This is the second of a two-part post spotlighting DCI’s female engineers and associates during Women’s History Month. We asked our staff about their science/technology/engineering/math (STEM) female role models. We are sharing their picks and additional background stories.

When there is a TI work request, a tenant of a commercial space – often an office or retail space – requires structural expertise commonly in the form of anchoring for architectural features.

Our Portland office has seen their fair share of historic adaptive reuse projects. This post focuses on two specific projects completed in the city’s Old Town/Chinatown District, and another in the Central Eastside neighborhood. Each building has its own revival story and collection of before-and-after photos.

Mexico City skyline

When designing a building, a structural engineer is concerned with two important factors: strength and stability. If an engineer misses either of the two things, a design might end up being a fiasco. Consider strength and stability as two sides of a same coin. When you use an umbrella during a windy situation, what happens to it? It losses its stability and turns inside out, but it does not break. This is a fine example of strength vs stability.

Engineering may be a science, but that doesn’t mean there’s not art and beauty to be found in our built environment.

We asked our staff which movies they thought are most notable for featuring engineering concepts that either saved the movie's main character(s), was praised or successful in the film, or key to the movie's storyline. Some of the films involve mechanical and aeronautical engineering, some actually featured structural engineering. If you haven't seen these, be sure to check them out on Netflix or your favorite movie channel. Maybe there are movies you would add to the list.

A developer weighing whether to pull the trigger on building a high-rise hotel or condominium project has to consider a myriad of factors. Is the market for their product ripe? Are interest rates advantageous? Does the project pencil out financially?

April 1st, 2015 marked the two year anniversary of the merge between DCI Engineers and Structural Design Engineers (SDE), a San Francisco firm founded by Raj Sahai in 1984. Now as part of DCI’s leadership team, Principals Raj Sahai and Jack Laws provide valuable insight into San Francisco’s architectural and engineering community and culture. This blog begins a series of posts about their structural engineering achievements for the city.