Next Gen of Atelier Ten – Electrical

by Mila Robins, Environmental Designer
Read time: 8 minutes

Our previous articles featured members of the mechanical and environmental teams. Now we are here for the ‘E’ in ‘MEP’: chatting to someone from our team of electrical engineers.

First, a bit on what electrical engineers do at Atelier Ten and more broadly in this industry. Our environmental team works closely with architects and designers to influence many aspects of the building, and at the same time with our mechanical team to develop a strategy for the HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) systems. These workstreams seem quite straightforward, but where do electrical engineers sit?

Everything that goes on inside a building requires an input of electricity – and that’s where electrical engineers come in. They work on calculations behind the scenes to balance the electrical systems, circuits big and small, and to connect each project to the larger energy network in its respective location. They must ensure that the peak electrical demands, which vary depending on the time of year and the usage of the building (consider the difference between a primary school, not in session in the summer periods and which does not have the same equipment demand as say, a trading floor), are met safely in line with industry standards.

Our electrical team works closely with our lighting designers to optimise consumption and lighting power densities. These numbers are then fed back to the environmental team for inclusion in our energy models. Certain renewable technologies also sit in the electrical realm. If our projects will incorporate photovoltaic panels (PV), if they will require any battery storage, or potentially electric vehicle (EV) charging points, these are considered in the calculations and again, fed back to other members of the team for integration. Smart building management systems (BMS), increasingly required by authorities and green building certifications, are also something that the electrical team must consider and specify – this enables all the systems within a building to be read, collecting and analysing data using a system of sensors and metering. Beyond the scale of the building, projects must connect to their national grid for supply of electricity. Coordination must ensue between national and local authorities, power substations, and the wider networks. This is led by our electrical engineers as well.

All of this is to give a summary of what sits within the direct workstream of electrical engineers, and like everything in our line of business, requires close coordination with environmental designers, mechanical engineers, lighting designers, the public health engineers, and all other stakeholders involved in the project. So, another element of the invisible architecture that props up our buildings and masterplans!

Now, let’s hear one of our very own, Manthan Patel.

Manthan is from India and Singapore and studied electrical engineering in both Mumbai and Glasgow. Manthan fell in love with electrical engineering watching his father run a business as an electrical contractor. Manthan was really interested in the work and used to accompany him onsite when he was young and has searched for ways to be involved in the industry. He discovered the role of MEP engineer after bumping into job listings from various firms in the industry. As fate would have it, he also bumped into Atelier Ten after visiting one of our more famous projects, Gardens by the Bay. Before long he had finished his studies, made an application to our electrical team, and received an offer.

How were your first few months on the job?

I got thrown straight into projects from day one. This was a great way to learn. I realised quickly the difficult parts of our job as electrical engineers, and how important it is to coordinate not only with the rest of the team internally but also with architects, structural engineers, and other consultants. One of my projects was so massive that we also had several contractors coming in to support, and at that scale the management becomes even more crucial. Not to mention, with projects in the built environment taking years to design and implement, it’s very easy for things to get lost in handovers which can lead to miscommunication or delay.

Now, the great thing about Atelier Ten is that I was exposed to all of this in my first few months as a graduate. Larger companies with more rigid structures might have shielded me form the busiest stages of a project for the first few years and I would’ve missed the opportunity to learn so much. This is a huge benefit I see here and continues to this day with some of the tasks I am assigned. I get way more involved with other people’s designs, reviews, client briefs, and the like than an average engineer with my same experience in a larger company. Part of this is just natural with smaller teams, but it is also part of the overall culture here.

What do you feel Atelier Ten does best, beyond this invaluable exposure across all levels of the company?

Along the same theme, we are good at supporting people. In my first several months there was always someone there if I needed. We also provide a good balance between flexibility and rigidity when it comes to learning, work, and our design. This provides a good platform for juniors, so they have room to take on tasks and get creative, given proper guidance. Other than that, I think it’s the range of cool projects we work on, and being a smaller company, it’s much easier to touch all of them.

How do you engage with sustainability as an electrical engineer?

For us, sustainability can mean PVs which we maximise on all developments, optimise panel performance, and arrangement with suppliers. Then, for example, lighting is more on the lighting team, although we incorporate that into our calculations.

Looking to the materials aspect, we can aim for the reuse of cable trays and other electrical kit, but this all needs to be aligned with the British Standards and regulations. When a team pushes for reuse, our final verdict must align with industry standard, and the general sentiment around this kind of gear is always ‘newer is better’, driven by warranty and being generally risk adverse as electrical engineers. This can make it difficult to push for more innovating and circular economy strategies, even if we agree with the environmental team’s carbon calculations and environmental narrative on a theoretical basis. Safety is our number one concern – fire hazards, health hazards, these are all things we are trained to do everything to avoid.

I can think of other electrical equipment such as cable coatings made from recycled plastics or pushing manufacturers to avoid virgin materials [materials made with 0% recycled content] when possible. Downcycling to divert from landfill also becomes a bit difficult because most of the electrical stuff is not so usable at the end of life or is removed in a way that renders it unusable. Potentially this is an area to investigate more and push research initiatives towards downcycling where we are sure that reuse isn’t possible.

How does your work compare with the rest of the MEP team?

Unlike some other aspects of building services which are constantly being innovated, electrical equipment and systems have been tried and tested and are not as flexible.

What does the future of electrical engineering look like to you?

As equipment and products get more efficient, I feel that standards will slowly change. Looking at small power, we had a presentation a while back on the realistic small power loads that we should be designing for, how to highlight that the current industry standards are outdated, which is causing overspecification and overprovision of electrical capacity to office floors. Offices look much different now than they did several years ago and this means that in some cases the typical office floor consumes less power – newer laptops, less equipment, hot-desking, etc. LEDs are another good example which overlaps with our lighting team. Lighting fixtures have gotten much more efficient in the past ten years, from using 10-15 Watts to only 4 or 4.5 Watts.

What do you want to do more of in the next year?

As I said before, as an engineer you can really start from scratch and learn a lot. After two years here what makes me happiest is the diversity of projects that I am involved with – offices, churches, hotels, student accommodation, projects in the Middle East, London, and beyond. And of course, the people, the simple fact that you enjoy coming into the office I’d say is important. That basically summarises what I want to do in the next year, all the same stuff and more.

End of article 03, next up: public health

Thank you all for taking the time to read this third edition of the series, I hope it was a useful insight to electrical engineering more generally, but specifically more on the culture and inner workings from the perspective of our early career employees. If you have any questions at all – around the series, the work, the people, the company, don’t hesitate to reach out to us on LinkedIn.

Next month we will release article 04 featuring some fresh faces from our public health engineering team.