In the Thrall of the Designer

It is an old rant really, Engineers hate Designers because we want to build every building an easily calculated square and they want to make the world beautiful, or to put it from the engineers point of view, we want to make a building that stands up on its own, that people can get in and out of, and the job of the designer is to then make it look pretty.

Designers are important, they work on aesthetics and often more importantly ergonomics. While I will bring up some of the most stunningly beautiful structures and machines in the world, Concorde, Any suspension bridge, and point out that these are purely form from function, in many occasions a designers input is important. However, more and more I see Function following form rather than the other way round. There are many examples, but the two I'll focus on are general car design and Glasgow's town centre.

Many cars these days suffer the same problem, particularly luxury and sports cars, and that is a big fat generic looking boot. I wonder why the Sportier Jag's all have the back of a Ford Mondeo. Designers and reviewers will bemoan Golf, a sport I have no love for, for this, as the design spec calls for a boot to hold tow sets of golf clubs. Now forgive my ignorance, but isn't the designer's job to make that look good, what next "Why must this car have doors, your artless insistence on getting people in and out of the car will ruin the lines." Inf act designers have had it too easy, in days gone by, engineers would design the general layout of all the mechanical bits and the designers had various boxes to play around with to fit a certain amount of space for people and luggage into the design, somehow no they have this idea that unless we remove functional car parts they can't design something pretty. I call tosh and reach, through my non-arts student chip, (They got the easy course and women, how many girls at uni want to talk to an Engineer?) that they are stroppy artists, that they would draw a car and tell an engineer to make it real, as if we were magicians who can cram any parts into any space. I'd love to see a car manufacturer tell their designer to try again next time a big square boot is left where something far more exciting should be. Come on designer, Design.

More worrying is Glasgow city centre. Now it looks good, re-paved, good lighting and some nice work done with glass. However, some simple engineering factors clearly weren't taken into account, principally traction. Glasgow is a damp city, it rains. It rains A lot. The designer who came up with the new city centre streets decided that some dynamic looking metal strips along some steps would look great, and it does, but first spot of rain and it becomes the perfect place to loose your grip and I'm amazed there haven't been more serious falls. The same guy decided that the tactile surface at the pedestrian lights near Central Station were dull, and that instead of a precast slab, metal studs would look better, and they do. Of course like the metal strip they make for treacherous underfoot conditions when wet. In fact, my main issue is that Glasgow's standard weather has not been considered. Walk down Buchanan street on a wet day, its slippy as hell, the combination of water and traffic film seems to make whatever they paved the street in like an Ice Rink. Now Engineers have chart upon chart about what materials are suitable for what in what part of the country. I can only assume this was ignored in favour of "But it looks so good"

So, if engineers are so great, why don't people listen to them. Well, its because we're technical. When talking to MPs, managers etc, we're talking to laymen, and we're talking technical, even if we try and dumb it down. Ask any technical person, be it scientist, software engineer or site foreman, and having a layperson in charge is a pain, they are either threatened that a lack of understanding of technical details belittles them or they see the world in "You fix problems, not me" way. They like designers, they tell them what they want to hear, like "The Scottish Parliament building will be a timeless design that will last through the ages" of course its already looking dated.

Designers have their place, but at the moment it feels like the tail is wagging the dog and we are in the Thrall to highly paid arts students who have little in common with the designers who made the term better by design.