The creative process of Juan Jose Arenas and the

conceptual design methodology by Arenas &

Asociados today
Guillermo Capellán, Miguel Sacristán, Emilio Merino, Santiago Guerra, Javier
Martinez.
Arenas & Asociados,
Marques de la Ensenada 11, 3º, Santander 39009, Spain

Abstract
This paper explains the creative process used by Juan Jose Arenas during his almost 50 years career,
and correlates it to the conceptual design methodology used today by Arenas & Asociados, as the bridge
design consultancy founded by him.
The creative process is necessarily different 25 years ago from today. Juan Jose Arenas design process
was widely based on his intuition, craftmanship and experience, and also on graphical and structural
analysis. Bridge design with one engineer’s authorship has changed with large engineer teams, new
skills and tools, but the philosophy behind it remains the same.
Today for us it is very important to have a design methodology, with clear stages, tools, and objectives.
New tools allow us a faster analysis of the design alternatives. Those tools include form finding, para-
metric design, 3D modelling and rendering, etc.

Proc. of the International fib Symposium on Conceptual Design of Structures 1

Sept 26 to 28, 2019, Instituto de Ciencias de la Construcción Eduardo Torroja, Madrid, Spain