perspective
Sarah Bell
Engineers’ identity crisis
Engineers build cities. More precisely, labourers and technicians,
employed by contractors working more or less within the
technical direction of engineers, build cities. The technical
authority and know-how of engineers is fundamental to the
creation and development of the modern city. Engineers have
been responsible for the provision of clean drinking water and
sanitation in cities, and as such argue to have delivered greater
benefits to the health of modern citizens than the medical
profession. Engineers are responsible for the aeroplanes,
televisions, mobile telephony and high-speed broadband that
underpin the global economy, which financiers and industrialists
lay claim to. Engineers keep the trains on the tracks, the cars
moving on the motorways, the buildings standing and the lights
on so that citizens can go about the everyday business and culture
of the modern metropolis. Conventionally, engineers are at once
humble servants to cultural, political and economic masters, and
quiet heroes making the good modern life possible.
As heroes, engineers claim credit for the great technological
advances of the modern city; as servants, they escape
accountability for its failures. The heroics of Joseph Bazalgette
and the engineers of the Metropolitan Board of Works
constructed the intercepting sewerage system and delivered
Victorian London from the perils of cholera and stench. The
failure to deliver improved sanitation to 52% of the world’s
population by 2005 is the responsibility of inept, inhumane and
Conversion of the old Arsenal Stadium,
London, into luxury apartments –
Dr Sarah Bell (UCL Civil, Environmental
& Geomatic Engineering)
corrupt politicians and economists. Cleaning city and household
air by replacing coal fires with gas and electric heating in millions
of homes was a major achievement of engineering innovation and
management. The continued growth in energy consumption
feeding ever more extravagant gadgets and expectations of
constant year-round indoor temperature, leading to higher
carbon emissions and global climate change, is down to wasteful
and ignorant consumers. Engineers claim to have the solutions,
or at least the capabilities to find the solutions to most of the
crises threatening the sustainability of the modern city (transport,
housing, energy, water, communications, public health), but are
driven by politics, economics and consumer expectations to
perpetuate unsustainable practices.
Engineers clearly have an important role to play in creating and
reconstructing sustainable cities. For this to occur, the profession,
including its academic constituents, must break through the lazy
identity crisis of unacknowledged heroics or powerless servitude.
At UCL, and elsewhere, new models of engineering research,
teaching and practice are emerging in response to the crises of
sustainable development and modern urban living. Central to
this programme is recognition that the gulf between science and
technology on the one hand and society and politics on the other,
which has characterised modern universities and professions, has
become a chasm from whence the greatest problems of our age
have erupted. Problems like climate change and the growing
Taken from the Summer 2009 edition of ‘palette’, UCL’s journal of sustainable cities
www.ucl.ac.uk/sustainable-cities
Thames Barrier, London – Dr Sarah Bell (UCL Civil,
Environmental & Geomatic Engineering)
“The gulf between science and technology on the
one hand and society and politics on the other,
which has characterised modern universities and
professions, has become a chasm from whence the
greatest problems of our age have erupted”
numbers of urban poor cannot be resolved by clear dissection
into technical or social elements to be carried away and solved in
the caves of our independent disciplines.
For engineers this requires a new humility regarding the power of
technical knowledge, and new skills in negotiating the political
and social complexity of the modern city. Some of this
knowledge comes from reconsidering historical contributions of
engineers to the development of cities, to recognise the complex
interactions between politics and technology that have shaped the
urban infrastructure and technologies we take for granted today.
Dialogue with urban theorists from across the intellectual chasm
is opening new understandings of the importance of
infrastructure and technology in the cultural, political and
everyday life of the modern city, in turn informing more sensitive
engineering design and practice. Philosophers prompt robust
confrontation about the nature and role of ethics in engineering
decision-making, ranging from technical competence in checking
calculations to working with corrupt regimes. Political and social
scientists provide new frameworks for engineering expertise to be
incorporated and challenged in participatory democratic
processes, opening up engineering expertise to more informed
public debate. Lone women engineers at professional dinner
tables are pointing out that the time has passed for celebrating
their presence and starting to worry that it might not be a
coincidence that their talented sisters are still not signing up.
Active engineers are pushing the boundaries of conventional
professional practice to bring their technical skills and knowledge
to bear on the social and ecological problems that trouble their
social consciences.
Modern cities, sustainable or otherwise, would not be possible
without engineering skills, knowledge and experience. Technical
competence and innovation remain the bedrock of the
profession, including research. However, the challenge of
building sustainable cities requires fundamentally understanding
the nature of engineering at its relationship to other parts of the
university, politics and society. As the saying goes, sustainability is
not rocket science, it’s much harder.
Taken from the Summer 2009 edition of ‘palette’, UCL’s journal of sustainable cities
www.ucl.ac.uk/sustainable-cities
Profile / Dr Sarah Bell
Sarah’s research interests lie in the relationships
between engineering, technology and society as they
impact on sustainability, particularly in relation to
urban water systems. In 2007, Sarah received the
ExxonMobil Excellence in Teaching Award from the
Royal Academy of Engineering. She works in
collaboration with partners including Thames Water,
Waterwise, the London Sustainability Exchange,
Arup and WWF.
Her current research projects include:
ıı‘Emerging Sustainability’, with collaborators from
six universities investigating sustainability in different
social, technological and ecological systems
ıı‘Critical Infrastructures’, applying metaphors from
the biological sciences to improve infrastructure
management, particularly in times of crisis such
as floods or terrorist attack
ıı‘Bridging the Gaps: Sustainable Urban Spaces’,
bringing together researchers from different
departments at UCL to address the challenge
of climate change in cities
ıı‘Engineering, Culture and Water’, working with
students in the UK, Peru, Australia and Mexico
to investigate the interactions between society,
technology, engineering and water.
Contact
Dr Sarah Bell
MSc Programme Director
(Environmental Systems Engineering) and Lecturer
UCL Civil, Environmental & Geomatic Engineering
Co-Director (Water Initiative)
UCL Environment Institute
Steering Committee Member
UCL Urban Laboratory
Programme Team Member
Bridging the Gaps
+44 (0)20 7679 7874
s.bell@ucl.ac.uk