Behind every big construction project is a massive world of logistics planning, movements, and producing materials. There is also the unseen engineering behind health and safety. It all goes by the name of temporary works, and it’s anything used to support people, plant and the ground, and to test things onsite.

Jemma Quin has over 17 years of experience, working on airports, buildings, electrical substations and railways. The work at times has involved varied challenges – like having to demolish and rebuild a bridge in a weekend. A chartered civil engineer, she is also the author of the children’s book series The Little Civil Engineer and Friends. She tells of some of the strange challenges that come up in construction projects.

The presentation is in memory of Prof. Iain MacLeod, one of the most inspirational figures in Scottish engineering of modern times. He was for many years Professor of Structural Engineering at Strathclyde University, and later President of the Institution of Engineers in Scotland, which has helped to organise this event.

Iain’s talks for the Festival included Critical Thinking (2021) and Uncertainty, Education and the Power of the Human Brain (2022) in which he argued that a key ability in human affairs is to successfully manage complex uncertainty, with the human brain specially suited to the challenge, and much better at it than any AI yet developed. He also wrote about How governments can achieve complex goals through system planning.

Supported by the Institution of Engineers in Scotland