To develop its first wide-scale production testing facility, biotech company GRAIL wanted to move quickly. It called on contractor Brasfield & Gorrie to deliver the $38-million, 200,000-sq-ft project in 5.5 months.

The Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute has recently commissioned the largest Ultra High-Performance Concrete implementation project in which six major precast concrete companies are collaborating to develop their own ultra mixture proportions and to implement the technology.

The University of Texas at San Antonio’s $9.95-million Large-Scale Testing Laboratory will provide space for students and researchers in the Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering to test the structural integrity of systems in a realistic setting.

With its ability to create shallow waves of great length in a laboratory flume, a new tsunami simulator in the U.K. is helping seismic engineers at University College’s EPICentre, London, compute more accurate structural impact models than previously were possible.

Recent growth in the use of BIM and model-based processes has spawned an enormous increase in offsite and near-site prefabrication, a trend that could be transformative for the construction industry.