Structural fire engineering is heating up in the U.S. and Europe, thanks in large part to the "traveling fires" observed on Sept. 11, 2001, at the World Trade Center.
Mike Current says he almost had a nervous breakdown in anticipation of the first lift of the site-preassembled, glass-enclosed pedestrian bridges that link CityCenterDC's 11-story office buildings across a 24-ft-wide alley.
The conventional reinforced-concrete frames of the six 11-story buildings that stand in place of the razed Washington, D.C., convention center don't hold a candle to the innovative space truss that supported the old exhibit hall's clear-span roof.
Related Links: Model Contracts To Aid 'E-Building' AIA Digital Practice Documents Guide & Samples Breaking precedent from its 10-year model-contract-update cycle to keep up with fast-changing practices regarding "e-building," the American Institute of Architects released revised standard digital-data and building-information-modeling documents for use by all members of a project team. Designers attending the 2013 AIA National Convention and Design Exposition in Denver, on June 20 to 22, acknowledged that the AIA documents and the new guide released with them represent progress. But they still expressed concerns about sharing BIMs with contractors.“We all know this is the future, and [developing standard
Related Links: Urban Green Council Building Resiliency Task Force Reasoning that existing buildings will improve naturally over time when they undergo renovations, a task force on building resiliency in New York City, formed after last October's Superstorm Sandy, is recommending building-code changes mostly for new construction and substantial renovations."Recommendations are intended to minimize interruptions to building functionality while allowing the market to dictate the need to implement resiliency measures," says the Building Resiliency Task Force in its 42-page report to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (R) and City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn (D).The task force's 33 proposals for commercial and
Related Links: High-Strength Rebar Market Is Heating Up Charles Pankow Foundation Steward of Charles Pankow Foundation Supports Building Innovation One Grant at a Time The Charles Pankow Foundation, which, since 2006, has spent $7.4 million funding 42 mostly unrelated research projects, is switching gears. To improve construction practice, it will now focus on larger research concepts that could have an impact on all structures, not just buildings.The group has picked high-strength reinforcing steel for its first wide-impact research program. The goal is to update the concrete code, which currently limits the use of higher-strength rebar in all types of structures.Pankow
Related Links: Timber Tower Research Project Softwood Lumber Board Arup San Francisco The U.S. is lagging Europe, Canada and Australia in the massive-timber tall-building movement—heating up because renewable, low-carbon-footprint timber is the most sustainable structural material. A feasibility study released last week for a 42-story concrete-jointed mass-timber frame—considered supertall in a world in which the tallest timber building is only 105 ft—could begin to change all that by stirring up interest in tall timber structures in the U.S. and even providing grist for the mill for supertall timber towers elsewhere.Under the Timber Tower Research Project, a team from the Chicago
Now that proposed Superstorm Sandy-triggered changes to New York City zoning are out for public review, building owners, designers and contractors are eagerly awaiting the second piece of the post-Sandy regulation puzzle: proposed modifications to the city's building code. The adjustments to the two sets of regulations should go a long way toward aiding the design and construction of buildings that are safer and more resilient when exposed to floods and other major climate-related events, says Robert D. LiMandri, New York City's commissioner of buildings. Drawing Courtesy of the New York City Dept. of City Planning Possible Modification: Proposed rules
When the project team started plotting its construction strategy for The Shard, no one in the U.K. had ever planned a 306-meter-tall building or worked at such lofty heights.
Courtesy of the NYC Dept. of City Planning Map shows low-lying areas (dark blue) that would be affected by proposed New York City zoning-code changes intended to facilitate flood-resilient construction. Related Links: Designers Call for a More-Coordinated Effort to Improve New York City's Flood Resistance Interested parties have until mid-July to review proposed zoning changes to facilitate flood-resilient construction in designated flood zones in New York City. The City Planning Commission, which released the proposed zoning text amendment on May 20, will refer the proposals to 41 community boards—all of which contain flood zones—and all five borough presidents and borough
