On the initiative of the Interstate Consultants Engineers Guild, past Thursday, on April 25, the All-Ukrainian Guild of Designers in Construction hosted a mixed-attendance (online and offline) seminar “Structural solutions and building materials in German civil engineering.”

The seminar was conducted by Mr. Josef Elkin, a design engineer with 50+ years of experience of working both in Ukraine and Germany. He currently owns a design company in Germany, Ingenieurbüro für Tragwerksplanung IBE, which was established in 2002 and has about 1000 projects delivered in Germany to its credit.

Пан Йозеф коментує: «Під час розмов з колишніми колегами з України мені задають багато питань: «А як це роблять у вас?», «Що є підґрунтям для таких конструкторських рішень?» Даний семінар – це відповідь на деякі з цих питань. Це розмова інженера з

Mr. Elkin commented, “When I talk to my former colleagues from Ukraine, they ask me a lot of questions such as ‘How do they do it in your country?’ or ‘What is a basis for such structural solutions?’ This seminar gives answers to some of these questions. It’s a talk of one engineer with another using the engineering language, it’s an opportunity to have a look inside a German design bureau, to show the decision-making criteria, and to compare Ukrainian construction techniques with the German ones. The seminar is targeted at providing the Ukrainian designers with technical information about structural solutions and building materials applied in contemporary civil engineering in Germany and analyzing their pros and cons.”

“This original seminar aroused much interest in designers and experts. To sum up, in addition to the information obtained, I’ve made a few conclusions,” said Mr. Dmytro Barzylovych, President, Association of the Construction Industry Experts. “Traditional German technical solutions have much in common with ours, but at the same time, we’d do well to learn from them. We have to understand that with foreign investments in Ukraine recovery, representatives of the investing countries are most likely to be involved in the projects, and it is right now that we should learn about certain differences in technical approaches, building products, and organizational grounds in the work of our colleagues.”

“What I want to point out is the personality of Mr. Elkin,” Dr. Oleksandr Nepomnyashchyy, ICEG president, noted. “He is our fellow countryman, a true patriot of Ukraine and a volunteer who is willing to work for his homeland primarily not on a commercial basis but following the call of his heart. As for the seminar, I believe it should be developed and repeated for representatives of various parties to investment projects, and efforts to build up cooperation should be doubled. On our part, we’re going to do our best to this effect,” said Dr. Nepomnyashchyy.