After delays attributed to the global economic recession, construction has begun on two of Abu Dhabi’s five planned cultural buildings—the Louvre Abu Dhabi and the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi museums. The five facilities will form an emerging cultural district on Saadiyat Island, located 500 meters from the city of Abu Dhabi, which serves as the capital of the United Arab Emirates. Officials at Abu Dhabi’s Tourism Development and Investment Co. (TDIC), which is developing the island, say they are using the recession to take advantage of reduced prices in construction materials and equipment. TDIC officials decline to give a value on
An extensive program to survey and monitor the structural behavior and dynamic responses of the world’s tallest structure—the 828-meter Burj Khalifa in Dubai—has done more than validate the structural engineer’s design concepts. It could help improve future supertowers, says the keeper of the program. The monitoring system, which includes myriad sensors, will become a model for assessing critical and essential facilities, predicts Ahmad Abdelrazaq, an executive vice president of Samsung C&T Corp., Seoul, the burj’s lead builder. Photo: Courtesy Of Emaar Properties Monitoring shows performance of the 828-m-tall Burj Khalifa is better than expected. The program “has given us information
Some see a frozen tear clinging to the “cheek” of the new Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Fla. Others see a melting crystal. Depending on the viewer’s vantage point, still others say they are reminded of a misshapen potato, a nose, an amoeba and a dolphin in a nosedive. The builders of the glazed atrium structure that drapes over the side of the boxy building simply call it the “enigma.” After all, the builders had to solve a mystery of how to shape, engineer and hang a transparent and organic structure—75.5 ft at its tallest, 105 ft at its
In Lower Manhattan, the steel on the World Trade Center’s Tower 1, formerly know as Freedom Tower, on Dec. 16 reached its halfway point—the 52nd floor—Tower 4 is at the 9th floor, and the north memorial pool had a successful water test in late November. The steel for the atrium that will lead to the below-grade memorial museum was also put in place in mid-December. “It’s a fantastic time in the project,” said Quentin Brathwaite, assistant director of program logistics for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s WTC construction program, at the start of a talk hosted
Anewly opened $4-billion Las Vegas mega-resort will test the city’s recession-racked, tourist-based economy, while concluding years of work for 3,220 tradespeople and construction staff responsible for the 2,995-room, 7-million-sq-ft Cosmopolitan Casino Resort. Photo: Bill Hughes The Cosmopolitan was the right hotel-condo-casino at the wrong time, a source says. Characterized in one media report as the city’s “most expensive debacle,” the bank-owned hotel complex, set to open a year late on Dec. 15, epitomizes Vegas’ real estate boom gone bust. Developers broke ground on the project, originally valued at $1.8 billion, in late 2005 with little cash down. The price tag
Federal agencies are gearing up to deepen their commitment to the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system heading into 2011, despite some criticism of its effectiveness. During the Ecobuild America conference, held Dec. 6-10 in Washington, D.C., representatives from several agencies touted their green agendas. The U.S. General Services Administration, the largest federal landlord, continues to stay out front as a champion of LEED ratings. In October, GSA announced that LEED Gold certification would be the minimum requirement for new federal building construction and renovation projects starting in fiscal 2011. Projects in design
Interested parties have until Jan. 14 to take advantage of the first of two public comment periods on the draft update of the popular Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green-building rating system. The U.S. Green Building Council hopes to release the revised system in November 2012, after an August 2012 ballot. The proposed system builds on LEED 2009, which includes the alignment and weighting of credits for certification, says USGBC. The upcoming version also develops the LEED 2009 framework that allows credits to be applied to specific building types. The draft increases emphasis on integrated process and building
The nation’s biggest landlord, the U.S. General Services Administration, is requiring LEED Gold certification as a minimum in all new federal building construction and substantial renovation projects. GSA is updating its facilities standards by the end of the year to enable the projects to meet the LEED Gold requirement—the second-to-the-highest of four certification levels of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design green-building rating system. For projects currently under design that were funded before fiscal 2010, GSA is requiring LEED Gold where possible, after evaluating budget and schedule constraints. For leased properties, GSA is keeping its current requirement for LEED
Photo: Courtesy of Oregon Sustainability Center Oregon Sustainability Center’s planned height is at least 70 ft. Related Links: International Living Building Institute Construction is scheduled to begin in about a year and be finished 18 months later on a planned 70 to 100-ft-tall net-zero-energy use building in Portland that would, if completed, rank as the tallest net-zero-energy-use building in the U.S. The team for the $40-million Oregon Sustainability Center, which includes SERA Architects, GBD Architects and general contractor Skanska USA, is beginning a 12-week feasibility phase. Design should start in February. The seven-to-nine-story structure would be the tallest ever proposed
Like a runaway recycling truck, green building’s momentum hasn’t been stopped by the economic recession and will keep speeding through the recovery, according to a report released just prior to the construction industry’s annual green-building conference. At the same time, experts say building owners are looking to go green more for economic reasons than environmental ones. “Green building is the silver lining creating opportunity in the down economy,” says Harvey M. Bernstein, vice president of McGraw-Hill Construction (ENR is a unit of McGraw-Hill Construction). “And with this growth comes increasing attention on the value and performance of these buildings.” Green
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