A technical presentation was made by Mark Porter, C.Eng, P.Eng, MIStructE, on the subject of Building Regeneration – Structural Challenges.

Mark noted that Regeneration is a part of Sustainability and has the following benefits; it improves the existing urban area, it improves the existing structure, reduces the spread of Greenfield sites, and makes better use of vacant or derelict land and buildings. He used the expressions Greenfield sites to signify those using existing arable land and Brownfield sites for sites that had already been developed but have been abandoned.

Using a Power Point presentation he outlined the background of the benefits of salvaging and renovating existing building with a minimum of destruction to the original structure and façade. Mark compared the building situations in B.C. and in England. England is about 14% of the area of B.C. but has 12 times the population. Another interesting statistic was that 25% of English properties were built prior to 1914 but only 3% of B.C. properties were developed before 1920.

He illustrated this with the renovation of a small supermarket, which was located in a confined area in a small town in England. The $7 million contract only allowed 16 weeks for the project to be completed. The original occupation of the building had been a pub, which now had become the supermarket. Some of the challenges included prefabrication the large steel support member for a clear span for the check out counters, in a number of pieces that could be brought in through the doors then assembled on site. Another challenge was confronted when they discovered an old basement area that had been out of use and partially back-filled. As the space was not required, it needed special support structures to hold up the main floor over that area. The contract was finished on time in spite of the unexpected problems.

The meeting was attended by a interested group of 21 members and guests who had numerous questions and comments that Mark answered.

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The Group runs a technical meeting and site visit program out of Vancouver, B.C., and publishes a newsletter, the ChallEnge, twice a year. Additional services include this Webpage, assistance with the APEGBC mentoring program, and assistance to members with Continuing Professional Development

Those visiting this website in order to research prospects for an engineering job here in British Columbia, should navigate to a new page identified on our main services menu. This is based on a letter we have been using as a reply to inquiries over the last couple of years. We have tried to portray a realistic appreciation of what your chances of getting a job here might be, and not we hope either too rosy or too negative a picture.

Ian W. Price, B.Sc., C.Eng., M.I.E.E., P.Eng.

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