From the Guinness Storehouse to the garment factories of Bangladesh, Aidan Madden of Arup says structural engineering encompasses everything: from designing structures to detective work and a bit of ghost-hunting too.
“My father is a carpenter, which was a fantastic introduction to making things, opening my eyes to engineering. I studied at UCD then applied to Arup. So many things appealed: Ove Arup was a philosopher as much as an engineer, he made the company an employee-owned trust, and they bring different disciplines together to create.
“Irishman Peter Rice, who worked for Arup on the design of the Sydney Opera House, used to talk about “having the courage to start”. Not every project is a Sydney Opera House, but it’s always varied.
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“We started working in Bangladesh through Inditex, one of the largest garment manufacturers in the world. After the disaster in Rana Plaza in 2013, where a building collapsed and more than a thousand people died, we were asked to go in and develop a methodology for assessing the structural safety.
“It’s a huge industry, employing more than four million people, many of whom are the only wage-earners in their family, so you can’t just go in and start over. We came up with a pragmatic approach for carrying out this work, focussed on critical life-safety issues ... So far we’ve done about 750 assessments.
“You go with a certain set of prejudices, and are often surprised. I went to one factory that makes 100,000 pairs of jeans every day. It’s a phenomenal business and the set-up was a far cry from my sweatshop preconception. But there are bad ones too. Of those 750, eleven needed to be closed, but around 50 per cent required immediate actions.
“When you’ve built something, you know how it works, but this is more like detective work. Working with older buildings, like the Guinness Storehouse, is different again. Then you’re breathing new life and you’re a ghost-hunter too, finding the stories.
Aidan Madden talks about Arup’s work in Bangladesh at Design Bites, Dublin Castle, on May 14th, and features in the Design Island exhibition at Dublin Airport.