Noted Structural Engineer Jane Wernick to Lecture at UB School of Architecture and Planning on April 12

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Noted structural engineer Jane Wernick, best known in the United States for the Millennium Wheel -- the 40-story Ferris wheel that is not only an engineering feat of no small proportions, but a new landmark on the London skyline -- will speak at the University at Buffalo on April 12 as part of the 2003-04 lecture series sponsored by the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning.

The event will take place at 5:30 p.m. in Crosby Hall on the UB South (Main Street) Campus and will be followed by a reception for Wernick.

Wernick is the director of the consulting engineering firm Jane Wernick, Ltd., of London, whose projects cover a wide range of building types, from the Millenium Wheel to the extension of the cemetery island of Venice. The aim of her practice, she says, is to remain involved in the design process by considering the structural engineering of a project as one component of a totally integrated design.

Wernick has worked in both Europe and the U.S., specializing in the design of structures that play a large role in the total architecture of a building. She has considerable experience working on projects with irregular and complex geometries, and lightweight structures, and has worked with Zaha Hadid, the winner of this year's Pritzker Prize.

She has served as consulting engineer for numerous international projects, including the Law Courts for the City of Salerno. The firm's current projects include the Oslo Opera House in Norway, Surrey's Woking Museum and Arts & Crafts Centre and The Turner Centre in Margate, Kent.

Wernick worked for Ove Arup & Partners from 1976-79, and from 1982-88. She worked for Birdair Structures Inc. from 1980-81. She was principal-in-charge of Ove Arup & Partners' Los Angeles office from 1986-88 and was associate director of the firm's London office from 1989-98, when she founded Jane Wernick, Ltd.