WorldCity Business Magazine

WHO'S HERE Profile: Whichever Way the Wind Blows

by WC

Construction safety standards in hurricane-hit Florida will drive some of RWDI’s Miami business.

Rowan Williams Davies & Irwin’s new facility seems a perfect fit for South Florida. The Canadian wind-engineering company is constructing a Miramar wind tunnel to test how certain construction designs withstand hurricanes.

After working with South Florida architects, developers and builders for two decades, the company also known simpy as RWDI decided it’s time to set up shop in the Miami area to complement its other offices around the world, including the United Kingdom, the Middle East and India.

“We’re working now in Latin America and the Caribbean. That’s also one of the reasons we’re moving to South Florida,” said Mike Soligo, RWDI vice president. “Right now we’re working in Panama. We’re in the Bahamas. We’re working in the Caribbean islands.”

RWDI began operations in 1972 and is now one of the world’s largest wind engineering and microclimate consulting firms with 350 employees.

The company, headquartered in Guelph, Ontario, expects to have its Miami wind tunnel currently under construction up and running in January. The eightfoot high, eight-foot wide glass tunnel will run about 100 feet long. Through its transparent sides, engineers and builders will be able to see the effects of wind upon scale models built to match developers’ plans.

“We’ll build models of new developments before they’re constructed and we’ll create a real-life situation using the wind tunnel,” said Soligo. “You’ll see sands blow. We can even release smoke in the wind tunnel to see what happens.

“We’ll determine if the structures are safe under various circumstances, including hurricanes,” he added.

Soligo, based in Guelph, is overseeing the opening of the Miramar facility and will travel to Miami on a regular basis. However, Mark Chatten will manage the South Florida office once it begins operations.

Although much of the company’s work in South Florida involves condos and private projects, RWDI also works on bridges, hospitals and sports facility projects. The company studied how snow drifting would affect a new South Pole research station, tracked how coal dust was blown from a transfer site near an international pier in Nova Scotia and predicted wind vibration at the Beijing World Trade Center in China. It also did the aerodynamic analysis for the Cooper River Bridge in Charleston, S.C., which opened last year and is the longest cable-stay span bridge in the United States.

Soligo said some tests go beyond simply seeing how well structures fare in winds.

“We also evaluate the wind impact on people. We look at the exterior areas where people are going to congregate and we identify the types of winds that are going to occur in these areas,” he said. “If they’re not the types of winds you’d want to have, we identify ways to mitigate the winds.

“For example, if you have a high-end condo with a nice pool area, you don’t want it so windy that there are white caps on the pool. Or at an outdoor caf, you want it calm not menus blowing away,” he added.

Soligo predicted fast growth for the Miramar site. It is expected to open with 15 employees but he said that could easily jump to 50 within five years.

He said the company has already been in contact with local universities that have heard about its wind tunnel project. “Some of the universities have some form of wind engineering, but they’d like to be more in-depth. The fact we’re there will allow that link,” Soligo said. “And it’s also good for us because we’ll be looking to tap the local engineering market.”