Spare a thought for our Creators - Engineers

This is a newly-created site to disseminate news and views in relation to the building industry in New Zealand and worldwide and which will generally include wider concepts of infrastructure and the built environment. It is aimed to be of interest to all professionals in the building industry including architects, engineers, quantity surveyors, chartered surveyors, builders, and all others.

Since we all either live and work in buildings and many of us own or lease buildings this page will also be of interest to the wider public. As I am an engineer and chartered surveyor I propose to start by singing the praises of engineers.

Spare a thought for our Creators - Engineers

Every day most of us wake up with an alarm clock, turn on the tap and boil some water, cook some food, walk out to the pavement, drive a car, or take a bus, and head into an office or other place of work. These items are so much engrossed in our daily lives that we seldom consider how they originated. Society has developed over the ages, thanks to a dedicated, largely invisible, group of professional engineers and technologists. Professional engineers and technologists are the creators who designed and developed the alarm clock, designed and were responsible for the dam which supplied the electricity to boil the water and to cook the food, designed and were responsible for the construction of the pavement and road, designed the car and bus, supplied professional expertise to ensure that the office or place of work is strong enough to stand up against earthquake and wind forces, and to ensure an adequate supply of fresh indoor air.

There is no part of society in relation to our built environment which has not been created by engineers and technologists. They are trained and professionally qualified to adapt and modify the forces of nature so that our society is as comfortable and as suitable for us as we wish. In this way, it could be provocatively argued that they are society's primary health care providers, by providing such important requirements as clean drinking water, healthy nutritious food, secure and warm shelter and safe reliable transport.

Without professional engineering expertise our society would not have developed beyond the Stone Age.