Structural Solutions UK

We’re Hiring – Structural Engineer Opportunity! Are you a Structural Engineer looking for your next challenge? Join Structural Solutions, an employee-owned consultancy in Bristol, where you’ll have the opportunity to work on a diverse range of projects and be part of a collaborative and supportive team. What We Offer: Competitive salary & benefits package Profit-related bonuses Career development & training support Employee Ownership Trust (EOT) – have a stake in our success! 26 days annual leave + Bank Holidays Private medical insurance & company pension Regular social activities & bi-weekly team catch-ups We work on projects ranging from £50K to £5M, using concrete, steel, masonry, and timber to design high-quality, innovative structures. If you’re passionate about engineering and enjoy working in a dynamic environment, we’d love to hear from you! Minimum 3 years' post-grad experience required Chartered or working towards chartership (IStructE or ICE) Proficiency in TEDDS, Robot, AutoCAD, Revit, Bluebeam & Microsoft Office Apply directly (no agencies) by sending your CV & cover letter to admin@structuralsolutions.co.uk. Successful candidates will receive a joining bonus (T&Cs apply).

Here we have a contemporary family home built to PassivHaus standards on a challenging sloping site in Portishead. The sloping site required retaining walls and a staged construction sequence to ensure the stability of the ground and adjacent buildings during construction. The main structure is load bearing masonry with engineered timber floors and a timber roof supported on a central steel frame. An insulated raft foundation solution minimises thermal bridging to help achieve PassivHaus standards. Architect: Barefoot Architects #slopingsite #passivhaus #structuralsolutions #structuralengineering

Recently, we enjoyed another great site visit event with The Green Register. It's an end of Victorian terrace dwelling in a difficult site location, built by Ben East of Earthwise Construction. The Green Register is a leading training organisation that promotes sustainable construction, based in Bristol. They hold regular training events and site visits. This one in particular was a house construction is glulam beams with engineered I-joists. The house has all the usual eco-features, including MVHR, air source, PV's and battery, as well as a living green roof. It's always good to see a project in progress. Contractor: Earthwise Construction Architect: Taus Larsen - TL Architecture #greenregister #training #sustainableconstruction #structuralsolutions #structuralengineering

This month's Employee Spotlight is on one of our Associate Engineers - Matteo! He has been with us for 9 years and is an incredibly industrious and dependable member of the team. His professional attitude is a great example to younger engineers and he has become our go to person for advice on timber structures. “Previously, I worked for Architecture firms in Italy and Ireland, focusing on refurbishments and interior design. Although I enjoy structural design in general, my passion is timber structures. At StruSol, I have been lucky enough to be exposed to a variety of timber projects, from small bungalows to traditional oak frames, and multi-storey buildings. Over the years, I have worked with numerous clients that have helped me, together with my colleagues, deepening my knowledge in the field.” #employeespotlight #structuralengineer #structuralsolutions #timberstructures 

Reciprocal roofs are an intriguing structural form where a spiral arrangement of timber rafters is used to bridge a span far greater than the rafters, with no internal support! Roundwood (a.k.a. tree trunks) or large sections of regularised lumber, are used for the posts, beams and rafters. To begin with a circular ring of tie beams is erected on posts to form the perimeter wall, which can be closed in or left open sided. The principal rafters align with each post, most commonly 6 to 12 rafters and posts. The magic begins with a single rafter supported by a temporary post inside the space, at an angle predetermined in collaboration with us, the engineer. The client or designer specifies the outer diameter and number of posts, and the internal aperture diameter is then determined by the roof pitch. A lower pitch creates a larger aperture, which is usually filled in by a lantern roof or a simple flat roof. A second rafter is notched onto the first, and so on, until they are all in place. The junctions are bolted together, or pegged as you see here, to stop them sliding across each other. Finally, everyone stands well back while some brave soul knocks out the temporary prop! For larger roofs there are sometimes secondary rafters - supported by the ring beams, as you can see in these pictures of a large space created with Down to Earth in Little Bryn Gwyn. The logs are then decked for the chosen roof covering; often a sedum roof, or in this case a full depth green roof. The result is this visually mesmerising vaulted space, and a wonderful green building that blends into the surrounding nature. #DownToEarth #Reciprocalroof #timberstructure #structuralsolutions #vaultedroof

We’re currently analysing and detailing a large steelwork frame for an industrial building in Somerset, with administration offices, canteen and a landscaped first floor terrace. This full 3d computer model, created with Tekla Structural Designer software, is essential for analysing structural behaviour, such as deflections in the heavily loaded floors, and wind movement. It also illustrates the curved roof, and enormous floor voids for tall plant spaces, and galleries for visitors to witness the production processes.  In order to save steel where possible, larger span internal beams have been designed as “cellular beams”, i.e. beams with circular holes in the web plate, using Cellbeam software. For the longest and most heavily loaded primary beams, we have opted for bespoke “plated beams”, designed using Fbeam software. Some of the deep plated beams will transfer column loads across 10.7m spans, to achieve the required open spaces at ground floor level. #industrialbuilding #steelworkframe #steelframework #offices #3dmodel #heavyloadfloor #commercialproject #cellularbeams #platedbeams #structuralsolutions #structuralengineering 

As we approach the annual Brit Awards it seems only right to show you one of our fun sculptural projects! We are sometimes appointed to assist with bespoke temporary projects like these personified "electricity pylons" for the 2022 Brit Awards ceremony. The Pylons formed part of the stage set and were based on the Brit Awards statue. One statue was tilted in two directions and the other was given the appearance of a ‘broken’ structure, with the top section suspended from the roof above a bottom section resting on the stage floor. The statues were fabricated using steel angle and plate sections triangulated like an electricity pylon. The stiff but light-weight structures needed concrete ballast blocks on the leg bases to prevent them from toppling. We analysed the complex geometry using computational fluid dynamic (CFD) software to assess the effect of varying wind pressures in the bulding during installation, and in their permanent tilted position. Construction & Fabrication : Four-Square Productions Ltd #britawards #pylonsculpture #stageengineering #pylons #structuralsolutions #structuralengineering

This marvellous oast barn conversion was an RIBA award winner in 1998 and also featured on Channel 4’s “Restoration Man.” The grade II listed Oast House in Kent was stylishly adapted with many unique features, such as impossibly slender individual stair treads projecting inwards from the central roundel wall. A smaller timber barn was lifted as a single entity to stand perpendicular to the oast barn, and a stunning fully glazed link passageway has a wafer thin flat roof edge supported by fine flitched hardwood posts and tapered tee beams. Everything about this project was iteratively refined until it could not be improved! Architect: Nick Kidwell, RIBA Award 1998 #oasthouse #barnconversion #restorationman #istedbuilding #ribaaward #structuralsolutions #structuralengineering

Our February Employee Spotlight is on Engineering Undergraduate Jessica! Having been with us on placement for the last 6 months, we have loved having her as part of the team and look forward to seeing her progress. "I enjoy how Structural Solutions works as one big unit. I get the opportunity to interact and work with everyone on diverse projects and receive great tailored advice from different perspectives. I find timber frame projects particularly intriguing as they present different challenges to traditionally masonry structures, and I appreciate how they can help push the construction industry in a more eco-positive direction. One of my very first projects I got to work on when I started at Structural Solutions was the BSWN. The project involves a two-storey, locally listed building fronting Upper York Street, connected to an adjoining three-storey structure. Proposed works involve internal alterations and extensions to create a mixed-use small business centre. This is one of the biggest projects I’ve worked on, and I’ve had the opportunity to attend multiple site visits and sit in on meetings, giving me valuable insight into all the stages of a construction project. I have continued to work on this project throughout my six months here and I am hopeful I will see the beginning of the construction stages by the time my placement concludes. I am looking forward to gaining experience on diverse projects of all scales and hopefully one day using my degree and the lessons I have learnt on my placement at Structural Solutions to become a chartered engineer." #employeespotlight #structuralsolutions #structuralengineering #engineer

This week we’d like to show you this delightfully crisp and modern garden room extension (2019 in fact). As you can see it is fully glazed and has a long glazed roof slot adjacent to the house - so there’s plenty of light. Even the slender steel posts are nice and square! The slim edgeline of the overhanging roof is achieved with thermally broken tapered steel sprockets (for those who care). Architect: David James Robinson Architects Contractor: Stephen Graver Photographer: Pete Helme #gardenextension #glazedwalls #roofoverhang #structuralsolutions #structuralengineering