CIV 356F Infrastructure Design Project

This course is a core course for third-year students in the Infrastructure Option of Engineering Science. For these students, it is their first formal exposure to the design of a major, complex work of infrastructure.

The course is taught primarily using the studio method. There is a small number of lectures, but the major teaching and learning vehicle is face-to-face interaction of student and instruction in discussions about work in progress.

The main objective of this course is for students to develop an understanding of the design process as it applies to infrastructure engineering and to acquire a foundation of knowledge, skills, and values that are required in the design of major works of infrastructure.

The course objectives include the following specific goals:

1. Understand the infrastructure design process

Works of infrastructure differ from works designed by other disciplines of engineering due to size, mobility, and visibility. The distinctiveness of the works of infrastructure creates the need for both a distinct perspective on design as well as a distinct design process.

2. Acquire knowledge and understand how it fits into the process

In the context of this objective, knowledge includes the more traditional material taught in engineering curricula, including methods of structural analysis and methods of calculating the capacity of structural members.

In addition, though, we will acquire a body of knowledge of completed works of infrastructure, primarily bridges. This body of knowledge will provide us with valuable starting points for design, i.e., it will help us to put that first idea quickly onto a blank piece of paper. In this sense, "knowledge" is the raw material from which we as designers can generate new ideas.

3. Develop skill

In this context, skill refers to the creative component of the design activity, i.e., generating new ideas from the raw material acquired through the previous objective.

Students will accomplish this objective primarily through working on their design project, with the help of critiques from course staff.

4. Cultivate values

Once new ideas have been generated, engineers need the means to determine whether or not they are good. The traditional engineering education has taught that minimizing construction cost is the only value that matters. This is incorrect. We will develop an understanding for other values that affect design decisions.

One of the most important values that affects bridge design is aesthetics. In our designs and in the critical analysis of existing structures, we will develop our own personal sense for the importance of aesthetics relative to other values.

5. Acquire practical abilities

Through our work on the project, we will develop writing, speaking, and drawing skills. These are important ways for infrastructure designers to communicate ideas and also powerful tools for developing new ideas.

In previous years, students have completed preliminary designs for the following projects:

• 2002: A crossing of the Saguenay River near Tadoussac, Quebec
• 2003: A replacement of the Gardiner Expressway in Toronto
• 2004: A twinning of the Peace Bridge across the Niagara River between Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo, USA
• 2005: A crossing of the St. Lawrence Seaway near Beauharnois, Quebec
• 2006: A replacement of the Bathurst Street Bridge over the railway lands near Fort York, Toronto

I have taught this course five times, from 2002 to the 2006.