Building Design & Construction articles from December 2006

Building Design & Construction archives from December 2006

Constructing a Convertible.
December 1, 2006... By Jeff Yoders, Associate Editor The latest retractable roof technology makes desert sun a home field advantage. When the National Football League's Arizona Cardinals decided to build a new stadium in 2000, the desert climate was a...

Tech-Friendly Cladding System.
December 1, 2006... By Jay W. Schneider, Senior Editor Metal cladding interfered with communications at UC San Diego's advanced technology research facility, so the Building Team found a substitute that was visually high-tech but remained invisible to...

Wall, Clean Thyself.
December 1, 2006... By Jeff Yoders, Associate Editor Experimental paints and coatings aim for zero maintenance. Self-cleaning paints and coatings that use photocatalytic titanium dioxide (TiO2) and are widely used in Europe to combat bacteria, smog, and...

Nonresidential Construction Growth Continues In "07.
December 1, 2006... By Jim Haughey, Director, Research and Analytics, Reed Construction Data Construction will experience a supportive economic environment again in 2007, with the nonresidential construction sector sustaining its boom, although its growth...

Miami mixed-use tower will use wind and sun for power.
December 1, 2006... Staff Miami-based Nexus Development Group has been granted city approval to build a $40 million "green" mixed-use tower in Miami's Design District that will house 113 condo units, 20,000 sf of offices, and 5,400 sf of retail. The 25-story...

UC-Denver gets a medical library.
December 1, 2006... Staff A new $35 million medical library is currently under construction at the developing Fitzsimons campus and Health Sciences Center at the University of Colorado, Denver. The 227-acre campus, located in Aurora, is one of the newest and...

K-12 campus under way on site of LA's famed Ambassador Hotel.
December 1, 2006... Staff Construction work has commenced on a 491,000-sf K-12 campus on the historic 24-acre site in Los Angeles that once housed the Ambassador Hotel--a once-popular resort for U.S. presidents, dignitaries, and movie stars, and the site of...

Condos are just steps from Chicago's Magnificent Mile.
December 1, 2006... Staff A 26-story, 297,000-sf condo tower planned for Chicago's Streeterville neighborhood, just steps from Michigan Avenue, will feature two distinct faces to meld with the surrounding streetscape. The north and south exteriors respond to...

T-shaped towers at the center of Steven Holl's design for mixed use in Denmark.
December 1, 2006... Staff New York-based Steven Holl has unveiled his design for a mixed-use residential development in Ørestad, near Copenhagen, Denmark. Called T-Husene, the project will call for the construction of five T-shaped towers that will...

Fort Carson, Colo., to get a new battalion headquarters.
December 1, 2006... Staff Greeley, Colo.-based Hensel Phelps Construction and RNL Design, Denver, are teaming to design-build a 140,000-sf office building that will house Fort Carson's new Brigade and Battalion Headquarters, near Denver. The building is...

Ooo-la-la! Curving skyscraper by Mayne could rival the Eiffel Tower.
December 1, 2006... Staff Developers unveiled the design for a soaring, curving skyscraper recently that will be the centerpiece of a redevelopment of La Defense, a business district west of Paris, and will rival the Eiffel Tower in height. Pritzker...

Providence, R.I., ends a 15-year drought with condo project.
December 1, 2006... Staff It's been 15 years since Providence, R.I., last saw a multifamily residential building rise in its Capital District. Now twin condo towers are under way, sparking a revitalization of the district. Developed by Intercontinental Real...

Cities should halt 'LEED creep'.
December 1, 2006... Robert Cassidy, Editor-in-Chief A growing number of municipalities are engaging in the practice of "LEED creep." It starts with governments requiring LEED certification for public buildings--perfectly OK, since they're being built with...

Editors' Picks.
December 1, 2006... Staff Go reconfigure with modular power Staff Convia is a modular, programmable electrical and data infrastructure system for building interiors that delivers power anywhere within a space without requiring the hardwiring of...

USGBC announces partnerships, unveils new climate initiatives.
December 1, 2006... Jay W. Schneider As U.S. Green Building Council president and CEO Rick Fedrizzi delivered his opening remarks at the fifth annual Greenbuild International Conference and Expo, November 15-17, in Denver, he talked repeatedly about...

BD+C White Paper presented to a full house.
December 1, 2006... Staff Robert Cassidy, editor-in-chief, Building Design+Construction , was a presenter at the fifth annual Greenbuild Conference and Expo, where he discussed the findings of BD+C 's fourth annual White Paper on Sustainability, entitled...

BIM software integrates RSMeans for project costing.
December 1, 2006... By Matthew Phair, Contributing Editor Building information modeling has evolved into a number of different forms, all of which focus primarily on downstream data sharing once a project gets into detailed construction. A newer, complementary...

The Commercial Modular Market Remains Strong.
December 1, 2006... Staff Education, general office, and healthcare markets are all-star performers within the $3.5 billion commercial modular construction industry. In 2005, the commercial modular market experienced remarkable growth, but Hurricane...

New Project Portfolio.
December 1, 2006... Staff UC-San Diego's bio-med library gets a much-needed makeover Staff The newly renovated Biomedical Library at the University of California, San Diego, can now provide services to more than 4,000 students and faculty, following...

Leslie Shepherd named Chief Architect of the GSA.
December 1, 2006... Jay W. Schneider The announcement on November 22 that Leslie Shepherd, AIA, acting chief architect for the U.S. General Services Administration, would officially be the agency's new chief architect brought an end to a lengthy selection...

News Briefs.
December 1, 2006... Staff - Mixed-use still dominates retail property development. A real estate industry research survey conducted jointly by National Real Estate Investor and Retail Traffic magazines this fall revealed that mixed-use is the dominant retail...

People+Firms.
December 1, 2006... Staff - CBI Consulting , Boston, has opened an office in Miami, Fla., its second U.S. office. Albert F. Perez , AIA, has been named principal of the new operation. - Bill Hakim has joined Legat Architects , Chicago, as VP of...

Clarifications.
December 1, 2006... Staff The project cost reported in the October 2006 news item (p.13) on the 450,000-sf master plan for the University of Dubai campus was incorrect. The actual project cost is $136 million. In our fourth annual White Paper on...

Letters.
December 1, 2006... Staff Is Libeskind's novel double-stair core really novel? I read your article in the October 2006 issue on the new Libeskind tower in Sacramento (p. 10), and was amazed by two big inaccuracies. First, scissor stairs are not novel;...

Products at Work.
December 1, 2006... Staff LEDs illuminate Saks Fifth Avenue Staff Since November 20, onlookers at the Saks Fifth Avenue building in Manhattan have been able to gaze upon 50 enormous illuminated snow flakes that reach 10 stories high in a high-tech...

Kirei USA's Kirei Board.
December 1, 2006... Staff Kirei Board is an engineered panel constructed from the stalks of sorghum (a member of the grass family), which is grown as food in various parts of the world. The reclaimed stalk straw is combined with poplar wood bonding layers and...

5 Emerging Themes in Retail Development.
December 1, 2006... By Dave Barista, Managing Editor From fine art and fancy food to rock concerts and skating rinks, next-generation retail developments are nothing like the malls of old. Today's shopping environments, whether they be traditional malls,...

Steel Teams Lead The Way Toward 3-D Integration.
December 1, 2006... By Dave Barista, Managing Editor Across the nation, teams of engineers, steel detailers, fabricators, and erectors are banding together and using 3-D modeling to speed the steel-building process. There's Team Puma in the Great Plains,...

'Retaining good employees takes commitment'.
December 1, 2006... Staff F. Leigh Branham , SPHR (Senior Professional in Human Resources), is founder and principal of Keeping the People, Inc., an HR consulting firm that specializes in employee retention. In cooperation with the Saratoga Institute, he...