Building Design & Construction articles from April 2007

Building Design & Construction archives from April 2007

A Banner Project For Sustainable Design.
April 1, 2007... By Jeff Yoders, Associate Editor The Banner Bank Building in Boise, Idaho, was conceived and designed not just as the most sustainable building in town, but also as a cost-efficient stigma breaker that shows how green design doesn't...

Roster of Judges.
April 1, 2007... Staff Robert Benson Senior Associate 4240 Architecture Chicago David P. Callan Vice President, Director of Sustainable Design and High-Performance Building Technology Syska Hennessy Group Chicago John...

Bronze Award: Back to the Garden.
April 1, 2007... By Jeff Yoders, Associate Editor A tasteful redevelopment preserves an important site in 1960s music history. Beginning in 1996, cable television billionaire and philanthropist Alan Gerry purchased the original Woodstock festival field...

Elgin, Illinois, hospital will use lake water to heat and cool itself.
April 1, 2007... Staff A new $200 million, 650,000-sf acute care hospital planned in Elgin, Ill., will take advantage of stable water temperatures from a nearby 15-acre lake to help heat and cool the interior spaces. The 2,400-ton lake-coupled geothermal...

Burbank, California, to get a 'green' planning building.
April 1, 2007... Staff Construction work has begun on a new municipality building in Burbank, Calif., that will house the city's planning and building divisions, public works department, and parks and recreation department. Designed by the Los Angeles...

Gehry to design addition to Weisman Museum.
April 1, 2007... Staff The University of Minnesota is giving architect Frank Gehry a second chance to fulfill a dream by expanding the first art museum he designed in the U.S. Gehry will design a $10 million addition to the Weisman Art Museum on the...

Raleigh, N.C., to get a 20-story mixed-use center.
April 1, 2007... Staff A joint development team of Kane Realty Corp., Raleigh, N.C., and Duke Realty Corp., Indianapolis, has announced plans to build a 20-story mixed-use office tower Raleigh, N.C.'s North Hills neighborhood. Due to break ground this...

Indian casino/hotel is rising in Rancho Mirage, California.
April 1, 2007... Staff Construction is nearing the halfway mark on the $205 million Agua Caliente Casino Hotel, a 16-story, 340-room, luxury hotel in Rancho Mirage, Calif., which is being developed by the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians. VOA...

Woodbury University to get a new architecture studio.
April 1, 2007... Staff Construction work has commenced on a $27 million studio building in Burbank, Calif., for Woodbury University's architecture program. Designed by Los-Angeles-based architect Rios Clementi Hale Studios, the two-story, 19,000-sf...

New-age medical center coming to Doha, Qatar.
April 1, 2007... Staff The design team of Pelli Clarke Pelli, New Haven, Conn., and Ellerbe Becket, Minneapolis, has unveiled its dramatic design for the Sidra Medical and Research Center in Doha, Qatar. Developed by the Qatar Foundation, the landmark...

Expansion hospital will be friendly to patients, staff, and helicopters.
April 1, 2007... Staff Efficient layouts, universal rooms, bed lifts, bedside registration, and built-in surge capacity for emergency preparedness are among the features that will make the $120 million University Medical Center Campus Expansion tower in...

Cleveland museum taps Denver's Fentress Bradburn for expansion.
April 1, 2007... Staff After a yearlong search, Cleveland Museum of Natural History trustees have chosen Fentress Bradburn Architects, a Denver firm known for its airports and museums (notably the National Museum of the Marine Corps, Quantico, Va.), to...

Florida developer hopes to transform failing mall to mixed-use magnet.
April 1, 2007... Staff Local private equity investor U.S. Capital Holdings Group has submitted its final plans to redevelop the former Fashion Mall property in Plantation, Fla., into a $350 million mixed-used center with residential, office, shopping,...

San Francisco could use green building in Treasure Island development.
April 1, 2007... Staff San Francisco may build a sustainable artificial island city on the existing Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay. Real estate developer Lennar Corporation has proposed building a self-sustaining city on Treasure Island--5,500...

Silver Award: A Simple Library in the Park.
April 1, 2007... By Jay W. Schneider, Senior Editor Built on a brownfield site in Iowa's capital, the Des Moines Central Library serves as both a benchmark for the city's future green building efforts and as an integrated community resource center. The...

Silver Award: Milwaukee's Newest Waterfront Attraction.
April 1, 2007... By Jay W. Schneider, Senior Editor Discovery World at Pier Wisconsin takes full advantage of its Lake Michigan site, but sensitive design and thoughtful sustainable features help it tread lightly on the city's waterfront. Discovery...

Resurrecting the legacy of Robert Moses.
April 1, 2007... Robert Cassidy, Editor-in-Chief "Robert Moses and the Modern City," an exhibition currently running in New York (based on a book of the same name by Hilary Ballon and Kenneth Jackson), brought to mind bittersweet memories of the Master...

Two-in-one gypsum panel primer.
April 1, 2007... Staff Spray-applied primer-surfacer product provides smooth, high-quality, finished gypsum panel walls and ceilings. In a single application, Sheetrock Tuff-Hide generates the same results produced by using a typical two-step process of...

Insulation now comes in a bigger package.
April 1, 2007... Staff Polyiso insulation packaging is now available in double 4x4-foot bundles. Wrapping two insulation bundles side-by-side under one shrink-wrapped covering offers time savings and conveniences when craning, fork lifting, and maneuvering...

DALI interface provides a new way to dim the lights.
April 1, 2007... Staff Two-channel digital addressable lighting interface (DALI) gateway increases convenience and energy savings for commercial building owners and management by facilitating the ability to control DALI ballasts via a building's lighting...

One wall, two jobs.
April 1, 2007... Staff Exterior cladding system works as a solar collector to heat outdoor air, reducing loads on the HVAC system. The metal solar collector surface is suspended several inches from south-facing wall, creating a plenum space. Fans bring the...

Breaking the dew point.
April 1, 2007... Staff Technology can improve the dehumidification capabilities of air-conditioning systems in hospitals, enhancing patient healing, lowering costs, and improving staff satisfaction. Trane's Cool, Dry, Quiet dehumidifier can extract 200%...

Energy analysis tool.
April 1, 2007... Staff Software tool helps Building Teams analize the energy use of TRACO-brand fenestration systems and cost-effectiveness analysis of different TRACO fenestration options in typical commercial buildings. E-Gen allows the user to input...

Redirect that hot air.
April 1, 2007... Staff The Airius Thermal Equalizer reduces the effect of hot air rising to the ceiling by directing the air at the ceiling to the floor where the warmer air is needed, thus balancing the floor and ceiling temperatures. The system can...

Rugged notebook has super-bright screen.
April 1, 2007... Staff The Toughbook CF-30 clamshell notebook PC from Panasonic features a bright, 1,000 Nit (candelas per square meter, a measure of brightness) LCD screen, currently the notebook industry's brightest screen. The screen allows AEC...

Hotel boom ends but remains active.
April 1, 2007... By Jim Haughey, Director, Research and Analytics, Reed Construction Data The hotel construction market expanded sharply last year and is expected to stay at its heightened level for several more years, but no further significant expansion...

RSMeans costs comparisons.
April 1, 2007... Staff [TABLE OMITTED]

Factory construction growth stalls.
April 1, 2007... Staff Manufacturing construction spending has peaked at a $40 billion annual rate--twice the pace in 2003-04--and will change very little over the next two years. Starts of new manufacturing projects declined sharply last year, but no...

Construction workforce remains steady.
April 1, 2007... Staff Construction employment has essentially been steady for the last year after a million new jobs were added during the previous two years. Contractors cut 62,000 jobs in February, but that decrease only offset hiring earlier in the...

Silver Award: Rehabilitation Center Rebuilds Wounded War Heroes.
April 1, 2007... By Jeff Yoders, Associate Editor The Center for the Intrepid provides hope for injured veterans, as well as important research into the rehabilitation of modern war injuries. Since 2001, more than 23,000 U.S. troops have been wounded...

Adobe 'extends' Photoshop for AEC professionals.
April 1, 2007... By Jeff Yoders, Associate Editor Adobe Systems announced in early March an expansion of its digital imaging product line, offering two editions of Adobe Photoshop CS3. The San Jose software firm is releasing the latest version of...

Gold Award: Building in America's Last Frontier.
April 1, 2007... By Dave Barista, Managing Editor A Building Team battles sub-zero temperatures, 120-mph driven snow, and days filled with complete darkness to build a high-tech medical center in rural Alaska. It was a typical winter day in south...

Modular Terminal Helps Salem Take Off Again.
April 1, 2007... By Dave Barista, Managing Editor After 14 years of dead air, commercial flights are finally coming back to Oregon's capital, thanks to a new modular terminal. Since 1993, Salem, Ore., has held the distinction of being the only state...

High-Performance Modular Classrooms Hit the Market.
April 1, 2007... By Dave Barista, Managing Editor 'Green' relocatable classrooms debut at a Massachusetts elementary school and a college in Northern California. Over a five-day stretch last December, students at the Carroll School in Lincoln, Mass.,...

High-tech research park becomes one with nature in Shanghai.
April 1, 2007... Staff Situated around the Lu Jia Bang River and 57 acres of lush greenscape, the Zhangjiang Semiconductor Research Park is attracting technology and research companies to the heart of Shanghai by offering state-of-the-art flexible lab and...

Carson City, Nevada, cancer center puts patient dignity first.
April 1, 2007... Staff No dark, depressing treatment rooms at the new $12 million Carson Tahoe Cancer Center in Carson City, Nevada. The 34,000-sf facility, located on the new 85-acre Carson Tahoe Medical Campus, offers bright, vibrant spaces and...

Heart hospital opens in North Texas.
April 1, 2007... Staff Spacious private patient rooms and all-digital workflow are among the features of the newly opened, 68-bed Heart Hospital Baylor Plano. Built adjacent to the Baylor Regional Medical Center in Plano, Texas, the $106 million,...

Century-old college classroom building becomes a modern fitness center.
April 1, 2007... Staff Butler Rogers Baskett Architects of New York recently saw its design of the 30,760-sf Blood Fitness Center on the campus of Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., completed. The project involved restoring and renovating the 100-year-old...

Three buildings at new UC Merced campus earn LEED Silver rating.
April 1, 2007... Staff The University of California Merced's first three buildings, known as the central plant, have been certified LEED Silver by the U.S. Green Building Council, the university said. The entire UC Merced campus was designed to achieve...

Avery Dennison research facility opens in Mentor, Ohio.
April 1, 2007... Staff Global label manufacturer Avery Dennison has consolidated the corporate leadership and research teams of its largest division into a new 222,000-sf office and research facility in Mentor, Ohio. Cleveland-based architect ka designed...

Green design makes it to affordable housing.
April 1, 2007... Jeff Yoders A remarkable new 96-unit apartment building opened last month in Chicago's River North neighborhood. Designed by Helmut Jahn, the architect behind the James R. Thompson Center and the United Terminal at O'Hare International...

News Briefs.
April 1, 2007... Staff - Lord Richard Rogers wins Pritzker Prize for architecture. British architect Lord Richard Rogers, acclaimed for his urban, socially minded, and open designs, including the airy Georges Pompidou Center in Paris, is the winner of the...

People + Firms.
April 1, 2007... Staff - Ed Cettina , a professional engineer and EVP with Tishman Construction Corp. , New York, has been appointed regional manager of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In his new capacity, Cettina will oversee all business operations,...

RCD construction materials report: 'Pricing will remain weak'.
April 1, 2007... Jim Haughey, Director, Research and Analytics, Reed Construction Data Construction materials prices increased at a slim 2.5% annual pace in the three months ending in February. This is the consequence of the small decline in overall...

Leisure center lights up Belfast.
April 1, 2007... Staff Clad in transparent glass panels that let light in during the day and light up the streetscape along the famed Falls Road at night, Belfast's Falls Leisure Centre has become a colorful landmark in the Northern Ireland city. To...

Bayside High makes waves in Virginia Beach.
April 1, 2007... Staff Looking to create a nautical theme for the interior spaces at Bayside High School in Virginia Beach, Va., architect Rodriguez Ripley Maddux Motley Architects, Norfolk, Va., specified Armstrong Marmorette linoleum flooring. The...

Metal roof restores beauty of Wichita's Hillcrest Apartments.
April 1, 2007... Staff When passersby look up at the historic Hillcrest Apartments in Wichita, Kan., these days, many notice how the building's steep-tile roof has been restored to a rich, clean, and stately grandeur. What most don't notice, however, is...

Glowing panels illuminate AOL's HQ.
April 1, 2007

Panels give arena 'curb appeal'.
April 1, 2007... Staff After 25 years of exposure to Battle Creek, Mich.'s harsh climate, the once-vibrant exterior of Kellogg Arena and Convention Center had lost its luster, and it was affecting the city's ability to attract meetings and conventions. As...

Acrylic 'wave wall' brightens cafe.
April 1, 2007... Staff As part of its tropical water motif for the newly renovated cafe at the Children's Hospital in Richmond, Va., local architect Baskervill designed a coloful, transparent "wave wall" that extends the full length of a load-bearing wall...

Sustainable carpet fiber helps Johnson County, Kansas, go green.
April 1, 2007... Staff Modular-style carpet constructed of Antron Legacy nylon is used throughout the interior of the new 127,000-sf Johnson County Sunset Drive Office Building in Olathe, Kan. The LEED Gold facility, which houses six county departments and...

Moeding Alphaton terra cotta tiles.
April 1, 2007... Staff Manufactured by German-based Moeding and distributed in the U.S. by Shildan, Gloucester City, N.J., Alphaton terra cotta double-leaf tiles are ideal for rain screen wall applications. Available in 18 colors, five finishes, and a...

'Be strategic about business acquisition'.
April 1, 2007... Staff Janet Sanders , PhD, FSMPS, is a consultant whose clients include over 250 AEC firms, plus Fortune 500 corporations. From 1993 to 2000, she was VP of business planning and marketing for Sverdrup Civil Inc. (now Jacobs Engineering)....

Special Recognition: Pioneering Efforts Continue Trade School Legacy.
April 1, 2007... By Jay W. Schneider, Senior Editor Worcester, Mass., is the birthplace of vocational education, beginning with the pioneering efforts of Milton P. Higgins, who opened the Worcester Trade School in 1908. The school's original facility...