Canada’s $730-million Vancouver convention center expansion on the city’s waterfront sits on the best of sites. To the north are breathtaking views of Coal Harbor, Burrard Inlet and the North Shore Mountains. Across the street to the south is the city center. Directly to the west is the landmark Stanley Park. Slide Show Photo: VCCEP Team Related Links: Habitat Apron Cooked Up To Mitigate Impact on Marine Life Water Treatment and Reuse Reduces Use of Potable Water Photo: LMN Architects Building could not block street and park view corridors. But the 106,000-sq-meter project in seismic British Columbia also sits on
In seismic territory, something as simple as adding two floors to an existing building, even if it was designed to accept more load, can be complicated.
Samsung Engineering and Construction Corp.’s Kyung-Jun Kim, vice president and project director for the tallest building in the world—the 800-meter-plus Burj Dubai—cut his teeth on supertall skyscraper construction, building one of the twin, 452-meter Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Ron Klemencic, who at 6 ft, 6 in., towers over most people, may be afraid of heights but he certainly goes to great lengths to reach new ones, especially when it involves performance-based seismic design of tall buildings.
J. Patrick Kociolek, the lauded visionary behind the super-green reinvention of the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, doesn’t let grass grow under his feet, at least not for long.
The new Green Building Certification Institutes, sister organization to Washington, D.C.-based U.S. Green Building Council, is about to launch a total overhaul of the exam system for professionals seeking accreditation to design and build green buildings according to USGBC’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system, known as LEED. The overhaul, announced at USGBC’s Greenbuild International Conference and Expo, Nov. 19-21 in Boston, creates a tiered-credential and specific tests for different types of buildings. GBCI, formed last month, will take over credentialing and building certification from USGBC in January. Peter Templeton, USGBC’s former vice president of education and research,
The Associated General Contractors BIM Forum is a wild success, attracting 1,600members in less than three years fromall areas of building design and construction.There is no cost to join, but that’s not whymembership is increasing daily, at a rate of30% each year. The forum is so popular becauseit is considered the best place for collaborationand collective action to relieve theaches and achieve the potential gains of theparadigm shift to building-information-modeling-enabled design and construction. Related Links: Building Team Views Technological Tools as Best Chance For Change Virtual Collaborative Charrettes Give Glimpse of Future Forum Tackles Teamwork Issues Strong Owner Leadership Can
First comes “lonely” BIM, when a firm begins to tool up for building-information-modeling-enabled projects. Then comes “social” BIM, when a firm collaborates with other firms using BIM. Next comes “intimate” BIM, when the owner, architect and contractor share risk and reward contractually via BIM-enabled integrated project delivery. Finally, when work gets heavenly, there is “cheruBIM.” Slide Show Photo: Onuma, Inc. Related Links: Building Team Views Technological Tools as Best Chance For Change Virtual Collaborative Charrettes Give Glimpse of Future Forum Tackles Teamwork Issues Strong Owner Leadership Can Optimize Project Collaboration Building Information Modeling Snags Don’t Dampen Spirits Lawyers Struggle with
