 The local architects sought technical advice from Bangladeshi-American structural engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan, of renowned American architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), spending 10 weeks at their Chicago office in 1968.At the time, BHP House was known to be the tallest steel framed building and the first office building in Australia to use a “total energy concept” – the generation of its own electricity using BHP natural gas.The name BHP House came from the building being the national headquarters of the Broken Hill Proprietary (BHP) Company.