From the grade of a pram crossing to stormwater systems four levels underground, good civil design is the infrastructure you don’t even realise is there.
Our civil engineering team brings decades of experience across municipal works, private developments, and everything in between. We work on the elements that make places function – drainage systems, detention tanks, accessible pathways, and the hidden infrastructure that keeps our communities running smoothly.
Leading this work is Hugh McCormick, our Director: Civil. We sat down with Hugh to talk about the role civil engineering plays in shaping the places we move through every day.
Hugh has over 36 years of experience in civil engineering. His work spans municipal projects with the City of Melbourne, private developments, defence infrastructure, and everything from retirement villages to fire trail assessments across regional Victoria.
Q: Civil engineering often means “roads” to most people. What else are you designing that people don’t realise?
A: A lot of it comes down to grades and accessibility. When you’re walking down the road, do you think about the crossfall, the camber, or what the water’s doing? The height of the gutter? Whether the pram crossing is accessible? That’s all civil engineering. Good civil design is when you don’t notice it. It’s when you notice it that you’ve got a problem.
Q: What about the infrastructure that’s literally hidden underground?
A: Stormwater drainage and overland flow are huge parts of what we do, and you won’t notice the systems because they are hidden underground or within the land form.
When you’re next walking to or from the train station, keep an eye out. You might notice a garden bed behind the curb that’s slightly sunken. That’s meant to treat stormwater – it flows into it, percolates through, goes through ag drains, and then into the stormwater pits. You don’t see any of that water quality treatment, but we’re cleaning up the water that comes off roads by running it through the ground.
Q: How does this translate to private developments?
A: On a current development we’re working on, we’re designing detention systems to stop flooding problems downstream by slowing down the water. When you build up an area, you make water run off quicker. Where it used to hit grass and soak in slowly, now there are roofs just dumping water out really quickly. We put in large tanks and restrict the flow out of them – that’s stormwater detention.
For a large apartment building, we wouldn’t get involved in the structure, but we would handle the stormwater aspects, including stormwater detention and treatment. If there’s excavation into the ground, there’s often groundwater coming in. We have to figure out how to manage it. If we can’t waterproof the basement structure and keep the water out, we’ve got to capture that water, run it through a cleaning system to remove contamination, and then discharge it to either stormwater or sewer. On top of that, many councils and water authorities do not accept groundwater.
Q: What’s the most unexpected project you’ve worked on?
A: The most random project I’ve had was a few years ago. Storms washed out some fire trails up north all the way from Ararat in the mountains over to the Grampians. We had to inspect these washouts and recommend fixes.
The unexpected part was taking two other engineers who’d never done four-wheel driving and driving them down fire trails with massive ruts and steep slopes, walking around in the bush watching out for leeches and snakes. You wouldn’t expect to need four-wheel driving training as a civil engineer! We did that for about a month – driving up to Ararat, around the trails, across to the Grampians, doing inspections every day.
Q: Have you had projects that presented particularly tricky challenges?
A: I worked on a multi-storey building in Melbourne that has four levels of basement. We had to have stormwater detention at the bottom of the basement. The challenge wasn’t how do you get all the stormwater down there – it was stopping it from flooding the basement car park if the tanks fill up quickly.
We came up with a valve at the top that would stay open when there’s power to the site, letting water go down to the basement. If the power got cut off and our pumps in the basement stopped, the valve would shut and divert water out to the street instead. Thinking through that system to make it work was tricky.
Q: You’ve been in the industry for 36 years. What changes have you seen?
A: I started drawing on paper with pens. Now we’re all digital. It’s interesting. We’ve been working closely with Ratio’s landscape team, and they asked why we use certain colours in AutoCAD. The colours relate to the original pens we used where the thickness of the line corresponded to coloured pens. A red pen was a 0.5 thickness line, purple or magenta was 0.18. That physical nature of the pens carried over into AutoCAD and the way we see the colours today.
The shift to CAD made designing much easier. Being able to model things in 3D versus sitting there manually calculating and measuring everything sped everything up significantly.
Q: You fought in the Ash Wednesday fires in 1983. How does that experience influence your approach to work?
A: I was employed by the Forest Commission on their walking track maintenance group. When there was a fire, we’d take our rakehoes and matches, walk in, clear a path, and burn it out so when the fire hit, it would stop. We didn’t fight with water or trucks – we just walked in everywhere, doing about 25 kilometres of walking a day.
The 1983 fires started in November and went all the way through to April, so about six months of work across Victoria. That was walking next to four-metre-high flames, occasionally having the fire turn on you and having to run through it.
Some people get really stressed about work, but when you think about it, it’s not life-threatening. Because I’ve had this experience, I don’t find work stressful, almost ever. That experience gives you perspective.
Q: Outside of work, you’re into Warhammer 40K. How does that tie into what you do?
A: It’s completely separate, just something to have an outlet. It’s a way to sit down with my mates and play a game and escape to a different universe. It’s kind of like watching a movie or reading a book, but instead you’re playing it out on a table and get to have the pleasure of painting the models. It’s a hobby, a creative outlet, and a great excuse to catch up with friends.
Looking Ahead: Civil Engineering’s Future
From invisible stormwater systems to accessible pathways, civil engineering shapes how our communities function. Our team brings decades of experience solving complex infrastructure challenges across Victoria and beyond.
With expertise spanning municipal projects, private developments, and regional infrastructure, we understand how to deliver civil solutions that work, even when you don’t notice them.
Ready to discuss your project? Connect with our civil team at mail@ratio.com.au
