At work, I was able to make certain observations which are simple, yet they go

uncorrected. Some of the goals of an engineer are to make sure the structure is
economical, safe and serviceable. Ive seen that in order to save some money on
tests, the engineer in charge does not conduct tests on the soil at the site in order
to determine its allowable bearing capacity. Instead, he assumes what its allowable
bearing capacity would be and designs the foundation based on that. This is not
done for massive structures but it is done for the others. The cost of the
substructure can be huge and when such assumptions are made, it may drive up
the cost and may also prove to be unsafe. I also find that the distinction between
safe bearing capacity of the soil and allowable bearing capacity is not made. The
safe bearing capacity is assumed to be the allowable bearing capacity for some
reason. The superstructure rests on the substructure which transfers the loads to
the earth, and such fallacious assumptions with regard to the soil to which the loads
are transferred to seem unsafe.

Engineers mindlessly use their excel sheets without fully understanding what it is
they are doing. There are set rules in place to make sure that mistakes are
restricted. For example, if the software prescribes a certain amount of steel
reinforcement to be placed in the structural element, some thought as to whether
this amount of reinforcement will be feasible is not given(Steel reinforcement
beyond a certain limit will cause congestion of the steel bars and will not allow the
concrete to flow through).

Several types of cements are available, some having benefits over the traditional
ordinary pozzolona cement and yet these other kinds of cements are not being used
here. Creativity and application of engineering principles is not something which is
commonly done.