ASCE: Hands-On Experience Is Key To Historic Preservation Engineering

"Engineers on preservation projects may need to work more closely with architects and contractors than they might otherwise as well as with specialty craftspeople and various government agencies or preservation-focused entities to obtain approvals, funding, or even information.

And perhaps most significantly, historic preservation can demand a different way of thinking for engineers, notes Kunal Badheka, P.E., an associate principal at Thornton Tomasetti who has worked on numerous historic preservation projects.

“When restoring a building with a historic fabric or historic elements, you need to have the mindset of an architect,” Badheka says, by which he means that engineers need to think in terms of colors, textures, and other aesthetics as well as the technical aspects. He compares being a preservation engineer to “an orthopedic surgeon who also needs to have plastic surgery expertise.”"

Read more at Civil Engineering Source