Going Down Under Down Under: Brisbane’s Complex Airport Link Achieves Innovation and Cuts Costs
When the city of Brisbane, Australia, and its suburbs needed to reduce heavy congestion going to, from and around Brisbane Airport, Brisbane City Council initiated development of a massive infrastructure project to solve the problem. The council’s goal was to reduce traffic congestion by 45 percent, fixing notorious roadway bottlenecks and minimizing travel time to the airport for people living in northern suburbs—all while improving overall connectivity with the city. The project consisted o...
Rehabilitation with Minimal Interruption
The Wells Street Bridge holds the distinction of being the longest double-deck, double-leaf, bascule bridge built over the Chicago River, and it’s one of two remaining bascule bridges in the city that carries both highway and rail transit on dual levels. The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) elevated railway occupies the upper level, and vehicle, bicycle and pedestrian traffic are on its lower level. The bridge’s main span is 345 feet long and 72 feet wide, with three lanes of vehicular traffic, a...
The Internet of Things: Coming to Facility Systems Near You!
Bob Dylan's iconic song, “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” still rings true for many things, including building infrastructure management. And the melody of change is the Internet of Things (IoT), which is facilitating smart city planning and smart home devices. IoT is integrated building automation on steroids. It’s resilient buildings; sustainable buildings. It’s building intelligence. Specifically, it’s a digital revolution that empowers facilities executives to relieve their “pain point...
Green Infrastructure: Dallas Works to Quantify the Value of Parks
The City of Dallas Park and Recreation Department (DPARD) manages and maintains one of the largest municipal park systems in the United States, including more than 21,000 acres of parkland consisting of 381 individual parks featuring more than 4,400 surface acres of water and 125 miles of trails. The park system serves one of the fastest-growing metro areas in the country. This growth places unprecedented demand on the existing parks and trails, creating a need to expand and grow the system....
Reality Computing Goes Underground with Ground Penetrating Radar
Ground penetrating radar (GPR) is a non-destructive method for locating and mapping underground objects by transmitting high-frequency radio signals into the ground that bounce back when they hit a buried object or a boundary between different material types. GPR surveys were first used in 1929 to measure the depth of a glacier in Austria and, in the following decades, likewise used to map the thickness of ice sheets and glaciers. In the 1970s, people started to use GPR for applications not invo...
SimpsonHaugh And Partners Use Generative Design to Shape One Blackfriars Tower Concept
London’s leading property developer, St. George PLC, retained SimpsonHaugh Architects to fulfill a vision for mixed-use development at the junction of Blackfriars Road and Stamford Street at the head of Blackfriars Bridge in the central London borough of Southwark. The award-winning practice, ranked among the largest and most influential in the United Kingdom by Architects’ Journal, designed the GBP 250 million signature skyscraper One Blackfriars using GenerativeComponents, Bentley’s parametric...
Building Studio Delivers Complex Large-Scale Projects
When Gerard Outram, CEO of Building Studio, founded his business in 2007, he did so with an eye to the future. “As a start-up business owner, I knew the 3D world was a wave of the future and Bentley offered a great platform to help Building Studio meet our vision. “Over time, we’ve moved to new iterations of Bentley’s 3D design software – AECOsim Building Designer – and it’s been a fantastic platform for growing our business.” Based in Sydney, Australia, Building Studio uses Bentley software...
The Beauty Beneath: Notable Water and Sewer Networks Recognized
The Be Inspired Awards, awarded annually at Bentley Systems’ Year in Infrastructure Conference, are something like the Academy Awards of the infrastructure world—they recognize and celebrate design and construction achievements that often go unrecognized by the very citizens whose lives are being improved by applied practical genius. As Norman Maclean said, in the context of correctly loading pack mules, “To all those who work come moments of beauty unseen by the rest of the world.” The Year in...
John McAslan + Partners Uses 3D Modeling to Facilitate Design of King’s Cross Station
Built in 1852, King’s Cross railway station is one of the main transportation hubs in London. As with the rest of the United Kingdom’s rail network infrastructure, the station has struggled in recent years to manage not only increasing ridership but also providing the space and amenities commuters expect. The GBP 547 million redevelopment of King’s Cross station is at the heart of one of the largest regeneration undertakings in Europe, with 67 acres of brownfield land being redeveloped to cr...
Kindle Collaboration via LiDAR-Based 3-D Smart City Models
A smart city model allows many important stakeholders, including government officials, citizens and the private sector, to easily access critical infrastructure information. But most city departments, agencies and utilities have separate processes in place for long-term planning, updates and expansion as well as to support economic development–from permitting to call-before-you-dig to environmental programs and more. Each entity has different types of information that need to be available or...
Stormwater Interview with Robert Page, P.E., Vice President, HNTB
Santa Barbara County North Branch Jail Expansion
February Issue 2026
