Joyce and Pat Blaize lived in Plaquemines Parish for 54 years. (By Angelle Bergeron) Joyce and Pat Blaize have been married for 54 years, and that’s how long they’ve lived in the house Pat’s grandfather built on the west bank of the Mississippi River in lower Plaquemines Parish. For 54 years they have shared their lives–making love, working, fighting, rearing children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and having crayfish boils and barbecues on their beautiful outdoor patio on the foot of the levee. Their way of life and the home that was its foundation all changed last August, washed away by Hurricane Katrina,
Pity today’s U.S. airport construction manager. He or she must deliver high-tech, glitzy, and complex facilities to meet growth demand, new regulations and stiffer competition for passengers and cargo. Billions of dollars in projects must be fast-tracked, harmonious and on budget, even when construction parameters waiver, airport operations dominate and work is governed by inflexible public sector rules of engagement. Related Links: Project News: Global Projects around the world test delivery schemes to meet site challenges featured project Featured Project: Class Struggle Design-build delivers schools to reservations academic research Academic Research: Best Value University refines performance-based contractor selection system company
Rail officials in Australia thought they had an innovative design-build type of contract for a section of railroad tunnel through Perth. But with claims on the job now equal to 60% of the contract's $240-million price, and with politicians lambasting the contractor, the approach seems to have gone awry. The City Rail Project, sponsored by the Public Transport Authority (PTA), covers the urban underground section of a $1.2-billion suburban railroad from downtown Perth to Mandurah 70 kilometers south. City work involves 1.3 km of tunnels, half being done with a boring machine, and half using cut-and-cover technique. Breakthrough Belies Perth
The Bureau of Indian Affairs, the federal agency that oversees construction, maintenance and repair of over 7,000 tribal buildings totaling 27 million sq ft in 23 states, needed to change its ways. Nearly 60% of 184 reservation schools under its care were old and in woeful shape. How could the agency fight the inertia of a bureaucratic federal construction process to jumpstart a new schoolbuilding program for the reservation? The answer was alternative project delivery. Even with a 1990s-era building moratorium still in effect, BIA, which is part of the Dept. of Interior, received a helping hand in its mission
After 12 years of analyzing contractual relationships, researchers at Arizona State University have developed and refined a best-value, performance-based procurement system that improves price-driven construction. The key to the system is viewing construction as a highly skilled, technical process and that minimizing management makes it more efficient. Kashiwagi “The [common] construction industry model is all wrong because you need to buy construction as a best value, not as a commodity. When that happens, skill levels will again become important and quality will improve,” says Dean T. Kashiwagi, director of the Performance Based Studies Research Group at ASU’s Del E. Webb
Building the structures you design is not something most design firms choose to do. But for CVM Design-Build, Wayne, Pa., the progression of work responsibilities just seemed to happen naturally. “We are something of an ‘exotic bird’ in the AEC industry,” says Jon Morrison, principal of CVM Structural Engineers, one of several units under the CVM Design-Build umbrella. “Most design professionals shy away from the implementation of their work, whereas we embrace it.” (Illustration by Guy Lawrence for ENR) The company was founded in 1986 as a design and engineering firm. But as it grew, principals found that they increasingly
Nestled in the valley of Mount Katrina, roughly 20 mucky acres on the eastern end of the recently-reopened, massive Old Gentilly Landfill in eastern New Orleans, lies the white goods processing/staging area. For the uninitiated in debris removal, the white goods waste stream comprises stoves, washers, dryers, household appliances, air conditioning units, hot water heaters and the big stinky‑refrigerators. When a half million New Orleanians evacuated, they left behind refrigerators and freezers full of what people in these parts love to eat–pots of red beans and rice with sausage, gumbo, shrimp, fish, deer meat, alligator sausage and andouille. Mix it
One-of-a-Kind. Battle Stations 21 project is designed to provide more realistic training. (Photo courtesy of McShane-Fleming Sudios) Quietly rising under the radar and chaff of today’s starchitects and signature structures is a revolutionary ship-shaped building within a building that marks the beginning of a new genre of naval military training. Built around technology, theatrics and special effects, the project is the product of imaginative teamwork. Dubbed Battle Stations 21, the $82.5-million facility now under construction at the U.S. Navy’s Great Lakes Naval Station, North Chicago, will be the ultimate in naval warfare simulation. When operational in the summer of 2007,
The explosion in material prices in 2004 continued unabated through 2005 with double-digit price increases for gypsum wallboard, ductile iron and copper pipe. Petroleum-based products, such as PVC pipe and paving asphalt, also helped keep construction inflation higher than that of the overall economy. Inflation measured by the Building Cost Index (BCI) was 5% last December, after jumping 10% the previous year as the index absorbed a 31% increase in steel prices. Higher material prices also helped push up the annual increase for the Construction Cost Index (CCI) by 5% in 2005. The mechanics of what drives ENR’s indexes are
Two years of relentless materials price escalation has pushed construction costs into new territory. Contractors and owners are dealing with the reality of a permanently higher cost structure, especially for steel, concrete and petroleum-based products. Materials with a high-end use in the residential market, such as lumber and plywood, may get some price relief later in the year with the expected slowdown in housing. But this will be countered by higher energy costs that will prop up a broad range of prices and a weak dollar that is cutting off cheap imports. “We are really looking for this year to
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