MATT STREID Matt W. Streid, SE is a Senior Associate at MKA with design experience ranging from low-rise office campus developments, to high-rise office and mixed-use projects across the U.S. He has applied his expertise to the designs of developments, such as Seattle’s Amazon Block 20, Chicago’s 87-story Aqua, and Atlanta’s T3 heavy timber office building. Matt is actively involved in MKA’s High-Rise and Office Technical Specialist Teams, and in the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, having led the pilot Chapter of the Young Professionals Committee.
W H AT D O YOU BE LI E VE IS T H E RO LE OF TH E ST R U CT U R AL E N G I N E E R ?
I think that we’re trying to support the vision of the architect and the owner. Our role is to be the structural consultant to the architects. They engage us to solve the structural challenges on the project. That’s who we are today, that’s who structural engineers have always been, but I think that there is a continued evolution. There is focus on expertise across the industry. It is no longer just an architect, there are consultants for every aspect of a building you can imagine. As the structural engineer, we are now going to be involved in a project for much longer, and for a much more detailed duration than the rest of your consulting engineers. Architects tend to like us because we’re the ones who understand the whole scope of the project. A structural engineer touches seven or eight projects for every project that an architect touches, and what that means is that we have a lot more exposure to what’s happening in different projects. As generalists, we’re not just the structural engineer that’s sizing the columns and beams, but we are the general consultant to help the project be successful.
“PHYSICS IS PHYSICS.”