Dr. Mir Ali portraits our greatest engineer "Dr. Fazlur Rahman Khan known as the "Einstein of Structural Engineering", was a Partner and Chief Structural Engineer of World renowned firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM).

Innovation: Dr. Khan is the innovator of the tubular design, a revolutionary concept in tall building design. Among a number of tube buildings, his design of 100-story John Hancock Center in Chicago gave him international reputation and put Bangladesh on the world map in the architectural and engineering circles.

"Filled with both ambition and optimism, and equipped with solid training in structural engineering, Fazlur Khan was undeterred by the mindset and technological difficulties that hindered tall building design. He recognized that the structural systems utilized for high-rise construction were not on a par with the modern scale of architecture, and he took on the challenge of advancing state-of-the-art structural engineering. A decade of revolutionary advances had just begun. Fazlur Khan's earliest contributions to the field - developing the shear wall frame interaction system, the framed-tube structure, and the tube-in-tube structure -led to significant improvement in structural efficiency: they made the construction of tall buildings economically feasible. The framed-tube structure has its columns closely spaced around the perimeter of the building, rather than scattered throughout the footprint, while stiff spandrel beams connect these columns at every floor level. This structural system was first implemented in 1964 in the construction of the DeWitt-Chestnut Apartments in Chicago, a 43-story reinforced concrete tower designed by Fazlur Khan and his colleagues at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM). Because of its great relative strength and stiffness, the tubular form immediately became a standard in high-rise design.

In 1961, Fazlur Khan was made a Participating Associate in Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; in 1966 he became an Associate Partner and in 1970 a General Partner - the only engineer partner at the time. As the reach of tall buildings extended, Fazlur Khan resolved to discover structural systems appropriate for each new scale of architecture. Crafting rational architecture in cooperation with Bruce J. Graham, chief design architect in SOM's Chicago office, he united an exceptionally efficient "trussed-tube" structural system with an articulate, graceful form for Chicago's 100-storied John Hancock Center.

A few years later he introduced another groundbreaking structural system, the "bundled tube." This design for Chicago's 110-story Sears Tower was structurally efficient and economic: at 1,450 feet, it provided more space and rose higher than the Empire State Building, yet cost much less per unit area. Equally important, the new structure type was innovative in its potential for versatile formulation of architectural space. Efficient towers no longer had to be box-like; the tube-units could take on various shapes and could be bundled together in different sorts of groupings. When one looks at a text on tall-building design today, one finds these recognizable structure types: the framed tube, the shear wall frame interaction, the trussed tube, the bundled tube, and the composite system (also developed by Fazlur Khan). Though Khan developed structural systems for particular project needs, he based his innovations on fundamental structural principles that allowed them wide application. His developments are among today's "conventional" systems for skyscraper design." from Kirtiman.info

My Idol - Fazlur Rahman Khan FRKhan t-shirt  and poster by myself

Awards: He was declared, "Construction's Man of the Year" by Engineering News Record (ENR). His innovative design of Sears Tower, the tallest building in the world until recently, gave him the title, "One of the Greatest Structural Engineer of Our Time".

Just before his premature death at the age of 52 in Saudi Arabia while supervising the construction of Hajj Terminal, he was appointed the President of Chicago Architectural Club, a rare honor for a structural engineer. Following his death ENR wrote that the world has been "robbed of" a great man at such a young age from whom more innovative ideas would surely come."....More >>>