifically ETFE structures, and then structural gluts. Those are the, the main technical chapters. And so, but the point of the book, the point of the book is not to be a textbook. The point of the book really grows out of me and my co-author, who's also my mentor, Chris Jutski. So he's retired and he sold his firm and he's moved back to Germany now. But this idea that structural engineers, engineers in general, structural engineers also were not as good at transmitting the knowledge generationally as we could be. And so a lot of times what we think is really obvi or like too humble or we're too something, because architects do a pretty good job generally of kind of like, here's what I did. Here's how I built, you know, whatever the Sydney Opera House, the whatever. So the goal was to take knowledge that you, for the most part, don't learn in school. And so you'd have to work at a niche firm to learn. And understandably, many of these firms don't wanna share all the secret sauce. So the idea was to really, if you are an engineer and so you have, or an architect, technical architect, if you have some professional experience, you could come into this book and it would open the world of lightweight architecture to you. So it wouldn't be the last book you ever read, but hopefully it, it's the first book you read. And so each chapter starts with the sort of intellectual evolution of each of these topics, right? So like, where did cable nets come from? Some of it's really cool 'cause I happen to be, again, by happy accident of, you know, birth or whatever. I happened to be able to work with Chris Jutski who worked with Dr. Klimca, who worked with Max Ren Hausen, who invented the Miro structural system, whch is that space frame, kind of the white knob and tube you'll see at airports and other places like that. So what's neat about the book I think is so one, you get some history so that you can see where the ideas come from. 'cause We don't wanna reinvent stuff from scratch. We wanna learn and then advance it. Then it was the idea of, alright, here's enough where it would be actionable. 'cause We don't just want a book that you're gonna read and like, learn some history. We want you, if you read the book, you could have a clear path of how you would go design your first cable net or grid shell. And then the third part of every chapter are specific projects good, bad, and ugly and examples of kind of how those work out. And so that's kind of the breakdown of each, each chapter.

Mark (33:31): Yeah.

Isac (33:34): Well it sounds amazing. Sorry, Mark, I cut you off on your question, but I wanna.

Mark (33:38): No, I find out what the generally questioning No, that's great. I'm interested uh in checking that out now. But I wanted to ask you about the lightest structure that you've been involved with, which is Birch Khalifa, .

Dr. Joshua (33:56): Yeah, that's right. , right?

Mark (33:58): Isn't that all star concrete? Wasn't that super light

Dr. Joshua (34:01): Super light. That's right. You know, it interesting. There's a, there was a, so Buckminster Fuller so, and we talk about these folks in the book, and I, again, I think it's good for engineers to know people who came before us. So anyway, there was a time when Buckminster Fuller was talking to Norman Foster, sir Norman Foster so he is a architect over, over on the continent, right? As it was over in Europe. And he asked, you know, Norman Foster was talking about the efficiencies in his building, all this kinda stuff. And at the end, Buckman for Fuller goes, how much does your building weigh,

Mark (34:37): Right? Yeah.

Dr. Joshua (34:38): And, and so there's, you can actually there's a movie out there, how much does your building weigh? And so you can watch that. But so the idea of lightweight, and so again we, we can quantify that and we do Mark and I do quantify that is typically like, alright, per square foot, what's my structural weight of the, the structure? And again, soms been doing that for, you know, 80 years. So they've got historical data on all that and the, the development of that. Myron Goldsmith, who's an architect outta Chicago, several generation, a couple generations ago, he has this famous plot, which basically did a, a research on how much steam can you get, how much gas can you get out of each structural system? And so these different structural systems, you know, what might even appear to be lightweight oftentimes isn't like glass is not lightweight, and then vice versa. So you can have a concrete structure and, and the British actually is really interesting and there's a ton of stuff, ton of great interviews with Bill Baker out there that you can watch. And the, the birch was again, kind of an accident, right? So it ended up being substantially taller than it otherwise would've been because of advances in wind tunnel technology. And actually one of the reasons you couldn't go taller is because the structural system and the foundations, you know, they would've had it been designed differently. So actually though in the Burge, I ended up working onnot, so I showed up at SOM kind of right at the tail end of the Burge, but I was able to work on, I guess probably the world's tallest stair because at the top of the Burge, there's a multi-story suite, and it has this hanging granite multi-story, three story hanging granite staircase.

Mark (36:26): Yeah.

Dr. Joshua (36:26): And so that's another one you had to tune and do all this kind of stuff. And and so it was a really interesting problem not, not a lightweight stare. And the design all came down to the idea that you have this curved spiral staircase for multiple stories, and they're granite treads hung on wires with a, like a, a water feature in the middle. And so the question becomes like, how do you get your arm in to tension the rods? You know? And that drove a whole bunch of the construction sequencing. So

Mark (36:57): That's really cool. Yeah, I've always been interested in that, that project just because that's my background is structural concrete and naturally you know, I think that thing, well, it's over 160 stories tall, right? If I remember right. And then just the uniqueness of the lateral system that was designed for that thing I think it was a buttress core kind of a system that kind of took advantage of the, the footprint of that building was kind of a, I don't know, a clover leaf kind of a pattern. It looked like a flower. And then you were able to take advantage of that, that shape and driving some of the lateral system laterally into some of these petals. I think if you wanna, you know, equate the, the footprint into a more of a flower shape, which is I think what it is, but and then just the core and then those extensions or shear walls that you got out of that core, that, that was always interesting to me. And well, I've, you know, been involved with concrete construction long enough to, you know, watch some of the construction videos, and of course I was, you know, interested in the form work systems and how everything was cycling, you know, and all that stuff. But

Dr. Joshua (38:16): You could pump it, right? Like how do you,

Mark (38:17): Yeah, the pressures.

Dr. Joshua (38:18): Oh my goodness,

Mark (38:19): It's amazing that they can pump it that high. It's just, it's incredible. And so back in those days I was promoting structural concrete as a viable solution, structural solution, especially when you consider the thermal mass that the concrete brought to the structure where you could provide a structure for an owner, and just off the top he's saving, you know, 5 to 7% in his utility cost because the thermal mass of the structure that he, that he owns, you know? And so it was just a very interesting project to me. And so I was just interested to hear what involvement you had. And you know, I've heard some of the interviews from Bill at SOM I've builtsome, some things that have been designed by SOM and they're just, they're just a great firm. Great. So it's kind of cool that you got experience working there.

Isac (39:18): Well, I know we're up against our time and I wanna be respectful of that. So I'm excited. We'll make sure we get the word out about your book. I appreciate you doing this interview with us. Any last words to inspire maybe future engineers that are coming into this field or anything else on top of your mind?

Dr. Joshua (39:39): Well, I don't know if I have words of wisdom, but I have words. So I think , it's a professor, right? So I think that the, there's no bad experience, right? So when you're starting off any experience you get, there's no bad internship, there's no bad like go get experience because that's really something you can't reproduce in the classroom and, and anything like that. So and I think the other thing too, I say this all the time and even still, you'd be shocked. I think one of the nice things about our industry is we are all eager to see our industry succeed and to see people succeed in it. And so we're happy to help and mentor. And so I'm always encouraging people reach out. So I'm gonna say it right here. Anyone listening, if you're curious about anything or if I can be of help, reach out to me. And you know, mark and Isaac, you can see, we can you can check back in to see the number of people who actually will reach out is very, very low. So if you can make yourself one of the people who will reach out to people that will go a long way. And that a lot of opportunities, that's how you get those opportunities is you just gotta ask the worst people face though.

Mark (40:55): Yeah, that's right.

Isac (40:57): What's the best way to reach out to you and where can people find the book?

Dr. Joshua (41:02): Yeah, you bet. So my Gonzaga email is, and I'm not gonna give you my cell phone, so the world, but my Gonzaga email's a great way to reach out to me. And I'm happy to engage there. And then the book is available on Amazon and it's available on Rutledge, and I can share that with you. Maybe we can post it under here and, and link it.

Isac (41:23): For sure.

Dr. Joshua (41:24): And actually as we record it it's coming out any day now, and probably by the time this airs it'll just come out. So there's a 20% off if you, if you order through Rutledge. But if you buy everything through Amazon, like I tend to it's about the same price, so, yeah.

Isac (41:41): Awesome. Okay, we'll go ahead and get that all linked. Thank you again for doing this. I appreciate you jumping on and sharing your, your thoughts and hopefully we'll get to talk to you in the future.

Mark (41:52): Yes, thank you.

Isac (41:54): All right.

Dr. Joshua (41:54): Thanks guys.