Ready to Roll: How 1,000 Pounds of Spinning Metal Overcame Onramp Runoff
To complete a Missouri ditch-liner project, Realm Construction poured 400-450 linear feet of concrete a day and finished the project more than one week ahead of schedule. Near the Kansas City International Airport lies a well-traveled but problematic onramp that connects NE Cookingham Drive to I-435. A field that runs parallel to the ramp often produces significant rainwater runoff that makes its way onto the onramp. Sedimentary dirt and debris would fill the south side of the dit...
Decrease Concrete’s Carbon: A Big Step in Leaving a Smaller Footprint
Portland-limestone cement provides designers the opportunity to reduce a project’s carbon footprint by up to 10 percent. Concrete is the second-most-used material (after water), which shouldn’t be surprising considering it’s the foundation of nearly all our infrastructure. Engineers and builders specify concrete for their projects because it’s durable, long-lasting, resilient and versatile. Imagine if we could get those characteristics along with an added benefit of being more sustainab...
Safe Passage Across the Sea: Sensors Prevent Overloaded Vehicles Access to Philippines’ Iconic New Bridge
For the tallest and longest bridge in the Philippines, sensors provide for bridge protection based on accurate measurement of vehicle axle loads. (Kistler Group) The Philippines, a southeast Asian island state officially comprising 7,641 islands and home to more than 115 million people, is on the rise. Wealth is growing thanks to dynamic economic development in the vibrant Asia-Pacific region; tourism is booming, and increasing numbers of infrastructure projects aim to bridge the gap (liter...
Sustainable Stormwater Solutions: Embracing Low-Impact Development (LID) for Enhanced Stormwater Quantity and Quality Control
In 2017, heavy rains from Hurricane Harvey flooded the greater Houston area, prompting local officials to reassess their stormwater-management systems. In recent years, climate change has affected Earth’s weather patterns, which have turned unpredictable and often dangerous. Rising temperatures are accompanied by a higher risk of intensified flooding, as heat domes and cold fronts collide, creating more extreme rain events. As a result, stormwater runoff becomes more severe, leadi...
Creating Certainty: Expanded Shale, Clay and Slate Aggregates Improve Seismic Design
Lightweight aggregate helps address seismic concerns on a highway project. (Acrosa Lightweight) The ground a structure is built on plays an important role in what’s possible for that project—soil’s stability and relative depth to the bedrock can determine a structure’s height, footprint and weight limitations. It also can help a building better-resist seismic activity. The soil around a structure can change seismic waves’ frequency content and amplitude; these soil-structure inter...
National Banking Headquarters Redefines Sustainable Office Standards in the United Kingdom
In addition to representing a new era of business for Santander, Unity Place pioneered a new standard for sustainably designed office buildings in the United Kingdom. WSP Uses Digital Innovations to Reduce Carbon Footprint of Santander U.K.’s New Milton Keynes Hub Located 50 miles north of London is Milton Keynes, a modern suburb instituted in the 1970s as an outlet to mitigate London’s overpopulation. Urban planners knitted together existing villages (e.g., Bletchley, Fenn...
The Beyond 77 Corridor Study: Atkins Helps Develop Project Planning with an Eye to Policy
The Beyond 77 Corridor Study, facilitated by the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization (CRTPO), started with a goal to find ways to reduce congestion and increase multimodal options along and around the 68-mile-long, 400-plus-square-mile study area. That early vision evolved considerably when the agency, at the recommendation of its study consultant, looked beyond just adding more lane miles or vehicular capacity, but through a more-comprehensive lens to consider policy and...
One River North: A Unique Engineering Challenge in Pursuit of the Best Building Possible
Unmistakable for the living fissure within, One River North dazzles as a vibrant exploration of the possibilities that exist at the intersection of nature and time. Designed by MAD Architects with support from Davis Partnership, residents will enjoy more than 13,000 square feet of open-air amenity space carving a canyon through the westward façade. Art, science, mental amusement or proof positive—in architectural engineering, math isn’t the only thing, it’s everything. Such is the sto...
Free the Fish: New Culverts Open the Pepin Creek Fish Passage
An aerial view of the installation site for Pepin Creek Fish Passage in Bellingham, Wash. In March 2013, the U.S. District Court in Washington state ruled in favor of 21 Native American tribes and required the state to significantly increase the existing effort to remove all state-owned culverts that blocked salmon and steelhead migrations by 2030. Washington state’s mandate: replace the old structures with a larger solution that supported the native stream beds, including using rock and d...
Hardware Update: The Evolution of Construction Cameras
By consistently measuring site activity over time, industry professionals have access to insights that will inform future planning. By Chandler McCormack The power of an image is well established. Images and video are an unbiased source of truth; capturing views of time that human memory can’t reliably recall. For decades, leaders across all industries have used photos to see, understand and act upon insights appropriately. Yet the information within an image isn’t always so evident...
Stormwater Interview with Robert Page, P.E., Vice President, HNTB
Santa Barbara County North Branch Jail Expansion
February Issue 2026
