Steel Detailing Practices: Using Global Variation to Envision Innovation

While architecture, engineering and construction continue to become more globally integrated, significant regional differences in practice continue. This paper explores the regional differences in structural steel detailing. There is significant global variation in who typically takes responsibility for the detailing (both for structural strength and for specifics of fabrication) of steel connections. Interviews with over thirty professionals (architects, engineers, fabricators and others) with expertise in ten countries and three regions of the US were completed to characterize four distinct methods of designing and detailing steel connections for construction. Case studies of three practices are presented to demonstrate established practices in which the distinction between engineer and fabricator is reduced or eliminated, explore the challenges and opportunities of the practice methods, provide examples for engineers, detailers and fabricators considering adaptation of their roles in an evolving market and present a framework for challenging basic assumptions and exploring alternate methods of project delivery.