If These Walls Could Talk: Understanding Historic Buildings

Historic buildings stand as a physical record of past events, including changes in material, technology, and culture. Their construction and behaviour are significantly different to modern buildings. This is often misunderstood, which leads to unsuitable repairs and unsympathetic alterations.

In this presentation, Structural Engineer, Jamie Paterson, will review typical issues affecting historic buildings and the techniques that can be used to investigate them.

This will be ideal for broking and claims professionals and is FREE to attend - with thanks to Hawkins.

The joining link will be providing on booking, using TEAMS.

The council of the Insurance Institute of Royal Tunbridge Wells.

About Jamie Paterson (taken from Hawkins website):

Jamie is a chartered structural engineer (CEng) with the Institution of Structural Engineers (MIStructE) and has broad experience covering onshore and offshore structures. He has developed a diverse range of skills across multiple sectors and has experience working nationally and internationally.

Jamie graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 2012 with a master’s degree in structural engineering with architecture. His studies concluded with the submission of his honours thesis, which investigated the efficiency of space frame structures. This required a significant period of research, investigation, analysis and physical testing.

Following graduation, Jamie joined a leading Oil and Gas services company as an offshore structural engineer. During this time he specialised in the design of fixed offshore platforms. This included the assessment of new and existing offshore structures under static, dynamic, accidental and fatigue conditions. Jamie was involved in several large projects across Europe and South America. This role took Jamie to various fabrication sites across Europe, including a 3-month secondment to Arbatax Fabrication Yard in Italy.

From 2016, Jamie continued to work as a structural engineer in the onshore environment. His onshore experience includes multi-storey residential, education, theatre, heritage, refurbishment and industrial buildings. Jamie was responsible for the management and technical design of several projects using conventional and novel building materials. During this period, Jamie also undertook detailed structural investigations of existing buildings, including listed buildings and monuments. He has experience in using destructive and non-destructive methods to investigate the integrity of building structures and is skilled in the development of remediation strategies.

Jamie has experience with modern design methods and low-energy buildings in the context of net zero. In 2022, Jamie became one of the first Passivhaus certified structural engineers in the UK. He was the lead structural engineer on City of Edinburgh Council’s first Passivhaus school building, which was constructed using cross-laminated timber (CLT).

Jamie joined Hawkins in 2023 as an Associate in our Glasgow office.

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