Lowering the Carbon in Concrete

 Concrete is one of the best materials for resilient, durable and energy efficient structures and buildings over their life cycle. But concrete can become a significant source of carbon. Andy Spencer, Sustainability Director for CEMEX UK and Chair of the UK Sustainable Concrete Forum, knows how to change that. “Within CEMEX we have a carbon simulator system where we can work with clients to design carbon out of construction projects. We need to collaborate a great deal more in terms of start...

Metsä Wood Launches ‘Open Source Wood’

A pioneering open innovation project to accelerate growth in large scale wood construction. Metsä Wood’s Open Source Wood initiative is a call to action to architects, designers and engineers to join forces, share innovation and contribute knowledge about large-scale, modular wood construction. By creating an open innovation platform around modular wood construction, Metsä Wood’s aim is to connect the local wood construction industry with global knowledge to facilitate collaboration and growt...

JEC Group Publication: A New Book On the Growing Use of compositeS in Construction

JEC Group is launching the first ever book on the growing use of composites in architecture: “The Future of Building: The Growing Use of Composites in Construction and Architecture”. Its 194 pages of information and 80 concrete examples demonstrate the advantages of composites: lightweight, durable, resistant to corrosion, inexpensive to maintain, flexible design etc. “Composites are playing an increasingly bigger role in construction! Between 2016 and 2021, we are expecting a sharp growth in th...

Aircuity Announces its Airside Efficiency Platform to Improve Energy Efficiency and Indoor Environmental Quality

NEWTON, Mass., USA – Aircuity, maker of smart automated airside solutions, announces that its airside efficiency platform has been included in a major retrofit project by the National Research Council of Canada (NRC). The NRC’s building in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan is utilizing two Aircuity Sensor Suites (SSTs) in its laboratory spaces and one SST for exhaust fan control.   “Over the last decade, airside efficiency has proved to be the biggest single energy efficiency conservation measure av...

Viewpoint, BKD & FMI Corporation Form Industry Alliance to Address Construction Productivity Issues

Portland, OR - Industry leaders Viewpoint, BKD LLP & FMI Corporation have teamed up to perform deep research into construction productivity issues in order to make practical recommendations for areas of improvement. The lag in global construction productivity has been widely reported by a number of leading research firms and has been estimated at as much as 1.2 trillion dollars annually. Improving productivity by as much as 10-20 percent could make a huge impact on the construction economy, prov...

Paradigm Housing Delivers Digital Transformation with LANSA’s Low-Code Development Platform

St. Albans, UK  – LANSA today announced that its customer, Paradigm Housing, has delivered the next phase of its Digital Transformation Programme – a Customer Portal and a mobile workforce solution - using LANSA’s Low-Code Development Platform. These elements form part of a broader Digital Transformation drive towards customer self-service, efficiency improvements and costs reduction. These latest additions integrate tightly with Paradigm’s existing housing management system, also built using LA...

Video: Watch the Rise of 56 Leonard with EarthCam’s Time-Lapse

Thornton Tomasetti Receives 3 Awards at the 2017 SEAOI Awards Banquet

Thornton Tomasetti's Chicago office picked up 3 awards at last night's Annual Awards Banquet, produced by the Structural Engineers Association of Illinois and held at 610 S. Michigan Avenue. Wrightwood Art Gallery received the Outstanding Project Award in the $5-30M category.  Hancher Auditorium and the Willis Tower stair received Awards of Merit. Pictured above (left to right): Nate Sosin, Ken Maschke, Justin Cline, Michael Murphy, Bill Bast, Carol Post, Karly Bast, Mark Prikazsky, Eric W...

Building Skyscrapers on Chicago's Swampy Soil

Editor's note: This was piece was produced in collaboration with the Chicago Architecture Foundation, which provided research, expertise and other assistance during its development. From his office tower in downtown Chicago, Mike Vendel has no reason to doubt the structural stability of the buildings where he and hundreds of thousands of others spend their workdays. Looking back on the Loop from the shores of Lake Michigan, though, it’s a different story. “Outside enjoying the lakefront, b...

Adolfson & Peterson Construction Tops Out Inova II Office Building

Centennial, Colo.– Signifying the construction milestone of being approximately halfway through construction, the Inova II Office building celebrated its topping out. The structure will be southeast Denver’s newest innovative suburban class-A office building, located just off I-25 on East Dry Creek Road. Construction team members, along with the design team and other project stakeholders, celebrated the event with a BBQ and the tradition of placing the final steel beam onto the top of the buildi...