Engineered Solutions: Campus Revitalization
Contra Costa College is revitalizing the central core of its campus to better meet the needs of today’s students. The new $52 million, 108,379-square-foot Contra Costa College Center consists of three new buildings that will define three outdoor campus spaces: an amphitheater, an eating area and a quad area for social activities. Project Summary Organization: Contra Costa Community College District Construction Manager: Critical Solutions Inc. Design Firm: tBP/Architecture Inc. Genera...
Executive Corner: “I Know that E-mail’s Here Somewhere”
Understanding professional liability and managing risk is an important aspect of all A/E projects. For this installment of “Executive Corner,” Russ Ryan, principal at Rusk O’Brien Gido + Partners (e-mail: rryan@rog-partners.com), interviews Ian Howell, CEO of Newforma, a project information management (PIM) software company transforming building and infrastructure project delivery (e-mail: ihowell@newforma.com). Ryan: The design and construction industry continues to grow. As architecture...
Infrastructure Showcase: Autodesk AEC Excellence Awards Winners
At Autodesk University 2016 in Las Vegas, the company presented its AEC Excellence Awards. This year’s competition showcased projects embracing the future of making things for AEC and civil infrastructure through the use of innovative and connected BIM technologies, with 162 submissions and 29 countries represented. First Place, Construction Category U.S. Bank Stadium Mortenson The stadium, home to the Minnesota Vikings, features a massive transparent roof, zinc metal exterior pan...
Infrastructure Showcase: Co-Winners of the 2016 Sidney Freedman Craftsmanship Award
The Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute (PCI) announced co-winners of the fifth annual Sidney Freedman Craftsmanship Award, which recognizes PCI-certified plants for excellence in manufacturing and craftsmanship of architectural precast and glass fiber-reinforced concrete (GFRC) structures and individual components. The awards program was judged by the PCI Architectural Precast Concrete Services and Manual Committee based on the precasters’ success in overcoming obstacles to production, sol...
Collect Data Once, Use Whenever Needed: Mobile-Mapping Systems Create Quick and Detailed 3D Models of Infrastructure
European engineers have long been at the forefront of scanning and infrastructure technology, being much faster to adopt all-digital workflows than most of their American counterparts. One of these technologies is mobile mapping, which is typically a combined system that includes GNSS satellite positioning equipment, inertial measuring units, distance measuring, 3D laser scanning and some form of digital imaging. All of this is combined in a mobile platform such as a car or truck; rail car;...
Final Thoughts: The Tools Are Nothing Without the Engineer
In the September/October 2016 issue of Informed Infrastructure, I described showing up for my first day of work back in the early 1970s with my slide rule, mechanical pencil and scales. If I were to start working today, fresh out of college, I wouldn’t have any of these. I would bring my smartphone and expect an extremely fast computer to be provided. In most cases, this is the way of the engineering world: find my cube, log in, create a password and start working. If only it were that easy …...
A Scenic, Secure Thriller: Elk Falls Park Suspension Bridge Provides Sensitive Access to Canadian Treasure
By Angus W. Stocking, L.S. Elk Falls, beautifully cascading for 89 feet (27 meters), is the centerpiece of Elk Falls Provincial Park on Vancouver Island. By all accounts, it’s one of Canada’s most-scenic waterfalls, but for most of the park’s existence, Elk Falls has been underappreciated simply because it’s difficult to see. The falls tumble down into a small, misty, heavily wooded and very steep canyon with no trails, and only the very agile and slightly reckless can scramble to vantage...
From the Editor: Celebrating the Work We Do
Timing is everything, and I couldn’t have timed my joining Informed Infrastructure any better. The AEC industry continues to grow at a rapid rate, and the key technologies such as BIM, reality capture and even virtual and augmented reality are finally growing in adoption, which is going to lead to all of us working smarter, better and faster. And I wouldn’t be doing my new job if I didn’t note that this multi-platform media company I recently joined seems like it’s poised to take off in major w...
BIM Breakthrough: Historic Grand Paris Express Employs BIM on Monumental Scale
When the original Paris Metro system was built more than a century ago, it connected all the most vital parts of the city. But Paris has changed a lot in 116 years. Now outlying neighborhoods are home to Europe’s largest business district, the world’s largest produce market, several universities and areas with denser populations than Paris itself. The Grand Paris Express (GPE) aims to ease travel to and from these outlying neighborhoods by adding four new metro lines, extending two existi...
Engineer Spotlight: Differentiate Your Business to Achieve Success
As a brief personal background, I created RAM International back in 1998, which was one of the first companies to incorporate an entire building model into one dataset with a Windows interface, setting the stage for a lot of the AEC technology that exists today. After I sold RAM to Bentley Systems in 2005, I went into mergers and acquisitions at Bentley, and I did about 10 of those in structural, architectural, electrical and other software technologies. I later led a global sales team for thre...
Stormwater Interview with Robert Page, P.E., Vice President, HNTB
Santa Barbara County North Branch Jail Expansion
February Issue 2026
