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Leslie E. Robertson

 
Wikipedia: Leslie E. Robertson
Leslie Earl Robertson
Personal information
Nationality US
Birth date 1928 (age 80)
Work
Engineering Discipline Structural engineer
Institution memberships Institution of Structural Engineers
Practice name Leslie E. Robertson Associates
Significant projects World Trade Center
Shanghai World Financial Centre
Bank of China Tower, Hong Kong
Significant Awards IStructE Gold Medal

Leslie Earl Robertson (born 1928) was one of the chief engineers of the World Trade Center in New York, which was destroyed in the September 11, 2001 attacks and was responsible for the design of the buildings' sway-reduction features. He has since been structural engineer on numerous other projects, including the Shanghai World Financial Center and the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong.

Contents

Career

Robertson's engineering career began in 1952, when he graduated from the Berkeley school of civil engineering with a bachelor of science degree and joined Kaiser Engineering. In 1958 he joined the structural and civil engineering firm Skilling, Ward, Magnusson, Barkshire (SWMB). As an "up-and-coming engineer", Robertson was contracted by Worthington, Skilling, Helle, and Jackson (WSHJ) to participate in the design of the World Trade Center Twin Towers (1966-1971), his first high rise construction.[1] In 1973 Robertson was made a partner and SWMB was renamed Skilling, Helle, Christiansen, Robertson. The firm split its operations in 1982 with Robertson renaming the East Coast office Leslie E. Robertson Associates R.L.L.P.[2]

The World Trade Center collapsed after two airplane attacks on the structures on September 11th, 2001. In hindsight, he has devoted much thought and emotion[3] to the structure of the building.

Since the collapse of the World Trade Center, debate about the safety of his rent-space-maximized designs have engaged the profession, but most would agree that the design of the World Trade Center actually withstood the impact of the plane with enough time to allow many thousands to evacuate safely.

Robertson's firm participated in the development of a database of basic structural information for the towers of the World Trade Center (WTC1 and 2) for NIST and FEMA.[4] in order to record the undocumented structural changes that had been made to the buildings after construction began.

Education

Awards

  • 1993 Mayors Award for Excellence in Science and Technology for contributions to the design of the World Trade Center. World Trade Center Individual Service Medal for contributions to the reconstruction of the World Trade Center following the 1993 bombing.
  • 2002 Henry C. Turner Prize for Innovation in Construction Technology.
  • Gengo Matsui Prize of Japan
  • 2003 ASCE OPAL Award for lifetime contributions to design.
  • 2004 IStructE Gold Medal of the U.K.
  • 2004 Fazlur Rahman Khan Medal for leadership in Structural Design.

External links

References

  1. ^ Koch, Karl (2002). Men of Steel: The Story of the Family That Built the World Trade Center. New York: Crown Publishers. ISBN 1400046017. 
  2. ^ Leadership and Management in Engineering magazine. Volume 9, Issue 1, Engineering Legends pp. 46-50 (January 2009)
  3. ^ http://www.caddigest.com/subjects/wtc/
  4. ^ Leslie E. Robertson Associates support to NIST/FEMA

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