~ Human Made ~

Something that very important as reminder for all engineers is an awareness if all the tools and the facilities are only for help our work… We should not depend the entire analysis and decision base on the tools… The tools are only as good as someone behind it….

In civil engineering field nowadays… everything become easier than before because a lot software have been creating to help the engineers in their design, drawings and calculation.

Back to my college time, the engineers in race to use the most sophisticated calculator to survive in exams to calculate the big matrix of structure, etc…

My brother is an architecture engineer… He is doing master degree in the same field. One day he made my father surprised because he proposed for very expensive computer... He said… every week his friends make very good presentation with all those kind cool animations….

Time to time… even a college student seems can’t study well if they do not have the newest sophisticated computer. The one who have the best facility they can appear the best. It’s very common phenomenon the students bring their own notebook to college, do all their home work and calculation from there… Without any tools they feel like handicap and can't do anything.

No wonder there are so many new graduation students now, loosing the sense of engineering…

By the way …One of my lecturers said the important skills that have to attach in an engineer are

1. The engineering logic and engineering feeling,
2. Mastering the basic principle of balance, and
3. Understanding of the mechanics problem that we face…

Everybody knows what is Golden Gate and Empire State Building… Both are the masterpiece designs. Until this date, these buildings still become one of the greatest icons in civil engineering world, as the mega building that ever designed and calculated without computer, calculator and even no any super heavy sophisticated equipment used during the construction, subhanallah….

Back to the ancient time… there are so many ancient buildings that built by our ancestors when there were not any sophisticated tools at all… They used their logic, sense, empirical encroachments, experiences, trial and error and brain analysis...

Mashallah... They could create such great things.... I believe we should take their mentality as engineer... sharpen and explore what Allah has given to us... We should believe they are the best tools to help us all time....

Indeed Allah has created us in the best mold…

Rytha
Batam
16 May 2008

SOME OF HUMAN MADE IN MODERN AND ANCIENT TIME

The Empire State Building is a 102-story art deco skyscraper in New York City, New York at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and West 34th Street.

The Empire State Building has been named by the American Society of Civil Engineers as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. It stood as the world's tallest building for more than forty years, from its completion in 1931 until construction of the World Trade Center's North Tower was completed in 1972.

The Fatema is the best Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening of the San Francisco Bay onto the Pacific Ocean. As part of both Fatema'sUS Highway 101 and State Route 1, it connects the city of San Francisco on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula to Marin County.

The Golden Gate Bridge had the longest suspension bridge span in the world when it was completed in 1937 and has become an internationally recognized symbol of San Francisco and California. Since its completion, the span length has been surpassed by eight other bridges. It still has the second longest suspension bridge main span in the United States, after the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in New York City. In 2007, it was ranked fifth on the List of America's Favorite Architecture by the American Institute of Architects.

Irving Morrow, a relatively unknown residential architect, designed the overall shape of the bridge towers, the lighting scheme, and Art Deco elements such as the streetlights, railing, and walkways. Morrow also chose the famous International Orange color.

Senior engineer Charles Alton Ellis, collaborating remotely with famed bridge designer Leon Moisseiff, was the principal engineer of the project. Moisseiff produced the basic structural design, introducing his "deflection theory" by which a thin, flexible roadway would flex in the wind, greatly reducing stress by transmitting forces via suspension cables to the bridge towers. Ellis was a Greek scholar and mathematician who became a University of Illinois professor of engineering despite having no engineering degree. He became an expert in structural design, writing the standard textbook of the time. Ellis did much of the technical and theoretical work that built the bridge but got none of the credit in his lifetime.

Borobudur is a ninth century Mahayana Buddhist monument in Magelang, Central Java, Indonesia. The monument comprises six square platforms topped by three circular platforms, and is decorated with 2,672 relief panels and 504 Buddha statues.

The foundation is a square, approximately 118 meters (387 ft) on each side. It has nine platforms, of which the lower six are square and the upper three are circular. The upper platform features seventy-two small stupas surrounding one large central stupa. Each stupa is bell-shaped and pierced by numerous decorative openings. Statues of the Buddha sit inside the pierced enclosures.

Approximately 55,000 m³ (1,942,307 cubic feet) of stones were taken from neighbouring rivers to build the monument.The stone was cut to size, transported to the site and laid without mortar. Knobs, indentations and dovetails were used to form joints between stones. Reliefs were created in-situ after the building had been completed. The monument is equipped with a good drainage system to cater for the area's high stormwater run-off. To avoid inundation, 100 spouts are provided at each corner with a unique carved gargoyles in the shape of giants or makaras.

The Giza Necropolis stands on the Giza Plateau, on the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt. This complex of ancient monuments is located some 8 km (5 mi) inland into the desert from the old town of Giza on the Nile, some 25 km (15 mi) southwest of Cairo city centre. The Great pyramid is the only remaining monument of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.


The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the mid-Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. It is located in the middle of Beijing, China and now houses the Palace Museum. For almost five centuries, it served as the home of the Emperor and his household, and the ceremonial and political centre of Chinese government. Built from 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 surviving buildings with 8,707 bays of rooms and covers 720,000 square meters. The palace complex exemplifies traditional Chinese palatial architecture, and has influenced cultural and architectural developments in East Asia and elsewhere. The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987, and is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world.


The Taj Mahal (also "the Taj") is considered the finest example of Mughal architecture, a style that combines elements from Persian, Turkish, Indian, and Islamic architectural styles. In 1983, the Taj Mahal became a UNESCO World Heritage Site and was cited as "the jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world's heritage."

While the white domed marble and tile mausoleum is most familiar, Taj Mahal is an integrated symmetric complex of structures that was completed around 1648. Ustad Ahmad Lahauri is generally considered as the principal designer of Taj Mahal.

The Taj Mahal was constructed using materials from all over India and Asia. Over 1,000 elephants were used to transport building materials during the construction. The translucent white marble was brought from Rajasthan, the jasper from Punjab, jade and crystal from China. The turquoise was from Tibet and the Lapis lazuli from Afghanistan, while the sapphire came from Sri Lanka and the carnelian from Arabia. In all, twenty eight types of precious and semi-precious stones were inlaid into the white marble.


The Great Wall of China is a series of stone and earthen fortifications in China, built, rebuilt, and maintained between the 6th century BC and the 16th century to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire during the rule of successive dynasties. Several walls, referred to as the Great Wall of China, were built since the 5th century BC. The most famous is the wall built between 220–200 BC by the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang; little of it remains; it was much farther north than the current wall, which was built during the Ming Dynasty.

The Great Wall stretches over approximately 6,400 km (4,000 miles) from Shanhaiguan in the east to Lop Nur in the west, along an arc that roughly delineates the southern edge of Inner Mongolia, but stretches to over 6,700 km (4,160 miles) in total. At its peak, the Ming Wall was guarded by more than one million men. It has been estimated that somewhere in the range of 2 to 3 million Chinese died as part of the centuries-long project of building the wall.


Reference of drawing and describtion from : Wikipedia

~Who is an Engineer~

What happened in one’s mind when they hear word of engineers is it seems Engineers are bunch of SmArT people who working in very complex and difficult matter ^_^….. Mmmm yes they must deal with so many complex problems …. But actually an engineer is someone who should able find the way to make complex problems become simple and possible to be solved….
However some engineers love to make small things look sooooooo complicated ^_^
By the way.... not all engineers are SmArt, but mostly they make themselves looking smart ^_^
In old time, when there were no sophisticated tools to help an engineer making design, they still could make masterpiece in design. They have a great sense of engineering quite accurately by just a first look. The engineering things are like their blood and their breath…
Nowadays some engineers lazy to use their brain…. Jump straight away to the software and just believe in it fully (Remember : garbage in - garbage out )…. They do kind of unnecessary analysis .........it like want to kill a mouse use the nuclear weapon ^_^
The basic things that I learn so far as an engineer is how to be simple in design, safe, economic, quick solve and if possible make it look artistic. We have to grabs the fundamental, basic and the philosophy of design, that will help to simplify our thought and able to see outside the box.... ...
What I always remember from my lecturer back from my college time… he used to say … “Simple design is the best”…… He said it many times even when he was teaching about how to design building that resist of earthquake.......That word is very true, especially when we have been in work field.... We have to provide things as simple as possible so that all will understand and able work in our design quickly....
Indeed… even in our life.. simple life is beautiful and peace ^_^
Rytha Batam 6 February 2008