Change Leader: Hearing the Voice of the Customer
This particular webcam interview was recorded by Todd Danielson, the editorial director of Informed Infrastructure. You can view a video of the interview by visiting bit.ly/39v3NPH. These profiles are based on interviews, and the opinions and statements are those of the subject and are not necessarily shared or endorsed by this publication. Katriona Lord-Levins is the chief success officer for Bentley Systems. After a long and successful career in computer science and AEC...
Thoughts From Engineers: The Shadow Cast by Lead Pipes
On the eve of the New Year, amidst a pandemic and presidential transition, the final revisions to the Lead and Copper Rule (LCR) were published on Dec. 20, 2020. The new LCR modifies and updates parts of a law that was first passed in 1988. At that time, spurred by Safe Drinking Water Act mandates, hazards to public health from lead service lines (LSLs) were officially recognized. Widely used in everything from plumbing fixtures to welding solder, forces finally mobilized to end historically ent...
Future Forward: Transform Vacant Singular-Use Buildings for Year-Round Occupancy
Nicole Keeler is the director of sustainability at NELSON Worldwide. Design for an Unknowable Future In normal years, millions of square feet of single-purpose buildings are unused for a substantial part of the year, including shopping malls, hotels and entertainment venues. During 2020 and a global pandemic, these same single-purpose buildings became even more vacant, and some previously vacant buildings may never again acquire full-time or even part-time tenants as they become unuse...
Future Forward Full Interview: Transform Vacant Singular-Use Buildings for Year-Round Occupancy
Nicole Keeler is the director of sustainability at NELSON Worldwide. V1 Media: Please provide a brief background of your education and career before NELSON Worldwide. Keeler: I studied interior and environmental design in college, so I have a Bachelor’s degree as an interior designer, mainly focused on the architectural side of interiors. And then I interned with a company right out of college at Griswold Heckle & Kelly and worked with them on their workplace services, which just meant...
From the Editor: Engineers Need To Find Their Voice in 2021
What if you inspected a bridge and found severe rust deterioration of a fracture-critical steel member, and you reviewed previous inspection reports that documented the progression of this condition? And what if you took this information back to the office, and everyone agreed this was a serious problem? And what if you requested the governing body for funds to correct this problem, and they said they don’t believe the experts, refused to do anything about it and told the public to continue driv...
ReEngineering the Engineer: Patience Required: Getting Up To Speed Can Be a Slow Process
Our older daughter was an early professional casualty of the pandemic. Although she received her college degree in finance and marketing, she had a passion for event planning. She started working with a local woman shortly after college, part time. She went to full time in October 2019, signed a two-year lease for an apartment in Charlotte, and started her new life on her own. North Carolina instituted its shutdown on a Thursday. The following Monday, she got a call from her employer, putting h...
Accelerated Efficiency with Data-Driven Design
Viktor Várkonyi, Chief Division Officer of the Planning & Design Division and Member of the Executive Board of the Nemetschek Group, explains why data-driven design is more efficient than model-driven design and what this has to do with Building Lifecycle Intelligence. Building Information Modeling, as the name implies, should be all about information. But the reality looks quite different – most BIM processes are centered around model-based workflows. This approach implies that models are de...
Tech Tip: Is it Time to Update Your Civil 3D Template?
If you’re on an Autodesk subscription plan, new versions of software are available to you every year, and periodic updates, enhancements and hotfixes are issued on a pretty regular basis. Although your software may be keeping up to date, your template file might not be. Our professional services team has had numerous conversations with customers interested in reviewing the quality of their working template files for efficiency and effectiveness. During these conversations, it’s not unusual to f...
Code Update: An Advanced Approach to Seismic Code-Check of Steel Connections
About half the buildings designed and constructed in North America have some level of seismic design requirements. Seismic design has evolved—engineers now face terms such as capacity design, dissipative item, plastic hinge and deformation capacity—so this column hopes to shed some light on recent developments. Capacity Design The objective of capacity design is to confirm that a building is capable of a controlled ductile behavior to avoid collapse in a design-level earthquake. This involves...
From the Editor: What’s Past Is Prologue, But the Future Seems Uncertain
For the last three months, I’ve been teaching a senior design class at Valparaiso University, my alma mater. When I say “at Valparaiso University,” I mean “at home, for the university, through online software.” The pandemic has had a significant impact in the way classes are taught worldwide, and I can only speak to my experiences. We’ve been using Zoom software and, as you probably know, all you see are a number of windows with the students’ faces. Difficulties of Online Learning It’s a chall...
Stormwater Interview with Robert Page, P.E., Vice President, HNTB
TriMet’s Banfield Type 1 Substation Replacement Project
February Issue 2026
