The Construction Industry Institute considers productivity to be such a complex challenge that the group allotted six years, rather than the usual two, for its research team to study the issue.
This year’s panel of photo contest judges did more than choose finalists. They came to the conclusion that over-manipulation of photos should not be rewarded in a formal contest.Robert Nickelsberg—whose latest photo book, “Afghanistan: A Distant War,” was hailed by The New Yorker as “a stunning collection of photography”—was the judge who brought to the table the subject of gratuitous photo editing.“This year’s judges decided to turn away photos that they thought were obviously too Photoshopped or overedited,” says Luke Abaffy, ENR’s multimedia editor, who organized the contest this year for the first time.“We cannot make a practice of rewarding
Illustration Courtesy of Bentley Systems Approach connects engineering with geospatially defined 3D construction packages. Illustration Courtesy of Bentley Systems Approach offers dashboards to track progress. Related Links: Bentley's Lean CM and Workface Planning Product Construction Industry Institute Report on Advanced Work Packaging A s project size grows in complexity, so does the need for advanced tools for work-face planning. At its "Year in Infrastructure" conference in London, Bentley Systems Inc. in late October announced that its ProjectWise Construction Work Package Server (WPS), a system for managing the life cycle of work packages, is now being validated by industry firms and
The idea for our theme issue, "Imagining Construction's Future," was born in July 2012 when Intel futurist Brian David Johnson gave a keynote at ENR FutureTech.
It was going to be the press tour of a lifetime. Genevieve Taylor.53.Wong, the editor-in-chief of Engineering News-Record, stretched back in her office chair and tapped a few keys on the armrest. She was transferring all the background data she thought she would need on the trip into the implant in her temple, leaving messages for her editors, and checking on her zip car to JFK.
Arturo Ressi di Cervia, one of the preeminent constructors of slurry walls in the world, died of cancer at age 72 in New York City on Aug. 23.Ressi worked on signature projects in many countries, but the most famous may be the Italian engineer's first job in the U.S.: construction of the slurry-wall perimeter of the World Trade Center basement."The quality of the work became evident on Sept. 11, 2001, when the walls were re-exposed after three decades. The walls withstood the Sept. 11 attack and helped prevent the Hudson River from flooding parts of lower Manhattan," says George J.
Photo Courtesy of the Chicago Dept. of Aviation O'Hare Airport, Spring 2004. To build major new runways at O'Hare, contractors had to move a cemetery, a railroad, cargo facilities and a huge retention pond. Photo Courtesy of the Chicago Dept. of Aviation O'Hare Airport, June 2013. Related Links: O'Hare Operations Literally Buzz With Activity Airports Push the Green Envelope Reconfiguring an airport the size of O'Hare, including building four new runways—without disrupting the 68 million passengers that use it annually—involves challenging staging and logistics. The construction team had to relocate a railroad, a cemetery, cargo facilities and a stormwater retention
Photo Courtesy of Arup Related Links: Global Best Projects Awards Looping, Leaning Tube in Beijing Is an Antidote to the Skyscraper China Central Television (CCTV) Headquarters China Central Television's looping first-of-a-kind structure resulted from a close collaboration between OMA, three Arup offices and other consultants in Europe, Asia and America. The cooperation was essential in delivering the design (ENR 7/21/08 p. 30) for the building's external continuous tube system. Judges noted the difficulties of gaining approval for a design outside the prescriptive Chinese building code and also the challenge of connecting the two towers in the 13-story overhang suspended 36 stories
Photo by Dan Sellers Leite talks with University of Texas grad students about a design coordination research project using building information models. Related Links: Main Feature: Industry Women Weigh In on the New Normal Fernanda Leite's UT Web page Fernanda Leite has a passion for teaching and technology. A tenure-track assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin, she clearly delights in the research her graduate students are doing. Third-year Ph.D. student Li Wang, for example, is capturing decisions made by experts while resolving clashes detected in building information models to help train novice designers in the future."We developed
