Structural Engineering Services for Architects

At McElhaney Structural Engineers, we love working with architects early on and throughout the design and construction process. As we like to say, if you can dream it, we can figure out how to get it built—on time, on budget, and safely, from a structural point of view.

Since 2006, architects and residential designers throughout the West have relied on a solid working relationship with McElhaney Structural Engineers to determine two key things: 1) constructability of a design concept, and 2) “feedback,” or value engineering a design concept to make it feasible and affordable to build.

• Constructability The world’s greatest architects frequently conceptualize dramatic structures made of glass and steel, wood, stone, and other modern building materials that, as designs, can resemble crumpled-up pieces of paper or the myriad billowing sails of a tall ship. How do they get these designs built? By working closely with talented structural engineers, who understand materials, physics, and mathematics and who can analyze extremely complex design concepts to ensure that what emanates from the designer’s mind is, indeed, constructible. Structural engineers add value to the designer’s concept by assessing, testing, and serving as a valued partner in the design process, recommending materials, fasteners, and other structural elements that make a structure constructible without materially altering the aesthetics the architect had in mind.

• Value Engineering In a similar vein, architects who foster a close working relationship with structural engineering firms benefit early on and throughout the design/build process from “feedback” from engineers about material choices and other elements of the design that may require sensitive adjustments so that the structure can be built within the owner’s budget, timeline, or other stated parameters while honoring the intent of the architect who designed it.