Valentine's Day 2022: A Collection of G&F Poems

For Valentine's Day this year G&F wanted to go outside of our comfort zone and held an internal poetry contest to discover and express the true love of various elements of structural engineering and construction materials. Here are the results:

BEST POEM:

Structural Engineering

By: Stevie Dee

Our vocation is structural engineering

For architect’s we keep on steering

Our engineers develop the schemes

Before we can draft the steel beams

Design concrete reinforcing

Develop block coursing

Part 4 is the code

For required load

Drawing the line to communicate

Contractors must translate

Let's take a moment, from the pressure of piers

To calculate the capacity of our shears

For our occupation is the foundation

For all other consultation

CLEVEREST POEM:

Steel My Heart By: R F Hawkins

Primed steel is red

Raw steel is blue

Didn’t think they’d take my heart

But steal they did, it’s true

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OTHER NOTABLE ENTRIES:

For every structure that grows

There are crucial people and roles

Geotech thinks hard about drilling

Mechanical is focused on chilling

Structural on design of the building

And architects on the final gilding

So that the owner can say

At the end of the day

“Wow, what a great building!”

Oh ETABS and SAP

How I hate to love thee, but

Your dance does entrance

There are many materials in a structure

That we design so they don’t rupture

But only one is able to be

The favourite material for me

It is ductile, consistent, and true

And can be painted in red or blue

How the pieces go together is art

Only steel could steal my heart!

Beams, columns, and walls

Put together make grandiose halls

But modelling them

So often depends

On the way we think gravity falls

Wishing you all a Happy Valentine's Day!