Navigating standards – constituting engineering practices – how do engineers in consulting environments deal with standards

Bibliographic Data

ID12973434
AuthorsJøran Solli (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume5
Issue3
Pages199-215
Publication date2013-11-12
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueEngineering Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1937-8629 • E-ISSN: 1940-8374
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/19378629.2013.857674
OpenAlexW2054220237
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited18

Standards and regulations can play a central role in policies to achieve environmentally sound and energy-efficient buildings. This paper sets out to explore how consulting engineers relate to standards designed to impose sustainability in the construction of new buildings and in waste management. The paper addresses four cases of engineering practices. The first case describes practical skills and tools involved in what the engineers considered as 'normal' practices when performing energy calculations in the development of new buildings. The second and third cases deal with energy in new buildings as well, but address practices that supported or enabled the engineers to go beyond minimum standards. Case four explores a heat production project and more specifically, how the engineer deals with solving a problem related to calculating energy substitution. Together, the cases represent situations with quite different degrees of uncertainty as to how to relate to standards, from relative certainty represented in the first case to relative uncertainty in the last case. We shall look closer at the practices such situations entail and how they constitute different types of consulting engineering practices.Keywords: engineering practicesstandards and regulationsconsulting environmentssustainable innovation Notes1See Downey and Lucena, "Engineering Studies."2Ryghaug and Sørensen, "How Energy Efficiency Fails."3Hojem and Lagesen, "Doing Environmental Concerns."4Imrie, "The Interrelationships."5Müller, "The Legal Dwelling."6Imrie, "The Interrelationships."7Müller, "The Legal Dwelling."8Downey, "What Is Sustainable Engineering For?"9Lampland and Star, Standards and Their Stories.10Thèvenot, "Rules and Implements," 30.11Ibid, 30.12Becker and Clark, Little Tools of Knowledge.13See Ibid.; Callon, "Writing and (Re)-writing Devices"; Latour, The Making of Law; Riles, Documents.14Hojem and Lagesen, "Doing Environmental Concerns."15Fischer and Guy, "Re-interpreting Regulations," 259016Ibid, 2590.17Timmermans and Epstein, "A World of Standards," 69.18For instance, see Berker, "Dealing with Uncertainty"; Irwin and Vergragt, "Re-thinging the Relationship"; Sørensen, Aune, and Hatling, "Against Linearity."19Bucciarelli, Designing Engineers; Clegg, Kornberger, and Rhodes, "Learning/Becoming/Organizing"; Czarniawska and Jorges, "Winds of Organizational Change"; Gherardi, "Learning as Problem-Driven or Learning in the Face of Mystery?"20Petroski, The Engineer Is Human.21Vincenti, What Engineers Know.22Telephone interviews were carried out by Thea M. Hojem.23Ryghaug and Sørensen, "How Energy Efficiency Fails."24Hojem and Lagesen, "Doing Environmental Concerns."25Filiatrault and Lapierre, "Managing Business-to-Business Marketing."26Fischer and Guy, "Re-interpreting Regulations," 2591.27Beck, Giddens, and Lash, Reflexive Modernization.28Schön, The Reflective Practitioner.29Schön, The Reflective Practitioner, 49.30Vincenti, What Engineers Know.31Sørensen, Energiøkonomisering på norsk

Architectural engineering · Certainty · Energy (signal processing · Engineering education · Engineering management · Sustainability · Computer Science · Engineering · Mathematics · Sustainable Building Design and Assessment

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub