Structural Design Services

What Structural Design Involves

Structural design is the engineering process of selecting, sizing, and verifying every load-carrying element in a building or structure. It begins with understanding the architectural intent and ends with a set of calculations and drawings that prove every member can safely carry the loads imposed on it — gravity, wind, seismic, thermal, and dynamic — throughout the design life of the structure.

At Sixteens Consultancy Services, structural design engagements cover the full technical scope: load determination per applicable codes, structural system selection, 3D analytical modelling, member design, connection force extraction, and production of a codebook-cited design report. Every deliverable is traceable back to a specific clause in the governing standard.

Software Workflow

Our analysis workflow centres on three industry-standard platforms chosen deliberately for the nature of each project:

• STAAD.Pro — Used for complex 3D steel structures, towers, trusses, and industrial frames. STAAD.Pro's solver handles large-displacement analysis, dynamic loading, and multi-code member design checks simultaneously, producing a full code-check report as output.
• ETABS — The preferred tool for building structures requiring seismic analysis. ETABS performs response spectrum analysis and time-history analysis against ASCE-7 seismic maps and equivalent international seismic provisions, including Turkish seismic code requirements applied to the Antalya entertainment supports project.
• SAP2000 — Deployed for general-purpose finite element analysis of structures with irregular geometry, cable systems, curved members, or specialist loading conditions not handled optimally by the other two platforms.

Analysis outputs feed directly into the design report and connection force schedules, eliminating transcription errors between modelling and documentation stages.

Code Compliance Across Jurisdictions

No two countries require the same structural design approach. Our team maintains active working knowledge of the following standards and applies them routinely on live projects:

• ASCE 7-22 — Minimum Design Loads for Buildings and Other Structures. Governs wind, seismic, snow, rain, and flood loads for projects in the United States and as a reference baseline internationally.
• ACI 318-19 — Building Code Requirements for Structural Concrete. Applied to reinforced concrete foundations, slabs, and moment frames.
• AISC 360-22 — Specification for Structural Steel Buildings. Governs all steel member design: W-shapes, HSS, angles, and plates — for tension, compression, flexure, shear, and combined loading.
• IBC 2021 — International Building Code. Provides the load combinations and occupancy classification framework that overlies ASCE-7 and ACI/AISC for US and many international projects.
• SBC 301/303/304 — Saudi Building Code structural volumes. Applied to all Saudi Arabia projects, including the 150+ ft Dammam entertainment tower. SBC references ASCE-7 wind and seismic provisions with Kingdom-specific modifications.
• NBC 2020 — National Building Code of Canada. Used for the Ontario steel structure replacement project. NBC 2020 seismic provisions are probabilistic, based on 2% in 50-year ground motions, and differ materially from ASCE-7.
• JIS — Japan Industrial Standards for structural steel. Applied alongside AISC for the Nagashima 60 ft observation tower, covering steel material grades, weld quality requirements, and fabrication tolerances.
• EN 1990–EN 1993 — Eurocode suite covering structural basis of design through steel design. Used for the UAE hypermarket PEB project, including EN 1991 wind and EN 1993-1-1 member resistance checks.
• FBC 2023 — Florida Building Code. High-velocity hurricane zone wind pressures (HVHZ), applied to the Florida waterslide steel supports project, requiring specific glazing and cladding resistance levels on top of ASCE-7 provisions.

Our Design Approach for International Projects

International structural design is not simply a matter of substituting one codebook for another. Each jurisdiction has different load return periods, different material partial factors, different occupancy categories, and different detailing expectations. A 150 ft steel tower designed for Dammam requires Saudi wind speed maps, SBC seismic zone classification, and AISC connection design — three separate technical domains that must be reconciled in a single coherent design.

Our process for every international commission begins with a jurisdictional code matrix: we identify every applicable standard, determine which governs each design check, and document that hierarchy in the design report. This ensures that the structural engineer of record in the client's country can verify our work against local expectations without ambiguity.

What Clients Receive

• Design calculation package — Full load take-off, analysis model documentation, member design checks with code clause references, governing load combinations, and utilisation ratios for every critical member.
• Structural framing drawings — Plan views, elevations, and sections showing member sizes, grades, and connection locations — production-ready for Revit or AutoCAD detailing.
• Connection force schedule — Extracted from the analysis model, listing axial, shear, and moment demands at every connection point for use in connection design.
• Peer-review-ready report — Formatted for submission to local authorities or for independent technical review, with clear document control headers and revision tracking.

Why Structural Design Matters Across 14 Countries

The consequence of inadequate structural design is not abstract — it is collapse, injury, or loss of life. Equally, over-designed structures waste material, increase construction cost, and penalise clients unnecessarily. The goal is optimal design: the minimum material required to safely carry every load the structure will ever see, to the code that the jurisdiction demands.

Across fourteen countries of operation, from Japan to Florida to Saudi Arabia to Canada, the loads change, the materials change, and the codes change. Our value to international clients is the ability to navigate that complexity without requiring them to coordinate multiple local engineers in multiple time zones — one team, one point of contact, one signed-off deliverable.