Employer Norman Disney & Young Consulting Engineers State/Province Queensland (Australia) Title Project Engineer (Full-time) Employment Dates Feb. 1987 — May. 1989 Duration 100% (2 years, 3 months)
Tasks and Duties As a member of a thriving Mechanical and Electrical Engineering firm Norman Disney and Young (NDY. At NDY I joined fellow engineers to provided peer-review as well as my own lead on projects that were assigned to me. Working with CAD and word-processing technicians, I generally provided analysis, calculations, schematic and design development, contract documentation, tender review, and construction progress assessments of HVAC for commercial, medical and institutional developments in south east Queensland, Australia. This was in the buildup for Brisbane hosting the Expo 1988 World’s Fair and Australian Bicentennial Celebration, after our firm had designed building services for the new Australian Parliament, an earth-covered exemplar of innovative architecture. At the time of joining NDY I had been accepted at the University of Queensland to commence postgraduate studies on underground architecture, but elected instead to join NDY because of the firm’s leadership in shallow underground architecture, with my initial assignment to “Queen Street Down Under” development. Although not all of my schematic designs were developed, some were as detailed under “representative projects”. Our grand ambition of fully developing the subsurface of Queen Street with an ambient network (5th generation district heating/cooling loop) from a sea water heat exchanger in old Customs House did not make a successful business case at the time, but primed me for subsequent district cooling work I designed for Queenland Government and more recently postdoctoral research in the UK.
Representative Projects Wesley Hospital, I designed and supervised commissioning of piped medical gases in the obstetrics/genecology wing. I also designed ventilation containment of radio-isotope hot-benches in the hospital, including exhaust stack injection well above the building boundary layer. Also I designed acoustic screening of the hospital cooling towers so as to mitigate complaints from neighbors.
Expo ‘88 Suncorp Pavilion, I designed evaporative cooling at the client’s direction after having warned them that humidity would likely become uncomfortably humid by October 1987. And sure enough the client requested additional serves to replace evaporative cooling, and so I worked with mechanical services the contractor during the World’s Fair Exhibition period to replace the HVAC installation without disturbing international visitors.
Carindale Regional Shopping Centre Redevelopment. I provided site surveys of existing plant and developed a schematic design for extensive expansion of the shopping center. With mentorship from senior engineer Russell Brothers I convinced the architect to avoid the direct solar load associated with horizontal skylights. We won the consultancy services and I subsequently led design development and contract documentation of HVAC. With the assistance of Eddie Groves we implemented carbon monoxide monitoring process-control of carpark ventilation systems to a speed controlled system to reduce energy costs while maintaining safety of air quality.