The lake that lies at the heart of The Wave is a pretty incredible feat of engineering. As well as working closely with the brilliant team at Wavegarden, Spain, who developed the wave-making technology, we also have our own structural engineering team from Bristol-based company, Hydrock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They have been working hard to help make the vision for the whole site a reality. We caught up with two of the team \u2013 Alessia di Cuia and Jessye Lennie \u2013 for a chat about what their work on our project has involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alessia<\/strong>: We are both graduate structural engineers and we work across the two main structural engineering elements of the project \u2013 the clubhouse and the lake. I worked on the lake and have been responsible for the design of the retaining walls, slabs and central pier. I also designed the walkway on top of the central wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jessye<\/strong>: My focus is the clubhouse, which is designed as a long, single-storey building that opens on to the terrace overlooking the lake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alessia<\/strong>: There isn\u2019t really a typical day and it\u2019s been very full on! When I was asked to work on The Wave, I remember my line manager saying, \u201cAlessia, I need to talk to you about this surfing lake project\u201d. I hadn\u2019t heard about it and it was a completely new and unique project, unlike anything I\u2019d done before, but I was extremely excited by the challenge. I\u2019ve worked on this project for a few months now, eight hours a day, and I\u2019m excited to see the finished result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alessia<\/strong>: It\u2019s very cool. There is currently a similar surfing lake being built in Australia, and it\u2019s brilliant to be working on the first one of its kind over here. To be honest, the challenge is the most interesting part of this project. The technology is new and has never been built on this scale. The site itself also presents some engineering challenges and it\u2019s really exciting when you work out how to overcome these. I might never work on something like this again so I\u2019m making the most of the experience!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jessye<\/strong>: The clubhouse is a lightweight structure, so we\u2019re using \u2018glulam\u2019 timber. It\u2019s a material you don\u2019t often get to use, but it was perfect for this structure and it is very sustainable. The architect and the team at The Wave were very keen to embrace sustainable materials, so this was a great opportunity to use this product and that\u2019s been interesting for me from an engineering point of view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alessia<\/strong>: Everyone is talking about this project. When I tell people I\u2019m working on it, they get super excited and tell me how amazing it is. If I go to meetings, they\u2019ll ask me how The Wave is going before any other project. It\u2019s an amazing experience for me as a graduate engineer \u2013 The Wave has been my first big job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jessye<\/strong>: It\u2019s been a pleasure that The Wave Founder, Nick, has been so interested in the structural design. He has been passionate about what he wants to achieve and has taken a real interest in what we\u2019re doing and the design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alessia<\/strong>: The design of this project is very dynamic. The waves are pushing on the walls of the lake up to every eight seconds, so that\u2019s a big force on them. We had to translate a dynamic force study into English from the company in Spain and understand the maximum forces involved, so that we could make sure the walls can withstand anything that is thrown at them. We have even built up behind the walls with soil to give extra support. It took a lot of time, theory, practice and patience to make sure we got it right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alessia<\/strong>: We recently hosted a construction site visit to The Wave for a class of Year 9 girls from Castle School in Thornbury, as part of International Women in Engineering Day. I loved talking to the students about my role and getting them excited about the possibilities a career in engineering could offer. This project is interesting as there are quite a number of women involved \u2013 including a group of female engineers at Wavegarden in Spain. It\u2019s great to work collaboratively with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jessye<\/strong>: It was great to give the girls my personal insight into working as a structural engineer, explain what inspired me and hopefully help them understand the scope of the role. I hope we convinced some of them to choose STEM subjects as part of their further studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alessia<\/strong>: I\u2019m not a surfer \u2013 yet! I will definitely have a go and I\u2019ll be there to support my line manager, Phil, who is a surfer \u2013 go, Phil, go!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jessye<\/strong>: Ha! No, I\u2019m not a surfer either, but I can\u2019t wait to give it a go at the Wave. I\u2019m also really looking forward to having a drink on the terrace outside the clubhouse that I\u2019ve helped design!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The lake that lies at the heart of The Wave is a pretty incredible feat of engineering. As well as working closely with the brilliant team at Wavegarden, Spain, who developed the wave-making technology, we also have our own structural engineering team from Bristol-based company, Hydrock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":1885,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-topics"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nDescribe a typical day for you working on this project?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What makes this an interesting project to work on?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What excites you most about the project?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Any particular challenges from an engineering perspective?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Can you tell us a bit about how you’re encouraging young women to consider a career in engineering?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Do you surf, and will we see you in our waves when we open?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n