Related Links: LA Times: Mayor Garcetti Suggests Czar for Earthquake Preparedness Simpson Gumpertz & Heger California Institute of Technology Renewed earthquake paranoia has hit Los Angeles since an Oct. 12 report in the Los Angeles Times labeled more than 1,000 buildings as "at risk" for collapse in a quake. In response, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti (D) promised to appoint a quake "czar" to determine if retrofits of the city's older reinforced-concrete structures are needed.The Times' list—compiled through building-permit research and an owner survey—includes mostly reinforced-concrete buildings engineered between the 1960s and the mid-1980s. "This class of building exists in
Related Links: AIA Press release on Trade Mission Opportunities for architecture and design firms are abundant in Brazil, but the best way to take advantage of those opportunities is to have boots on the ground, says Andrew Goldberg, the American Institute of Architect’s (AIA) managing director, government relations and outreach, who returned from a five-day trade mission to Brazil Oct. 10th.“The main thing we learned was that if you want to do work in places like Brazil, you really have to commit, and you need to be there… You need to be there on the ground, building relationships,” he says.The
Related Links: Vegas Hotel Is Like a Giant Sun Reflector, Says Pool Visitor Sandblasters Tone Down Glare-Prone Disney Concert Hall With the current fashion of curvaceous buildings, the need to shed light on solar glare is becoming an increasingly important design consideration. London's "Walkie Talkie" skyscraper is the latest to reflect "death rays" that partially melted a car and almost set fire to a barbershop's entrance.As Londoners basked in an uncharacteristically sunny summer day, the concave elevation of the incomplete 37-floor building at 20 Fenchurch St. focused solar rays onto the opposite sidewalk, melting part of a Jaguar's roof and
Related Links: American Insitute of Architects The American Institute of Architects and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for Advanced Urbanism, in collaboration with the Clinton Global Initiative and others, are expanding into urban-health design as never before. AIA recently launched a 10-year research project aimed at developing model methods to alter the urban environment in ways that would improve physical well-being.The goal of "Decade of Design: Health and Urbanism" is to focus attention on health through research, community planning and community engagement. The aim is to "better understand the link between health factors and city form," says Alan M.
Related Links: Bids Solicited for Tunneling in India's Treacherous Himalayas India Blackout Affects 600 Million People Chicago-based design firm dbHMS is finalizing a master plan with the goal of making India’s $260-million Nalanda University campus a net-zero energy user. The 370,000-sq-meter project in Rajgir, in the eastern state of Bihar, is expected to start construction by the end of 2013.dbHMS is working with architects Vastu Shilpa Consultant of India, which won the project via the university’s international design competition.According to the firm, the plan for the Nalanda project is to install the world’s first application of a non-experimental desiccant-assisted evaporative
Samsung C&T Corp. has started construction of a multi-use tower that is slated to become the tallest building in Singapore, at 290 meters, when completed in 2016.The South Korea-based contractor won the design-build contract in March for GuocoLand Ltd.’s Tanjong Pagar Center. By late July, secant piling work was complete and preparations for first-floor construction had begun. The project is using top-down construction methods to speed the work.The center is located in the city’s commercial business district, above the Tanjong Pagar MRT station. When completed, the complex will feature 158,000 sq m of space and three basement levels.The center comprises
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.
In the U.S., the Federal Aviation Administration owns, builds and operates most control towers and provides air-traffic-control services at 264 airports.In contrast, air-traffic control in some countries is privatized. For example, Nav Canada, a private non-profit corporation, has been responsible for air traffic control since 1996 in Canada, and other countries in which private air-navigation-service companies operate include Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Norway, Poland, the Ukraine and Indonesia.Air-navigation technology
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
Elevator and design consultants are lauding a new elevator system from KONE Corp. that drastically reduces the weight of the hoisting cables—the bane of tall-building experts.