Warning – architects trying sell their ideas:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14918657

Warning – uninformed man doesn’t read the background behind something before commenting on it.

Compared to the ugly industrial thing we currently have they are a vast improvement. Especially this one…

… definitely more elegant.

The ugly industrial ones were designed by Gilbert Scott (an architect) however, for a more cosmopolitan view see Pylon of the Month

They are lovely, but where will the birds nest on them?

The one in Phil.w’s post is certainly the most elegant. The cylindrical lattice was a horror, the lattice was so dense it might as well have been solid.

The main thing that struck me about them is that mostly they looked like they would be more expensive than the current version

yeah I like the one in Phils post too. Would work well around wind turbines but it is a tad like the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth or the Burj Al Arab hotel.

I also quite like the Y one. The truss one I don’t like and the guy saying “you can look throught” – just like existing ones then? hmm. Also funny how some are saying make them shorter and one guy pipes up to make it taller.

They do look more expensive and also probably have to be made from something less easily recycled than angle iron like the current ones.

aP – why have you got your knickers in a twist?

They would all look great buried

Warning – uninformed man doesn’t read the background behind something before commenting on it.

Ha ha! :lol

I like the bow-shaped one. Looks very elegant.

I’d like to see loads of those around the countryside actually. Pylons are nice. Hopefully we’ll see loads more wind turbines in rural areas too.

I quite like those curvy ones, why not make them art-deco?

This one is outside Walt Disney World in Florida

Oh ffs don’t get me started
Agree with op it what happens when you let architects loose with an engineering problem then let architects judge it – there was not one industry professional with any sort of structural engineering background on the panel
None of them would support the loadings that are imposed on them none of them would be constructible in the terrain we have to deal with, without vast expense, only one seems to have kept remotely to the design brief, electrical clearances may be fine for the one example the competition covered but towers come in many sizes and none of these designs could be adapted for a heavy angle or junction tower (and they are the real big heavy ugly ones)
None could be maintained safely without completely switching off both circuits, no consideration given to access
None will ever see the light Of day thy are not practical in any way
The whole thing was just a marketing exercise to try and temporarily appease people against plans for new lines to support new wind and nuclear investment

They would all look great buried

This

Time to get with it

You going to pay for it then?

And what about the enormous logistics and environmental impact involved in burying leccy cables?

None of them would support the loadings that are imposed on them none of them would be constructible in the terrain we have to deal with

How d’you know this?

It’s a competition to find a nice design. I spect they’d let the engineers have their say at some stage, but if oyu want somoene to come up with nice designs, you generall let those with knowledge and understanding of such things draw some nice pictures, make some models, then get to work with structural engineers to make the idea work.

And as for your scathing dismissal of the panel; what do you actually know of their knowledge of structural engineering? I’d imagine they probbly know a fair bit tbh, as it’s sort of part of their job to know such things…

An architect designed this; funny, it hazzunt fallen down yet…

Oh ffs don’t get me started Agree with op it what happens when you let architects loose with an engineering problem then let architects judge it – there was not one industry professional with any sort of structural engineering background on the panel None of them would support the loadings that are imposed on them none of them would be constructible in the terrain we have to deal with, without vast expense, only one seems to have kept remotely to the design brief, electrical clearances may be fine for the one example the competition covered but towers come in many sizes and none of these designs could be adapted for a heavy angle or junction tower (and they are the real big heavy ugly ones) None could be maintained safely without completely switching off both circuits, no consideration given to access None will ever see the light Of day thy are not practical in any way The whole thing was just a marketing exercise to try and temporarily appease people against plans for new lines to support new wind and nuclear investment

That is exactly what we thought at our office (architects). One of our ex students designed one of them lol

iain1775 – Member
Oh ffs don’t get me started
Agree with op it what happens when you let architects loose with an engineering problem

Hang on a minute ‘ere, I didn’t criticise anything in my first post yet a couple of people seem to have got their knickers in a twist. 😆

All I was warning people of is the video contained architects ‘selling’ their concepts. I glaze over in an act of self preservation when people start sprouting “it is like a flower in bloom” “it draws the eye up into the sky…”. If your design is good then it should speak for itself and let me draw my own similes. By all means tell me anything clever and not obvious like insulating struts etc Oh and tbh I thought it looked more like leaves not a flower and that is probably what the person who actually penned the initial design thought.

As for the concepts I quite like them. But they are concepts. They will need loads of engineering to sort out the practicalities and make them sensible and meet the requirements and priorities.

How d’you know this?

An engineering degree and over 13 years experience in the industry working with the UK’s two leading overhead line companies on everything from 440kV down to 11kV including pricing the design of the new tower suite currently under development for national grid for new nuclear connections as well as involvement with two new tower designs for use on a new build line that at £300million+ is currently the largest ever single overhead line contract in the UK 😉

You can indeed get an architect to design something that looks nice and the get it reverse engineered when it comes to things like buildings that are essentially an engineered core with a cosmetic skin but electricity pylons have quite different requirements and non of these designs would be practical on so many levels from cost of materials to installation, maintenance, security of supply and safety

So how d’you explain the pylons that aP mentioned, y’know, the ones designed by an architect?

So, how much do you actually know about any of those designs, other than the information available to the rest of us? How d’you know that they won’t be able to withstand the loads/forces you mention? What knowledge do you have of their actual construction, materials used, etc?

The architects I’ve met seem to know quite a bit about structural engineering actually, which might surprise you. Like aP, what is a proper architect and has pratically designed and build most of the London Underground system*.

*Well he might not have done all of it but he knows his stuff.

Yor just jeluz cos all you do is bolt stuff together and the architects live in nicer houses than you and aren’t all greasy and dirty.

The architects I’ve met seem to know quite a bit about structural engineering actually, which might surprise you. Like aP, what is a proper architect and has pratically designed and build most of the London Underground system*.

Every architect I have had professional dealings with has been useless – from putting lights in that cannot be reached without a scaffolding tower to change bulbs to bodgeing stuff to failing to understand basic structural engineering.

Every architect I have had professional dealings with has been useless – from putting lights in that cannot be reached without a scaffolding tower to change bulbs to bodgeing stuff to failing to understand basic structural engineering.

😯

Ah ha… I’m beginning to understand what ‘Elfining’ is now… It’s like being a troll but more pedantic, (innit)?

Then you’ve bin dealing with crap architects, TJ.

Mind you, you’re in a place known for architectural ineptitude…

Ah ha… I’m beginning to understand what ‘Elfining’ is now.

It will take you a lifetime, and still you will be none the wiser…

What about doing something similar with wind turbines?

Come on Elf, I think Iain gave a fairly good reason why he may, just may, know about pylons, their requirements and therefore design. I reckon (god help us (but certainly not religion or anything a simple normal person might understand)) he may even know more about it than you. Unless you’d like to expand on your credentials and why you know better so that we may judge?

Elfin
It is true that the basic outline of the pylon from which the current ones descend was designed by an architect, in a post war era of posterity
That though was a long way from the pylons of today, they may look similar to you but that is testament to the greatness of the original design that little has changed, it is efficient, adaptable and economic, modern pylons may share the same basic silhouette but that’s where it ends. Did you know for example there is actually over 100 different types of pylon in use in the UK today? The fact most people probably don’t even notice different designs would ask me to question how ‘intrusive’ they actually are, or has the current design actually become accepted and people don’t acknowledge them until a proposal to build a new line comes around, do we actually need a new concept aimed at making these essential bits of infrastructure into artwork or would we prefer them to go un noticed? Non of these proposals seem any less intrusive
The whole competition I do know a fair bit about it, and the background of it, And the design brief, there is no jealousy at all, there doesn’t have to be I work in an industry that is thriving and going through the most exciting time since the construction of the original supergrid in the 1960’s, i enjoy being an engineer and helping provide and maintin vital infrastructure, there is a place for pretty things and a place for prctical engineering and sometimes the two are interchngeble, and I admire a good structure with function and form but sometimes they are not and something just needs to do a job efficiently and without fuss. Anyway the winner walks away with nice little cheque, and national grid get some publicity and maybe the odd idea on materials or something thT could be adapted into an existing design, both parties win but the designs themselves don’t hold your breath to see them in use

Pft.

S’a competition to find new concepts, alternatives to what we have now. I’m sure a more aesthetically pleasing solution can be found, but that will involve people with creative vision, not just people who bolt stuff together.

What’s wrong wiv dat? All cars and that start of as fanciful concepts. You need people who can makes look nice, as well as people who can makes work.

The end result is all too often a compromise between design and the need for the thing to work. But the best designs are often the best functional solution too.

Is beautiful:

Is design by architect; engineer is makes work propply.

Play nice and we can have a better world in which to live and be happy. 🙂

Elfin, you’re a graphics person, not an engineer or an architect. Give it a rest.

Oh, so that excludes me from having an onion on what I’d like to see in the countryside, does it?

One of the main arguments against pylons is that they are unsightly. So why not welcome any attempt to find a more aesthetically pleasing solution, that more people are happier with? Instead of being condescending about architects’ efforts to do just that. Where are the ‘engineer’s’ wonderful ideas? Eh? Hmm?

Why don’t you give it a rest? I know more about aesthetics than you do, yet I’m not telling you you’re not entitled to have an onion, am I?

I take it you’ll never ever comment again on a subject you have no qualifications in.

Elf
Take the picture at the top Of the thread
Looks nice doesn’t it, in a nice field?
Now transpose it to a rugged Scottish hillside, supposing you could actually build it up there without trashing the place to get materials in, does it look so nice, or is it more viaually intrusive than a spindly lattice structure?
Now if I told you that in order to gain sufficient electrical clearance at 400,000 volts the nice arc of those two masts at the point where the top conductors intersect would have to be about 15m across what would you say?
If that’s near the top imagine how wide it would be at midpoint
Now picture the dimensions of steel needed to achieve that and the height it would need to be, that’s purely electrical considerations where the cables pass through in a straight line, add in a bend and xlearance requirements and widths increase, now consider the size of members needed when considering 25 wires each of 700mm2 cross sectional area, span of upto 350m between towers fully loaded with ice and subjected to hurricane winds suddenly some wires give way and snap but only on one side of the tower, on an angle they are already pulling and twisting the tower in two directions, consider the stresses, along the line loads getting greater, a donimo effect
All of a sudden the nice concept sketch has turned from something that bears a passing resemblance to the spinnaker tower to something that practically needs to be the size of the spinnaker tower with foundations twice the size
Not so attractive now is it?
Now consider maintenance needs to be done, access is difficult, due to the cable configuration both the two electrical circuits need to be switched off, there is no back up (current designs allow for maintenance with one side still live) so suddenly your electric is cut off and your in the dark
Not so clever now is it?
And tahrs one of the better shortlisted entries
That’s a very basic analogy but maybe you start to understand, electricity pylons may look simple but they are amonst the most complex structures designed, the loads they have to be designed to carry are alot more complex than their ‘graceful’ nature would suggest