Frame designer

This is a traditional engineering role in an unusually collaborative setting. The Frame designer must be an experienced, appropriately qualified structural engineer with the judgement required for the project, its jurisdiction and its intended life. They must also be an excellent technical communicator: almost every part of the frame depends on an interface agreed with another specialist.

The principal deliverable is the specification of the project’s paired accommodation frames and service frames. It must be complete enough for competent manufacturers to make conforming components and for the assembled frames to support the building throughout its permitted configurations.

The definition covers the structural arrangement, members, nodes, connections, bracing, load paths, materials, tolerances, corrosion and fire protection, attachment provisions and assembly. It also addresses manufacture, transport, erection, inspection, maintenance, repair, replacement and eventual disassembly. The structure must remain adequate when cells are occupied, vacant or changing rather than being designed for a single frozen module arrangement.

The Frame designer receives the overall brief and project geometry from the Building designer, then develops the frame pair through direct coordination with the other specialists:

• Modules and facades. Agree cell geometry, tolerances, attachment and facade interfaces with the Module designer. The two sides of the module-to-frame interface must form one compatible definition, defined through the module jig owned by the Building designer.
• People and utilities. Agree pathways, clearances, penetrations, supports, access and maintainability with the Services designer. Service-frame routes must work for circulation as well as for the building’s utilities.
• Ground. Agree geometry, reactions, fixings, tolerances, service entries and construction sequence with the Foundation designer.
• Roof. Agree support, restraint, movement, drainage, weathering, access and services interfaces with the Roof designer.
• Safety. Work continuously with the Safety officer so that structural safety, fire performance, safe access and every relevant construction and operating state are addressed.

Building engineering studies—including analysis of strength, stability, racking, twisting, vibration and other relevant behaviours—may be carried out by external specialists. Those studies test the Frame designer’s proposed specification. They do not replace the specification or transfer responsibility for coordinating the frame design.

The Frame designer identifies the required studies, supplies their design cases and assumptions, reviews their findings and updates the frame definition where necessary. The evidence and acceptance criteria should make clear which configurations and limits have been verified.

The Frame designer maintains the frame elements of the building specification, including their referenced calculations, drawings, interface definitions, manufacturing requirements, verification evidence and acceptance criteria. Changes are coordinated with every affected specialist before dependent work is treated as settled.

The Site office controls the project record and confirms the specification’s controlled administrative state. It does not approve the structural engineering recorded there; technical approval remains with the appropriately competent people.

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