Steve Siegel on Storytelling and Structural Engineering

This past May at the Luxury Home Design Summit Steve Siegel had a bit of a “moment.” With about sixty seconds to spare at the mic, he rolled out a description of what he and his company does—structural engineering—in a way that set the room of about 400 designers, builders, architects, and trade partners abuzz. It was great writing and a great delivery, making the work of structural engineering feel like something altogether new. While KCB has worked with Steve on several projects and has known of him for decades, this experience got us thinking that we’d love to hear more.Along with his origin story of how he became an engineer, our conversation with Steve also involved him once again reciting those memorable words at the mic, delivering on subjects like over-engineering, prescriptive principles, navigating the builder relationship, advanced framing, company culture, and more. Steve’s boombox story also included a very cool “way-back” to using cassettes as a way to protect your vinyl. Queen, Jim Croce, Elvis Costello, Carly Simon, and Springsteen also play a huge role for Steve, with a special name drop of Croce’s “Walking Back To Georgia.” Kevin’s song drop was “Death on Two Legs” by Queen. They also went deep with their first vinyl record purchases and, sadly, how Kevin learned the word “warp.” Steve’s one-minute-at-the-mic explanation of structural engineering happened during the Luxury Home Design Summit, Chatham, MA, that took place May 20-22, 2025.