Trends In Structural Engineering

The product trio is merging. And it's not just because of AI. In fact, I first saw this concept in 2020, presented by Yuhki Yamashita, CPO of Figma. (ie, well before the current AI boom) — It's driven by a few key trends: 1. Engineers are taking an active role in the problem space The early startup paradigm of product-focused engineers is moving into larger companies. It's just a pre-requisite for engineering success these days. They don't just ask, how big was the feature, or important the technical innovation. They ask: how big was the impact? Naturally, tech leads and engineering managers everywhere have become more critical of driving that. 2. Designers are taking an active role in the business More than ever, designers are learning and building for metrics. In a world where OKRs rule the roost, the incentive is natural. They can't just trust a PM to be able to fully vet the business space. Because, too many times, the PM gets it wrong. And this creates an environment where collaboration tends to do better than silos. 3. PMs are learning design and tech drive performance The little details of how you design a product and the technical decisions you make determine whether it's successful. Both product leaders and product managers are realizing they have to get into the details. You can't just have a conversation with a CEO who is in the details of the product by outsourcing it all to your tech and design partners. 4. Finally, yes, AI is accelerating the merge Now: • Design engineer is the hottest thing on Twitter • Companies everywhere are waiting to hire PMs • All disciplines continue to use AI to speed up their work This will reduce time on finessing details & increase time on the why. — Putting all this together... It seems undeniable the roles have started to merge on the edges. But, the core responsibilities remain differentiated. So, in this increasingly overlapped world, how you work with your sister functions becomes a differentiator. Those who: • Lead with empowerment • Collaborate with empathy   • Blend roles, but don't step on toes Will be the one's leading us into this new era. On the other hand, those that try to maintain the silos, will find themselves outdated.

The 2025 Autodesk State of Design and Make Report is here—and it’s packed with insights that every industry leader should see. This year’s edition highlights a clear trend: digital transformation is not just paying off—it’s accelerating progress. Organizations that have embraced tech-driven strategies are seeing 50%+ improvements in productivity, innovation, and customer satisfaction. But it’s not all smooth sailing. Cost pressures, talent shortages, and AI implementation hurdles are real. Yet even in this environment, digitally mature companies are outperforming, expanding, and attracting top talent. Another standout? Sustainability has evolved from a moral obligation to a business advantage. Nearly all surveyed organizations are taking active steps to reduce their environmental impact—and AI is playing a major role in this shift, from optimizing building design to managing lifecycles more efficiently. Yes, the AI hype has cooled a bit, and concerns about disruption are rising—but the potential is still immense for those who deploy it wisely. If you’re working at the intersection of design, engineering, construction, or manufacturing, I highly recommend giving this report a read. Let’s start shaping a more resilient world—together. What’s your take on the report? Curious to hear what stood out to others in the community. https://lnkd.in/djp3i4kJ #DigitalTransformation #AI #Sustainability #AEC #DesignAndMake #Autodesk #Innovation #FutureOfWork

𝐅𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐂𝐀𝐃: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝐄𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐄𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧 CAD is no longer just about drawing parts — it’s evolving into an intelligent design partner. With the rise of AI-driven #CAD, generative design, and cloud-based collaboration, engineers are moving from manual modeling to smart design automation. Imagine software that suggests optimal geometries, reduces weight automatically, predicts failures, and even generates manufacturable designs within minutes. The future of CAD will likely include: 🔹 AI-assisted modeling that predicts design intent 🔹 Generative design creating multiple optimized solutions 🔹 Real-time simulation during modeling 🔹 Cloud CAD enabling global collaboration 🔹 Digital Twins connecting #CAD directly to real-world performance For #mechanical, #automotive, and #aerospace engineers, learning futuristic #CAD tools is no longer optional — it's becoming a career advantage. The engineers who adapt early will design faster, smarter, and more efficiently than ever before. Join #MECHHUB , India's only exclusive community for Mech, Auto, Aero engineers to stay updated and learn Mech+AI skills. MechHub: nas.io/mechhub

Service design and futures practice are converging. Here's what I think that means. Something has been quietly shifting in our field. A few years ago, mentioning horizon scanning or scenario planning in a service design context would get polite nods and a quick return to the journey map. Foresight belonged to strategists and policy teams. Service designers improved experiences. The two rarely sat in the same room. That is changing. Design schools are building bridges between both practices. OCAD University, the Royal College of Art, and RMIT have all established design futures programs. Practitioners trained in foresight are showing up inside design and innovation teams. Service designers are quietly picking up foresight methods and asking what they might do with them. This isn't just an academic trend. It's a response to something real. A shifting context that asks for more. The environment that services operate in is changing faster than the tools we use to design them. Climate pressures, demographic shifts, geopolitical instability, and technological change are no longer distant considerations. They are reshaping the conditions under which services function, often faster than organizations can redesign their way out of problems. A service that works brilliantly today can become fragile within a few years when the assumptions underneath it shift. Many of the organizations I've worked with are starting to feel that it's not an abstract risk, but something operational. Reactive redesign. Costly rework. Systems that made sense when they were built, but no longer fit the context they're operating in. The convergence of service design and foresight feels like a field-level response to that problem. It changes what good research looks like. It changes the artifacts we produce. And it changes who we need to collaborate with, bringing foresight practitioners, systems thinkers, and policy specialists into conversations that used to be led by designers alone. None of this means abandoning what service design does well. Improving present experiences still matters enormously. But I think we're entering a period where the most interesting and important design work will sit at the intersection of these two practices helping organizations not just improve what they have, but prepare for what's coming. There is a strong case for Anticipatory Service Design as a practice. Not speculative design but true anticipatory practice to help build resilient services and service organizations. I look forward to sharing more on this over the next few weeks. Happy Monday!  #ServiceDesign #FuturesThinking #StrategicForesight #AnticipatoryDesign #DesignFutures #Foresight #FuturesLiteracy #Futures #ThreeHorizons #Innovation #OrganisationalResilience #BusinessDesign #TransformationDesign

Engineers can't completely stop earthquakes, but they can significantly reduce their devastating effects on buildings and infrastructure. 1. Understanding the Enemy: Seismic Design • Earthquake Loads: Engineers design buildings and structures to withstand specific earthquake forces based on location and seismic risk. • Building Codes: Strict building codes in earthquake-prone areas ensure structures are designed and built to withstand ground shaking and potential soil liquefaction. • Seismic Resistance: This involves: * Stronger Materials: Using high-strength steel and reinforced concrete that can withstand significant stresses. * Reinforcement: Adding steel reinforcement to concrete structures to increase their ability to resist bending and shear forces. * Ductility: Designing structures to be flexible and bend rather than break under seismic loads. * Shear Walls: Installing stiff walls to resist lateral forces and prevent the building from collapsing. 2. Mitigating the Impact: Advanced Technologies • Base Isolation: This involves separating the building from the ground with flexible layers that absorb seismic energy, preventing it from transferring to the structure. • Tuned Mass Dampers: These are heavy weights strategically placed in buildings to absorb and reduce vibrations, especially during high-frequency seismic waves. • Energy Dissipation Devices: These devices are installed to absorb and dissipate energy from earthquakes, reducing the forces transmitted to the building. 3. The Limits of Engineering • Unpredictable Nature: Earthquakes are unpredictable events, with varying intensities and ground motions. • Mega-quakes: While engineering has made significant progress, even the most advanced designs may not be able to withstand the extreme forces of a very large earthquake. The Goal: • Reducing Damage: The aim isn't to stop earthquakes, but to reduce their impact. Engineers strive to make structures more resilient, minimizing damage, loss of life, and disruption. • Building Resilience: Engineering solutions play a crucial role in creating earthquake-resistant infrastructure, helping communities better prepare for and recover from seismic events. While engineers can't completely prevent the swaying of buildings during earthquakes, they can greatly mitigate its devastating effects through innovative design, construction, and technology. It's a continuous effort to protect lives and property in earthquake-prone regions. #Seismicdesign #Earthquake #Construction #Infrastructure #Civilengineering #Structure #Baseisolation #Buildingcodes #Shearwalls #Ductility

Engineers in Japan design buildings to survive earthquakes by letting the structure move instead of fight the force of the ground. Japan faces more than one thousand measurable earthquakes every year, so its buildings are engineered with the same precision as high-end machinery. The core idea is simple but revolutionary. A building cannot outrun seismic energy, so it is placed on systems that allow it to glide, shift, and absorb motion rather than crack under pressure. Modern Japanese skyscrapers often sit on base isolation platforms that use steel bearings, sliding pads, or layered rubber blocks to separate the building from the shaking ground. When an earthquake strikes, these systems lengthen the seismic waves and spread the energy over time. The movement becomes slower, smoother, and dramatically safer for everyone inside. Some structures add tuned mass dampers, which are giant weighted systems hidden at the top of the building that counteract shaking by moving in the opposite direction. Others use viscous oil dampers, which act like hydraulic brakes to absorb extreme forces instantly. This combination of base isolation, controlled movement, and engineered damping is why Japan's buildings remain stable while the ground shifts beneath them. It is a design philosophy built on decades of seismic research, structural

A seismic isolator, also known as a base isolator, is an advanced structural engineering device designed to protect buildings and bridges from the destructive forces of earthquakes. It works on a simple but powerful principle isolation. Instead of allowing the entire structure to move with the ground during an earthquake, seismic isolators act as a flexible interface between the foundation and the superstructure, reducing the amount of seismic energy that reaches the building above. In conventional construction, the foundation is rigidly attached to the ground, which means any vibration or shaking from the earth is transmitted directly into the structure. This can lead to severe structural damage or even collapse during intense earthquakes. However, with seismic isolation technology, the building’s base is fitted with specially engineered bearings or sliding systems that decouple the structure from the ground motion, allowing the building to sway gently and safely while maintaining stability. There are several types of seismic isolators commonly used in modern engineering: • Lead Rubber Bearings (LRB): These consist of alternating layers of steel and rubber with a lead core. The rubber provides flexibility, while the lead core helps absorb energy through plastic deformation. • High Damping Rubber Bearings (HDRB): Made from specially formulated rubber compounds that dissipate seismic energy without a lead core. • Sliding or Friction Pendulum Systems: These use curved sliding surfaces that allow the building to move horizontally, converting the violent shaking into smooth, controlled motion. The benefits of seismic isolation are substantial. Buildings equipped with isolators experience lower accelerations, reduced structural stress, and minimal damage to both the structure and its contents. This makes the technology particularly valuable for critical infrastructure such as hospitals, data centers, government offices, and bridges, where post-earthquake functionality is essential. Moreover, the use of seismic isolators enhances occupant safety and reduces repair costs, making it an effective long-term investment in earthquake resilience. Countries like Japan, New Zealand, and the United States have adopted seismic isolation in many of their high-risk zones, leading to remarkable success stories where isolated buildings remained largely undamaged during major earthquakes. As climate change and urban expansion continue to increase vulnerability in seismic regions, the integration of base isolation systems into building codes and design practices is becoming more widespread.

UX and Service Design are expanding into architectural roles. Not visual architecture. Not information architecture. System architecture. Behaviour architecture. Decision architecture. And the shift is already happening. For years, design was about: → screens → flows → artefacts → interfaces Now, design is increasingly about: → how systems behave → how decisions are made → how humans and AI collaborate → how services adapt over time That’s not design as decoration. That’s design as structure. Here’s the part most people are missing: Conversation is becoming the interface. When products are powered by AI agents, design is no longer just what users see. It’s what systems understand. Which means: → how a question is framed → how intent is interpreted → how context is remembered → how ambiguity is resolved → how a system responds, escalates, or pauses Those are design decisions now. This is why things like prompting matter but not in the way people think. Prompting isn’t about clever wording. It’s about: → defining boundaries → encoding intent → shaping behaviour → setting constraints → designing decision logic In other words: prompting is architectural work. The future designer won’t just design screens. They’ll design: → rules → conversations → escalation paths → system memory → trust and safety guardrails They’ll decide: → when AI acts → when humans intervene → how systems fail gracefully → how responsibility is assigned That’s service design evolving into orchestration design. And it explains why traditional UX roles feel unstable: not because design is disappearing, but because the surface work is being automated. The work moving up the stack: → system thinking → behavioural understanding → service logic → decision governance → architectural clarity The uncomfortable truth: If your value sits only in outputs, AI will catch up. If your value sits in structure, intent, and behaviour, AI will need you. Design isn’t becoming less creative. It’s becoming more consequential. And the designers who learn to think like architects of systems, conversations, and decisions will define what UX becomes next. — My mission? To help designers not be replaced by AI, but to evolve with it. So, I made it cheap and accessible. Study it, Test it, Develop with it. The world won’t stop for you. Only you can upskill yourself Get the Workbook ⤷ https://lnkd.in/gq6hU6Af — 🚀 Talks about Strategic UX Research and Psychology 🌟 Helping designers to work with AI, not be replaced by it

Japan Is Developing Floating Houses That Lift Off the Ground During Earthquakes In a groundbreaking stride towards earthquake resilience, Japan is pioneering the development of floating houses designed to lift off the ground during seismic events. This innovative technology aims to protect homes and their occupants by minimising contact with the earth’s violent tremors. Japan, located in one of the world’s most seismically active regions, has long been at the forefront of earthquake-resistant architecture. Traditional methods have included flexible foundations, shock absorbers, and reinforced frameworks. However, this new approach takes protection a step further by allowing homes to momentarily levitate during a quake. The floating house concept involves installing a specially designed air levitation system beneath the structure. When seismic activity is detected, sensors trigger the release of compressed air, lifting the entire house several centimetres above its foundation. This brief suspension isolates the building from ground movement, significantly reducing the potential for structural damage. While still in the development and testing phases, early prototypes have shown promising results. The system not only preserves the integrity of the building but also offers peace of mind to residents, particularly in areas frequently affected by tremors. As Japan continues to refine this technology, it holds the potential to revolutionise urban planning and disaster preparedness. If successful, floating homes could become a new global standard in earthquake-prone zones, blending safety with architectural ingenuity.