A case challenging the patentability of business methods will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in December. The outcome may rock innovators and inventors in the construction industry. Bilski v. Doll is Bernard Bilski’s last appeal. Doll is John Doll, acting director of the U.S. patent office, which has rejected Bilski’s patent for a method to hedge risks in commodities trading. The case would normally be a far cry from construction, except the language of the most recent rejection, by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in October, added a new bar for any business-method patent
If finished by 2011 as planned and supported by an effective stormwater pumping system, the $14.3-billion hurricane and storm-damage risk-reduction system of levees, gates and floodwalls going up around New Orleans will “dramatically reduce” vulnerability to flooding and potential loss of lives and property during extreme storms events, according to a new report that explains the extraordinary risk-analysis tools developed to study the system since Hurricane Katrina’s devastation in 2005. “If it’s constructed and performs equal to what we assume it will in the model, it’s going to be a hell of a system,” says Lewis “Ed” Link, the director
The main lesson learned by the construction manager who recently completed a pioneering four-year, BIM-enabled project to build a replacement ballpark for the New York Yankees is “the more trades modeling, the merrier,” says James Barrett, manager of virtual design and construction for Turner Construction Co., the CM at-risk. But more doesn’t necessarily mean more complex, in terms of interoperabilty, anyway. Building on the experiences with the Yankees project, Barrett says Turner is satisfied for now to see subcontractors building their own models and working with their tools of choice, at their preferred levels of detail beyond a minimum standard,
One lesson learned from the Walsh Group’s construction- management assignment on a 650,000-sq-ft hospital in Elgin, Ill.—a project Walsh took over as mass excavation and steel procurement were under way—is that a lack of team experience with building information modeling should not be an inhibiting factor on a complex construction project. image: Walsh Construction Photo: Walsh Construction In some areas ducts hung below plumbing because pipe lead times were less. Related Links: Digging into 3D Modeling Unearths Many Worms Leading-Edge Collaboration Hurt By Lots of Software Workarounds 3D Modeling Spurs Architect To Reorganize Divisions of Labor Leading Off With a
At a time when companies struggle to reduce “optional” expenses like conferences and travel, one organization of determined visionaries still attracts strong participation as it drives efforts to bring efficiency-enhancing technologies to the workplace. FIATECH, an industry consortium heavy in the capital facilities sector but drawing increasing interest from other areas of construction, fielded a strong turnout of technology leaders at its annual conference in Las Vegas on April 6-9. Attendance was down about 17% from previous records, but those who came despite the recession said now is the time to integrate improvements to position their companies for the next
Saint Patrick’s Day brought a boatload of new “green” bulding energy-performance analysis tools, including a trio of emmigrant products with long resumes, to U.S. architects, consultants and engineers. In announcements on March 17, both Bentley Systems, Exton, Pa., and Autodesk Inc., San Raphael, Calif., introduced significant and quite different tools to a practice both companies expect will grow rapidly. “I think there is huge demand,” says Huw W. Roberts, Bentley’s global marketing director. “All design firms are integrating this kind of design analysis and addressing these issues. The demand for this will be 100%.” “It is becoming a bigger part
At conferences and on Websites, at research centers and out on windswept coasts around the world, increasing numbers of engineers, scientists, planners and policymakers are gathering to share ideas and lessons learned about a growing threat to one of the linchpins of civilization: the delta regions of the world. Those fragile landforms, built patiently over millennia by the sediment deposited at the mouths of the world’s mightiest rivers, are home to great ports and commercial centers of the global economy. They are, by definition, low and coastal; they also are on the front line to suffer hard consequences from climate
While pioneering firms strive to reduce risk and increase productivity by embracing virtual design and construction, the vendors enabling VDC struggle to anticipate user needs and differentiate themselves from their competition without losing customers in swamps of technological confusion. Slide Show Image: 2009 Open Geospatial Consortium Inc. and buildingSMART alliance Image: 2009 Open Geospatial Consortium Inc. and buildingSMART alliance Related Links: Digital-Modeling-Standard Effort ‘SOS’ Forty Years of Grassroots Development Modeling Pathfinders Impatient To Have A Much Fuller Digital Toolbox Digital Box There are myriad products addressing discrete aspects of virtual design and construction. Most work independently and share their results
With a trend toward integrated project delivery gaining traction, project teams are clamoring for a free flow of data between disciplines. In its latest response to the evolving market needs, on Feb. 9, San Raphael, Calif.-based Autodesk Inc. presented 2010 versions of its architecture, engineering, construction and geospatial products, as well as civil design software for transportation and utilities, with changes designed to ease the adoption of building information modeling processes within and across those sectors. The most ubiquitous change, as presented in a web conference showcasing key features of the new releases, is the replacement of tool bars across
The American Society of Civil Engineers has issued its third report card on the state of the nation’s infrastructure. The “poor” status reported in 2001 and 2005 is unchanged, while the five-year, $2.2-trillion investment needed to correct it has increased by half a trillion dollars since 2005. The ASCE released its 2009 Report Card for Infrastructure two months earlier than planned, hoping to influence the national discussion over infrastructure funding now taking place in Washington, D.C., officials from the group said. The report card, which gives the nation’s infrastructure an overall grade of “D,” or “Poor,” synopsizes the findings of
