Get Sust! Issue 44

CAREERS PROFILE

A side-step into software was the right move for Tracy

At school, Tracy Gillies thought she wanted to be an architect, although she always preferred maths and physics to the artistic aspects of the profession. But a chance meeting in Australia gave her the inspiration to really get to the nitty-gritty of how buildings work – and now she helps other construction professionals do the same, using specialist simulation software developed by her employer, IES.

“I took two years out before I went to university, and while I was travelling in Australia I met someone who had studied building design engineering,” she explains. “I’d always been fascinated by buildings and engineering and trying to improve the way buildings work, so it sounded good.” Returning to the UK, Tracy embarked on a four-year BEng course at Strathclyde University, little knowing she’d one day find herself teaching simulation skills to architects and engineers in Dubai.

“The first two years of the course was a mix of architecture, structural and environmental engineering, then in years three and four we chose a ‘major’ – I studied environmental engineering. I liked the idea of integrating the different disciplines. For my final year project I was in a group with an architect, and a structural engineer. We had to design a new building for the university campus. We used parts of an existing building, reclaiming the façade and adding an atrium; and my role was to make sure the new and old parts of the building worked together.”

After that, entering the workplace was perhaps a bit of a letdown to start with. “My first role was as a graduate building services engineer in a small consultancy. I had to do a lot of CAD drawing of mechanical and electrical layouts – I hadn’t done any while I was at uni, and it was only a small company so there wasn’t much time for training,” she explains. Her second job, in a larger consultancy, was only slightly better. Tracy and another young graduate found themselves as the ‘experts’ in natural ventilation and energy performance, working alongside more experienced practitioners who took quite a bit of persuading that simulation would be a useful skill. She helped to prove that, although building a model can be time consuming, once it was done, it was easy to extract all the data and images needed to persuade clients of the benefits of energy efficiency.

Having gained first-hand experience of the power of simulation tools, Tracy leapt at the chance to work for Integrated Environmental Solutions – better known as IES – a simulation software specialist established in 1994.

That was more than three years ago. Now project leader for the Thermal team within IES’s consultancy business, Tracy Gillies has put her early experience to good use. Having seen how people initially struggle with the concept of ‘doing things differently’ she enjoys persuading everyone of the benefits of simulation. Her current role involves energy modelling, performing compliance calculations for BREEAM and LEED, and taking a occasional shift manning the technical support desk.

But this isn’t a desk-bound job. Consultancy makes up around a third of IES’s business, and it’s crucial for the team to get out and about to help designers. The IES team has been involved in major projects around the world including the Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi, and two projects for Heathrow Terminal 5 (on lighting, developing evacuation routes and Part L2 Compliance checking). Working closely with ‘real’ projects is the key to the success of the IES <Virtual Environment> suite of tools – valuable insight can be fed back to the software developers.

Last year Tracy spent seven months in Dubai working on projects with clients, training both new and existing IES software users, and generally banging the drum for energy-efficient buildings. She reports that, although Dubai has been synonymous with ‘big shiny projects’ these days there’s a growing interest in low-energy design and all buildings now need to have a LEED assessment.

“Personally, it was a great experience,” says Tracy, now back in the IES Glasgow headquarters, although with staff in offices in the US as well as the Middle East, there is plenty of potential for interesting projects ahead for IES and for Tracy.

Working for a software developer may not have been Tracy’s original aim, but she’s now on the way to achieving her new goal “… to make the whole industry more holistic”. One small side-step for Tracy, one giant leap for the industry?

 

	•	‘Visit www.iesve.com
	•	The University of Strathclyde has recently introduced a new fully integrated Architectural Engineering course to give students a more contemporary and integrated education in building design and the built environment. The course is run jointly by the Departments of Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Architecture. See www.strath.ac.uk/civeng/ug/archeng.