Getting Started in Building Design

[SPruitt]

I would like to know if there are any design classes or good books to read to get more familiar with the intricacies of building design. I am a licensed structural engineer, but my professional career has not lead me into building design. I work at a small firm assisting steel fabricators, but I would like to branch out into building design and I don't know where to start. I have a few professional acquaintances who have offered to let me review their calculations, but I am worried that I will miss something when I start designing my own structures. I appreciate any help that anyone can give me.

 

[Boiler106]

You can start with getting a subscription to AISC's Modern Steel Magazine

 

[SPruitt]

I do have a subscription to that magazine. Thank you for suggesting that. It's not that I'm totally ignorant about building design in general. I just don't know the rules of thumb (where to put bracing and how often you need braced bays, when to use composite floors vs non-composite, spacing of columns, etc). I would love to attend a seminar to go over all these things in detail so that I don't inadvertently forget something.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

I went through a similar period in my career. I spent the first 6 years of my career working on heavy industrial projects. Power plants, refineries, etc. Zero architectural consideration. Very low occupancy. My thoughts:
1) AISC has a good Design Guide on facade attachments to steel framed buildings. This is my personal area of weakness as early in my career I worked on a lot of "building like" non-building structures. But, they had no cladding.

2) Open web steel joists. This is used a lot for roofs and such for low rise commercial buildings whereas I never saw them in the heavy industrial projects. The best place to start with this stuff is the the following:
a) The Steel Joist Institute has a ton of resources available.
b) Vulcraft has their SJI spec and tables and such (free download?).
c) There is a short book / guide called "designing with Steel Joists, Joist Girders and Steel Deck". Jim Fisher is one of the authors. I can look it up for more details if you like.
d) There are some good Steel Tips and articles and such on camber which (in my experience) is more important for composite beam design than other things.

3) Composite Beam Design: These aren't as difficult as you might think. I'd start with the code itself. Then look at a bunch of details from a friend's drawings. And, play with a program that does composite beams (RAM, ETABS, RISAFloor or such)

4) Cold formed steel: Used a ton for partition walls and drop ceilings and such. I don't have a whole lot of suggestions on this. Hopefully someone else can pipe in.

5) Floor vibration. AISC design guide 11 is the main reference. But, other people will have "rules of thumb" and such that they use to try and avoid vibration issues.

I've focused mostly on commercial low rise buildings in my response. Mostly because you have to know a lot about those before you can extend your knowledge into mid rise which is more of the same, but probably with some additional considerations.

 

[SPruitt]

JoshPlumSE - thank you so much for your informative response. I too worked in the industrial field for a number of years before working with steel fabricators so I appreciate your perspective. I will review the resources you have mentioned and see if there is anything I'm missing. I think it would be helpful to design a structure along side someone else and see how we arrive at the final design.