Industry professionals poured out their passion at a conference in Washington, D.C., about the nation’s need to step up efforts to mitigate natural hazards through more resilient design and construction. Earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and wildfires are known natural hazards with risks that vary by location, but speakers at the event agreed that these risks can be mitigated by building in resilience. Codes, land-use planning and insurance programs all should be part of the solution. Photo Courtesy Of The Institute For Business & Home Safety North Carolina insurance institute test center withstood hurricane force winds that blew down a near-twin structure
In 2016, Brazil will host the Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. Brazil’s infrastructure construction market could benefit from a similar spirit of international competition, say construction executives. Photo: Fotolia.com Brazil will need plenty of new infrastructure, but international contractors haven’t won much work yet. Competition bidders for infrastructure projects financed by multilateral agencies and prospective contractors must complete all the formalities to prequalify for important projects in Brazil. For example, they submit price and technical proposals that are evaluated by the appropriate agencies. Yet companies from outside Brazil have failed to win a very large or complex project,
Wanted for the nuclear powerplant industry: skilled engineers with experience in nuclear plant construction. Gray hair welcome. As a decades-long lull in nuclear plant construction gives way to a new generation of reactors slated to come online in the U.S. and around the globe, the industry is scrambling to get top engineering talent to join and lead major projects. Recruitment was one of the key themes to emerge during the Construction Users Roundtable’s (CURT) annual meeting, which focused on nuclear safety and was held in Orlando, Fla., on Nov. 8-10. No question, executives attending the CURT conference said, key challenges
With a split Congress set to take office in the wake of the Nov. 2 elections, labor unions are setting their legislative agenda firmly on an issue they believe members of all parties can rally behind: jobs. Passing the overdue highway-transit bill will be a major focus for organized labor. With Republicans' taking control of the House and increasing their number of seats in the Senate in 2011, another top labor-related bill, the Employee Free Choice Act, faces even longer odds than it did this year. That bill has been a top priority of organized labor, but has drawn strong
While environmental groups acknowledge that they lost many supporters in the 2010 mid-term elections, they add that the election was not a referendum on environmental issues, but on the economy and jobs. “This was an election about unhappiness over the economy, first and last, and the majority paid the price,” says Rodger Schlickeisen, president, Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund. “We lost a lot of champions and a lot of long-timer supporters,” says Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club. But he adds that voters still overwhelmingly support clean energy and curbing pollution. Brune points to California voters’ rejection of
Now is the time for the U.S. to update its approach to water treatment, says Bob Perciasepe, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency deputy administrator. “[The challenge] is how to get a 20th-century law—the Clean Water Act—appropriate for 21st-century projects,” he said at the Water Environment Federation’s annual meeting, held on Oct. 3-7 in New Orleans. When water-quality standards were first developed during the 1960s, problems such as high nitrogen and phosphorous levels as well as pharmaceuticals and other endocrine disruptors were not considered. Perciasepe said that implementing and enforcing Total Maximum Daily Load standards for contaminants are the best way to
Cutting through the din of rancorous partisanship in American politics isn’t easy, but the two-year-old National Transportation Policy Project has gathered high-level veteran public figures to state clearly and advance the cause of transportation programming. HECKER The project is part of the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington, D.C., non-profit organization—founded by former Senate Majority Leaders Howard Baker, Jr. (R-Tenn.), Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and George Mitchell (D-Maine)—that offers policy recommendations on health care, energy, homeland security and other national topics. But with a six-year transportation reauthorization at hand but not yet on the legislative agenda and funding at
Four more associations have joined the ConsensusDOCS coalition, bringing the total number of groups affiliated with the group to 28. Established three years ago, ConsensusDOCS focus is on developing construction contract documents through a consensus-oriented approach. The group started out with 20 member associations, including the Associated General Contractors, the Construction Users Roundtable and the American Subcontractors Association. The four new members are the American Society of Professional Estimators, the National Ground Water Association, Women Construction Owners & Executives USA and the Construction Specification Institute. Brian Perlberg, executive director of ConsensusDOCS, says the addition of the four groups shows ConsensusDOCS
The building energy-use reporting tool released this month by the American Institute of Architects may help firms get a handle on how their designs compare to others regarding predicted energy consumption, but it won’t help designers comply with myriad statewide energy codes. Not only are there different codes in different states for both commercial and residential construction but statewide energy codes are constantly evolving, making it tough for designers to keep up with changes, say code experts. Image Image State codes are generally based on model energy codes, which are “getting more rigorous,” said Dave Conover, senior technical adviser with
Licensed U.S. architects working globally, a group that is growing, need support from the American Institute of Architects in several ways, including promoting and endorsing a strategic plan that enables U.S. architects to gain professional practice licenses in foreign jurisdictions. AIA also should endorse the International Union of Architects’ (UIA) professional advisory standards, international education standards and international accreditation/validation standards. Image There is a growing need for U.S. architectural services in developing nations, the urban areas of which have few architects per capita. “The AIA should be advocating practices that enable its members to diversify their geographic, civic and cultural
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