ROSENWASSER / GROSSMAN CONSULTING ENGINEERS
RGCE HIGH-RISE CONCRETE ENGINEERING
EXPERIENCE
MORE THAN 70 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE — FOCUSED ON WHAT WE DO.
For more than 70 years, RGCE has focused its practice on structural engineering for buildings, with particular expertise in high-rise reinforced concrete construction in New York City.
We believe the value of experience isn't measured simply by the number of years a firm has been in business or the number of different services it can offer. It is measured by the depth of relevant knowledge brought to the problem at hand.
Our experience is concentrated. It is cumulative. And it is passed from one generation of RGCE engineers to the next.
EXPERIENCE DOING WHAT?
Experience is only valuable when it is relevant.
RGCE doesn't design stadiums. We don't design airports, nuclear power plants or marine structures. We don't provide mechanical engineering services, and we aren't architects.
We design buildings.
More specifically, much of our practice has been devoted to the structural design of high-rise reinforced concrete buildings in New York City. That focus has allowed generations of RGCE engineers to develop a depth of knowledge that comes from solving variations of the same extraordinarily complex problem again and again.
We believe there is a difference between having experience in many things and having deep experience in the thing you are being hired to do.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO SPECIALIZE?
Many large professional practices offer an extraordinary range of services and expertise across numerous markets and disciplines. There is certainly value in that breadth.
RGCE made a different choice.
We have spent decades concentrating our practice on structural engineering for buildings. We don't attempt to be the architect, the mechanical engineer, the civil engineer and the structural engineer. We believe specialization comes from focus—and that focus allows us to devote our people, systems and institutional knowledge to becoming exceptionally good at what we do.
EVERY BUILDING IS DIFFERENT. THE EXPERIENCE IS CUMULATIVE.
Every high-rise concrete building presents a different combination of architecture, height, geometry, program, site conditions, construction constraints and economics. The solution is unique, but many of the underlying engineering challenges are familiar.
A difficult transfer teaches us something about the next transfer. A slender tower adds to our understanding of core configuration, stiffness and motion. A challenging column layout teaches lessons about architecture and MEP coordination. Construction issues become design lessons. Successful details become proven tools.
We don't repeat the solutions. We carry forward what we learned from developing them.
NO OLD MISTAKES, ONLY NEW MISTAKES
We have a saying at RGCE:
“No old mistakes, only new mistakes.”
Experience is, in part, the accumulation of lessons learned. The value of designing hundreds of buildings isn't that every decision was perfect. It is that every project taught us something.
Those lessons don't belong to one engineer. They become part of the institutional knowledge of the firm and are passed from one generation of RGCE engineers to the next.
An engineer at RGCE benefits not only from the projects they have personally designed, but from the collective experience of the engineers who designed buildings here before them. Our goal is to make sure that lessons learned on one project become knowledge available to the entire firm—and to the projects that follow.
DEPTH OVER BREADTH
We don't aspire to know a little about every type of structure.
We aspire to know an extraordinary amount about the structures we design every day.