Goce is our Canberra Structures Lead. Over 19 years in the industry, his career has grown through a diverse range of government, commercial, defence, residential, healthcare and other specialised projects.
Goce has an in-depth and solid understanding of the NCC including all Australian Standards relevant to structural engineering and supplementary standards that are applicable to more specialised consulting.
Here, he reflects on deconstructing remote-controlled cars, curiosity and what he predicts for the future of structural and civil engineering. Goce also shares some insights on a recent career highlight, the Chatswood Chase Shopping Centre redevelopment.
What inspired you to become an engineer?
I remember receiving a toy remote-controlled car as a gift when I was about 5 or 6 years old, and after playing with it for a couple of days I ended up taking it apart to see how it worked. From an early age I realised I was very curious about discovering how things were designed and how they functioned. This trait developed further throughout my childhood and as I approached my final years of high school a career in engineering was an obvious direction.
Why structural or civil engineering?
It is a job that I really enjoy, and no two projects are the same so you are constantly learning. Structures are generally designed for 50 or 100 life cycles, so a structural engineer’s contribution and responsibility to a project usually extends over a longer period to other disciplines. Seeing how the technical design work becomes something tangible is one of the most rewarding parts of the profession. I like to visit completed projects and see how the community uses and interacts with a building or structure I have designed (or have had some involvement with).
What’s your career highlight project?
Contributing to the redevelopment of the Chatswood Chase Shopping Centre has been a challenging but really rewarding project. The centre will have a completely refurbished lower ground floor food court and additional tenancy space once construction is complete. As part of the current works, multidiscipline engineering modifications and new works will be completed in spaces the public do not see including loading docks, mechanical plant rooms and service risers. A lot of work has been done behind the scenes by a lot of different people.
Tell us about the structural or civil engineering on this project.
Designing new and additional structures to work with the existing spaces is always the major challenge with existing buildings. You can’t simply increase the size of structural elements as in new builds, so the engineering solutions require more thought and additional design iterations. We worked closely with the entire design team to consider and integrate construction sequencing to allow the shopping centre to continue to operate throughout the construction phase. Like all projects, safety in design is a critical and important part of a project and for Chatswood Chase we needed to extend this aspect to include the personnel completing the construction works and the public within the shopping centre.
What innovative new approaches are you seeing when it comes to structural or civil?
I think the two major areas of innovation will be the continued development of sustainable materials and the expanded use of digital technologies (AI, augmented reality, virtual reality etc.).
There will be a shift into hybrid building structures becoming common, with mass timber being combined with cement reduced concrete.
Digital development will reduce everyday repetitive tasks and design iterations within engineering workflows, and I also think the data generated during the design phases will be better utilised throughout the construction phase of projects. I can see sharing data between extended project design teams, building owner(s), the people using the building and maintenance teams becoming an even more critical part of a structure’s life cycle.
