Professor Maxwell Hutchinson, past President of the Royal Institute of British Architects, radio broadcaster and television presenter, was on fine form as an insightful and entertaining keynote speaker for the ‘Designing Effective Thermal Breaks’ workshop at the Institution of Structural Engineers in London last month.

The event, which was organised and hosted in the main IStructE theatre by international thermal break specialists Schöck, was extremely well received by a large audience of predominantly structural engineers, along with architects and contractors. All from over thirty different companies.

As Professor Hutchinson, still an active architect with his own practice, stressed during his opening session: “the topic of thermal bridging is now becoming more and more prevalent and it has never been more essential to take the time to understand how to calculate and design effective structural thermal breaks”.

The various sessions covered a number of specialist subjects, including how to achieve optimum thermal break solutions at cantilever connections; deflection calculation using current market software and services; and an understanding of the latest Schöck software.

There was also a demonstration of other helpful Finite Element Method software; and an overview of additional tools and software currently available on the market.

UK Managing Director for Schöck Ltd, Chris Willett (right of picture during his introduction to Professor Hutchinson seated) comments: “we were delighted by the numbers and general audience response to the workshop. It is an ideal way to get across some quite complex issues and we will be holding more of this type of event next year, including an architect focussed workshop”.