2004: The Year in Construction
If one was to judge by the headlines in 2004, America was in desperate turmoil during the year as the bloodshed in Iraq continued unabated, ferocious presidential campaigning was pursued relentlessly by candidates seeking the opportunity to steer the nation one way or another and political demonstrations took on proportions last seen in the Vietnam era.
Rick Fell
Photographer: Rick Fell
Submitter: Garney Construction Co.
A crewman cuts through steel supports to demolish a clarifier reaction well for a $65-million upgrade to a water plant in Thornton, Colo. "We worked double shifts on a design-build contract," to enable the Denver suburb to double capacity to 60 million gallons per day and upgrade to tertiary treatment, says Fell, a project engineer.
David Ahlborn
Photographer: David Ahlborn
Submitter: Earth Tech Inc.
Iraqi tile cutters help renovate 45 ransacked buildings on a military base in An Numaniyah. The work force needed a lot of supervision, says the photographer, who worked as a project manager under an Air Force Center for Environmental Excellence reconstruction contract. "Still, you meet a guy once in a while who’s really busting it, rebuilding his country while making $5 a day."
Polly Lankford
Photographer: Polly Lankford
Submitter: Humane Exposures, La Jolla, Calif.
The first big pour at 655 Broadway, a $140-million, 23-floor, Class A, mixed-use high-rise in San Diego, lasted 17 hours. Lankford shot through it all "to make sure I covered the whole process," she says.
Joseph A. Blum
Photographer: Joseph A. Blum
Submitter: Joseph A. Blum Photography.
On Yerba Buena Island in San Francisco Bay, two ironworkers pry rebar while a lunchbox waits beside them. The foundation columns were intended to anchor the New Bay Bridge’s high-costing signature span, now under legislative review.
Walt Hinchman
Photographer: Walt Hinchman, Viscom Photographics
Submitter: Brasfield & Gorrie
"A different season and time would have had an entirely different look and feel," says Hinchman, who picked his vantage and time for this shot of a $43-million addition to St. Vincent’s Hospital in Birmingham, Ala., capturing not just the job, but the city’s spirit.
Karen Burton
Photographer: Karen Burton
Submitter: Blakleys Inc., Indianapolis
"It’s amazing that they have the guts to get out there," says Burton, a drafter whose husband is the project manager for construction of a $30-million control tower at Indianapolis International Airport. This worker was calking windows "340 feet up and the windows tilt out...just hanging there in the middle of nowhere," she says.
Paul Knapick
Photographer: Paul Knapick
Submitter: BBL Construction Services, Albany, N.Y.
Forty custom-bent metal studs radiate to form the structure for a dome over a new $25-million home for Albany Family Court. For a little while they created an open, flower-like pattern that Knapick just couldn’t resist, knowing that in a few days the decking would be installed and the chance to capture the image would be gone. "That’s the whole thing with this shooting construction–just being there," Knapick says.
Reed Lombard
Photographer: Reed Lombard
Submitted by: COWELCO Steel Contractors, Long Beach, Calif.
His own job for COWELCO keeps him in the office but Lombard says he now has a rare chance to watch–and photograph–company employees as they erect steel for COWELCO’s own new office building across the street. He takes progress shots and compositions like this one when he can. Photos let his academic background as a fine arts major shine.
Ryan Taylor
Photographer: Ryan Taylor
Submitter: Webcor Builders, San Mateo, Calif.
"I really like the way it looks, the big tires, the big fork extension. It’s a really useful piece of equipment," says Taylor, explaining why he made the Gradall he was operating on a $34-million student housing project at California State University, Monterey, the subject of a 24-image collage for a photography class. Webcor executives, who encouraged photo submissions from employees for this contest, agreed. It has the "Ahhh factor," one said. "Sometimes a shot, or group of shots can force us to look at things a different way."
Mike Worrell
Photographer: Mike Worrell
Submitter: Milco Constructors Inc., Long Beach, Calif.
The camera and eye of project manager Worrell caught the drama of flying in trusses for a $12-million acoustic canopy at the Hollywood Bowl Amphitheater in Los Angeles. Site constraints and sensitive structural elements called for expert rigging and handling.
Sarah Montezon
Photographer: Sarah Montezon
Submitter: Edward Kraemer & Sons, Plain, Wis.
"We were out in a canyon outside Golden, Colo.," says Montezon, a publicist for EKS. "On that particular job we had been working 24 hours straight for 14 days, removing the decks" under a $2-million bridge contract.
Brice Urqhart
Photographer: Brice Urqhart
Submitter: Figg Engineering Group, Tallahassee, Fla.
Like a fleet of spaceships, precast viaduct segments are poised to fly. They were joined together to erect a highway across Interstate 75 in Florida in a single night. Figg is engineer-of-record on the $135-million expansion of the Tampa Hillsborough Expressway.
Paul E. Knapick
Photographer: Paul E. Knapick
Submitter: BBL Construction Services, Albany, N.Y.
Ironworker Gogi Gwardschaladse waits for steel on the $65-million expansion and modernization project at Glens Falls Hospital, Glens Falls, N.Y. "He was having a good time," says Knapick. "Sometimes you have to relax and enjoy your job." Knapick says that light bouncing from a deck just below lighted the subject perfectly.
Michael B. Hill
Photographer: Michael B. Hill
Submitter: Michael B. Hill
Hill, a bond agent, drives past the site of the $261-million Dallas High 5 interchange project every morning, where a crane is placing beams. "I went out one morning to take pictures of the project and that crane was sitting right there," he says. "I got underneath and took some pictures. It’s a fascinating piece of equipment to watch...there’s not many of them. I was fascinated."
John Koski
Photographer: John Koski
Submitter: John Koski
A compact backhoe-loader digs in the shadow of a NASA Kennedy Space Center launch tower on a $3-million pipelaying project by Sauer Inc., Jacksonville, Fla. "It’s just a neat experience to get close to the launch area," Koski says after 30 years in construction.
Sue Bednarz
Photographer: Sue Bednarz
Submitter: Jacobs Associates
A worker polishes a 16-ft-dia tunnel boring machine’s bearing plate before bolting on the cutter head. The contractor says Portland, Ore.’s $300-million combined sewer overflow tunnel project is the first of its type in North America to employ a slurry TBM.
Michael Recanzone
Photographer: Michael Recanzone
Submitter: Washoe County, Nev., RTC
"It was kinda like you were in hell," says Recanzone, who works for construction manager CH2M Hill Cos. on the $51.6-million U.S. 395 interchange improvement project. His night shot shows workers blowtorching rebar and breaking concrete in demolishing a bridge over the Reno, Nev., highway.
Mark Katzman
Photographer: Mark Katzman
Submitter: McCarthy Building Cos. Inc., St. Louis
"We try to make the construction process visually appealing," says Katzman, who took this shot of McCarthy workers preparing concrete for the $49-million Lindbergh Boulevard Tunnel in St. Louis. "Rebar makes a great compositional element."
Brian Fulcher
Photographer: Brian Fulcher
Submitter: Neilson Excavating EBD Inc., Quebec
Fulcher visited a metro tunnel project linking Montreal and Laval, Quebec, to see a Voest Alpine AM 105 IC roadheader at work. Just two people are needed to operate the huge machine. Fulcher says watching it eat rock in the movie-like setting was "intriguing."
Sue Bednarz
Photographer: Sue Bednarz
Submitter: Sue Bednarz, Jacobs Assoc..
Proud workers in Portland, Ore., pose in front of a section of the West Side Combined Sewer Overflow Project’s tunnel boring machine in the 120-ft-deep Nicolai shaft. The $300-million job is the first in North America to use slurry TBMs.
Brian Fulcher
Photographer: Brian Fulcher
Submitter: Kenny Construction Co./J.F. Shea Co./Traylor Bros. Construction/Frontier-Kemper Constructors
Sixty feet under ground, a bottomloader secures precast tunnel liner segments for a $260-million Los Angeles sewer upgrade.
Theresa Hewitt
Photographer: Theresa Hewitt
Submitter: Kiewit Industrial Co.
Field Engineer Hewitt took 10 to 12 photos daily just to record progress in assembling a steam turbine at 533-MW Valley Generating Station in Sun Valley, Calif. Awed by the machine’s beauty, she caught this image, sighting along the wire used to position pieces. "You couldn’t go back the next day and get that picture," she says. "It’s just a moment in time."
Steven Gould
Photographer: Steven Gould
Submitter: Dallas-Fort Worth Airport
Creating a vivid contrast of orange and blue, the last of seven tower cranes is disassembled at the International Terminal D site at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. It was used in construction of a 2-million-sq-ft terminal and 8,100-space parking garage, part of the airport’s overall $2.7-billion upgrade.
Steve Gould
Photographer: Steve Gould
Submitter: DFW Airport
In a contemplative moment, John Jones with Span Systems Inc., Manchester, N.H., takes a break from his work on installing an arrivals-level canopy at the new International Terminal D at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. Two Teflon-coated fiberglass canopies will cover one acre of roadway and shield travelers from the hot Texas sun and occasional downpours. The $1-billion terminal work is winding down with a scheduled opening in summer of 2005.
Unknown
Photographer: Unknown
Submitter: Unknown
Millau Pier