Graduate Façade Engineer London 2022

From helping shape entire cities to adapting infrastructure to deal with the climate emergency, a career at Buro Happold presents the chance to make a difference. With a world class reputation, our creativity and our people have delivered positive change to clients, the environment, and communities alike. If you want to be part of something bigger, this is your chance.

Façade engineering

The quality of the 'skin' of your building is about much more than achieving the aesthetic vision, it's about buildability, efficiency and long term sustainability.

What makes a façade function properly? Apart from the obvious, like weather resistance, airtightness and making sure it doesn't fall off the building, a big consideration is the energy impact on the building itself. An efficient, buildable façade makes for a better building and we work constantly to provide more efficient skins.

A thorough knowledge of the way in which façades are constructed means a client can trust us with a project from concept design, through to 'nuts and bolts' of construction, during the operation and maintenance of the façade and all the way through to consideration of refurbishment/re-purposing options. Whether this is for an intricate design such as for the Louvre, Abu Dhabi, or the grandeur of Hamad International Airport, Qatar with vertical glass façade systems more than 25 metres in height, we apply engineering rigour.

What sort of projects would I work on?

Whiteleys Redevelopment, London - This interesting multi-use project in a Grade II listed building combines the design of large precast and glazing systems with specialist advice to historic facades. The strength of out advice for both new build and conservation allowed us to support the Client in important planning discussions and to develop innovative glazing solutions that will be a benchmark in years to come for conservation projects. Our team is also closely advising the client in the assessment and monitoring of the historic fabric during construction. This will ensure that future generations will be able to enjoy the significance of the building for years to come.

Bee’ah Headquarters, UAE - Dedicated to enabling an environmentally responsible future for the region, Bee’ah advocates revolutionary strategies for utilising renewable energy sources and setting benchmarks for sustainability. The organisation’s new headquarters needed to embody their ethos and vision. Formed to evoke the impression of intersecting sand dunes, the awe-inspiring building features a sweeping curved exterior. By using our previous knowledge of geometrically complex buildings, such as Glasgow Museum of Transport in Scotland, and City of Dreams in Macau, we were able to apply our expertise to realise this striking long span structure. The result draws comparisons with an enormous three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle, featuring a system of parallel structural steel ribs that were prefabricated off site. This approach meant that the components could be easily transported and then assembled using typical skills and equipment found on any construction site.

Which degree could I be studying towards

• Architecture Engineering
• Façade Engineering 
• Civil Engineering
• Structural Engineering
• Sustainability
• Building Physics
• Architecture 

Role description

• Assist in developing jobs technically from initial client ideas, using various materials such as: aluminium, steel, concrete, stone, glass and timber. Understand architectural component detail design including aesthetics.
• Deliver work in a timely and technically competent manner.
• Increase your awareness of basic weather performance issues, basic building physics including ventilation, solar gain control, thermal insulation and glare control.
• Develop your experience of the practical aspects of handling and fabricating typical cladding materials.
• Understand the design life of various façade components and materials and have the opportunity to inspect existing buildings to understand what failure or a defect looks like.
• Hone your understanding of international standards and building codes. (For example British Standards, Eurocodes, International Building Code, UBC, Aluminium Design Manual, Australian and NZ standards, ASTM Standards, Saudi Building Code.)
• Work with other teams and gain an awareness of the problems and constraints of the other major design disciplines such as Architectural, Structures, Building Services/MEP, Fire Engineering, Acoustics, and computer modelling.
• Develop strong design leadership on façade issues to the rest of the Client's design team.
• Maintain good client relations throughout the job.
• Improve your competency across various software such as Autodesk Robot, STAAD, Strand, SAP2000, MEPLA and Therm.

Benefits

We have recently adopted a new framework focussed on early careers development. This allows our Graduates to learn the fundamentals of design and technology whilst building a base in consulting and professional skills. This is a blended learning programme where participants gain experience against our internal professional and technical frameworks in relation to their specialism.

We see membership of a professional body and professional registration as crucial to the development of our engineers and offer substantial support to those aspiring to achieve this. Therefore we will support employees to achieve the highest level of membership and registration their academic background allows.

In addition, we provide our graduates a unique platform named the Young Engineers Forum (YEF). This is a community organised by our young engineers in Buro Happold to welcome you into the practice and provide a network to support and share in your future growth.