concrete shell

Let me make an important point:  As interesting as some of the details I discuss in these columns may be, many of the more significant ones wouldn't have any substance or value to my clients without the contributions of one very important person:  my friend Mark Smith of Tarzana, Calif., whose firm takes care of my structural engineering. I'd go so far to say that he and his staff are critically important external members of my design team - professionals who know more than I will ever know about steel, concrete, tension and compression.   Every single project I design and build is fully, individually engineered, and I refuse to make any assumptions on my own about what might be