Basically the title. I’m in my third year of civil engineering and I’m not proud to say this but I still couldn’t explain properly to someone younger if I was asked. Also what’s the difference between civil engineering and architecture? Because in all the infos I’ve found the boundary is still quite blurry.
Thank you
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A lot of people are giving mostly good answer, but with some false things in them. I’m a civil engineer so here the explanation.
Civil Engineer work on design for construction project. This include roads, bridge, dams, earthwork, sewers, drainage, but also building. The job of the civil engineer is to calculate and design these elements to be in accordance with the standard. Calculate the number and size of columns, how large of a foundation you need for the soil, the slope for drainage, etc.
In most countries you have some kind of Order of the Engineer, you need to be a member to exercises tasks that are limited to Engineer (mostly the design and math I talked about). If you go to school and are a member of the Order you are a Civil Engineer. But your job could be different. For example, I rarely do design anymore myself. I’m mostly a project manager and work more on finance, contract, personnel management, scheduling, etc. But I’m still a Civil Engineer, member of the Order and I legally can still do design work. But to do my current job I don’t need to be a Civil Engineer. It’s just that for important management task in construction, employer tend to prefer people that know a lot about construction so Civil Engineer are often in those position.
I will say that it’s possible that in some countries they separate the Civil Engineer for Civil Work and Structural Engineer for Structure. But legally that’s not the case in most countries that I know. Obviously people can specialized into one or the other during their career and some school can be more well known for one or the other. But legally we are all Civil Engineer with the same minimal schooling and member of the same Order.
Now Architect are completely different. A lot of people think that they are the artist that design the beauty of building, but that’s not really true. They are in charge of designing the interior, shape and building envelope. They will usually talk to the client to find out what they need for their building, then figure out the size needed for that, then what kind of room they need, how big each room, the overall shape of the building, etc. They also need to follow the standard of the country for the building. Things like how large corridor need to be, how many bathroom, etc. The Building Envelope is what cover the exterior of the building. So here they will design what goes in the external wall (insulation, vapor barrier, siding, etc)
So yes since they decide of the appearance of the building, a lot of people view them as artist and it’s true that some of them can express artistic sense in their building, but that’s the minority. Most of them work on pretty practical or standard design.
Once the Architect designed the overall shape and size of the building, he will give his plans to several different type of engineer. Civil Engineer for the structure, Electrical Engineer, Fire Protection Engineer and Mechanical Engineer for ventilation/heating are the most frequent ones for building.
For project like Bridge or road, the Civil Engineer is usually the one in charge of the overall project instead of an Architect since the structure is like the main thing here.
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