Building Design & Construction articles from February 2007

Building Design & Construction archives from February 2007

BIM for Healthcare.
February 1, 2007... By Dave Barista, Managing Editor Early adopters of building information modeling technology are seeing great benefits when designing and building hospitals. While the emergence of building information modeling is no doubt providing...

3 Steps to Better Understanding Panelized Wood Roof Systems.
February 1, 2007... By Jay W. Schneider, Senior Editor Panelized wood roofs have been in use for more than 40 years west of the Mississippi, where wood has always been plentiful, but the roofing system is new to regions east of the mighty river and in Canada,...

GSA Goes Virtual With Courtroom Design.
February 1, 2007... By Dave Barista, Managing Editor The GSA teams with engineer Arup to simulate the acoustical and lighting performance of planned courtrooms in Oregon, Mississippi, and New York. On a bright summer day in Lower Manhattan, U.S. District...

Dramatic arch crowns contemporary office/retail complex.
February 1, 2007... Staff Retzsch Lanao Caycedo Architects of Boca Raton, Fla., designed a contemporary 19-story office/retail tower in Hallandale, Fla., with a glass façade interspersed with metal louvers and planes of metal mesh. A dramatic arch...

It's all academic for Forrester Construction's new project.
February 1, 2007... Staff Forrester Construction of Rockville, Md., was awarded the $18 million design-build project for the Washington Christian Academy, Phase I, in Olney, Md. The Bethesda, Md., architectural firm Grimm + Parker designed the Gothic-style,...

Shopping campus should be open for the holidays.
February 1, 2007... Staff Phase II in the construction of the Valley Square Lifestyle Shopping Campus in Warrington, Pa., is now under way, bringing 325,000 sf of retail space to this suburban Philadelphia community. The shopping campus's first phase totaled...

Vibrant blue steel adds life to Contemporary Jewish Museum.
February 1, 2007... Staff The Plant Construction Co. of San Francisco and Olson Steel of San Leandro, Calif., topped out the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco's Yerba Buena cultural district in mid-January. The 63,000-sf museum was designed by...

New urbanism targets New Jersey.
February 1, 2007... Staff A new 108-unit condominium building brings a New Urbanist community to Jersey City, N.J. Designed by New York City-based Meltzer/Mandl Architects, the six-story building is part of the Liberty Harbor project, a virtual city within a...

Condo tower is green with luxury.
February 1, 2007... Staff The Visionaire is New York City's newest green residential tower. Designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli, New Haven, Conn., and developed by Albanese Development Corporation, Garden City, N.Y., the luxury building's sustainable features...

Florida gets Barrier Island recreation and education center.
February 1, 2007... Staff The Barrier Island Sanctuary Management & Education Center in Melbourne Beach, Fla., will be built just three miles from the Sebastian Inlet. VOA Associates Inc., the project's design architect, created plans for a 5,600-sf facility...

Office building adds more green to Chicago.
February 1, 2007... Staff Chicago-area developer The Alter Group broke ground in January on a new 10-story office building that adds 227,604 sf of Class-A "green" office space to Chicago's River North neighborhood. Designed by Chicago-based Solomon Cordwell...

Prototype San Diego Padres baseball academy in play.
February 1, 2007... Staff HOK Sport+Venue+Event, Kansas City, Mo., unveiled a prototype baseball academy designed for the San Diego Padres. The 15-acre training facility in San Cristobal, the Dominican Republic, has two regulation-size practice fields,...

Retail complex part of developer's master plan.
February 1, 2007... Staff The Village Walk at EastLake is a new 162,000-sf specialty retail complex serving the master-planned community of EastLake in Chula Vista, Calif. The complex is being developed by San Diego-based Sunberry Development Corp. with...

Building 'Second America' for the Next 100 Million.
February 1, 2007... Robert Cassidy, Editor-in-Chief The Census Bureau says we'll reach 400 million by 2043, but more reliable predictions suggest we'll add the next 100 million Americans by 2037--that is, in only 31 years. These figures are from a...

High-wind fans.
February 1, 2007... Staff A new line of high-wind and hurricane exhaust fans is tested and certified to withstand winds up to 150 mph with no tie-downs to the roof. The fans feature structural bracing on the interior and exterior of the fan unit and a special...

Recyclable office ergonomics.
February 1, 2007... Staff Haworth's Zody task and guest chairs are made with up to 51% recycled content and up to 98% recyclable materials. Zody is also PVC-free, chrome-free, and CFC-free. The chair can contribute to earning LEED credits and is Cradle to...

Acoustic louvers.
February 1, 2007... Staff Line of acoustic louvers prevents the transmission of high- and low-frequency sounds generated from mechanical equipment. Airolite acoustic louvers are available in seven louver types; in aluminum or galvanized steel construction;...

Recessed downlight blends LED and fluorescent fixtures.
February 1, 2007... Staff Recessed downlight integrates a high-efficacy compact fluorescent light sources and multi-color LED lights to create a unique decorative touch. The LEDs create a vibrant, colorful ring around the fluorescent light housing. Candeo LED...

Smart ballasts automatically adjust lighting levels.
February 1, 2007... Staff The EcoSystem fluorescent solution is built upon one simple building block: the EcoSystem ballast, which connects directly to photocells, infrared receivers, occupant sensors, and wallstations without interfaces, power packs, or...

Sensor with some range.
February 1, 2007... Staff Occupancy sensor features a detection range of up to 4,000 sf from a single passive device. IntelliSight switches and dimmers are self-tuning and adaptive, requiring no adjustments for most installations. Simply install and walk...

A truly breathable wall covering.
February 1, 2007... Staff The backing and textile combination of 180 Walls wall covering are breathable--air and moisture are able to pass back and forth through the wall covering, especially in humid environments. The material's antimicrobial feature helps...

Retail construction spending growth to halve by '08.
February 1, 2007... By Jim Haughey, PhD, Director, Research and Analytics, Reed Construction Data Retail construction spending increased 13% in 2006. However, double-digit growth in retail construction spending is not expected to last for long. Spending...

Education construction spending picks up.
February 1, 2007... Staff Construction spending on education projects picked up at the end of 2006 after an inflation-adjusted mid-year decline. This turnabout is forecast to continue into 2007-08. The added spending will come from state and local...

Construction materials costs still declining.
February 1, 2007... Staff The price index for materials used in nonresidential construction inched up 0.2% in December after declining for three months, but remains 3% below the peak index value last July. Pricing trends will remain favorable to buyers at...

3-D laser scanning finds its way to the job site.
February 1, 2007... By Matthew Phair, Contributing Editor In construction, there's a direct correlation between the quality of a plan and the ultimate quality of a project. That's why a good plan can be worth its weight in gold. But all too...

Steven Holl's 'glowing' expansion to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art opens in Kansas City, Mo.
February 1, 2007... Staff Clad with a mix of translucent and transparent glass panels, the new 163,000-sf Bloch Building expansion to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Mo., designed by Steven Holl, glows softly at night and lets natural light in...

Minneapolis clinic largest LEED-rated healthcare facility.
February 1, 2007... Staff When the $63 million First Street Building at the Saint Mary's/Duluth Clinic in Minneapolis earned LEED Gold last month, it arguably became the greenest healthcare facility in the nation--or at least the largest. At 236,000-sf, the...

Bronx, N.Y., turns a dilapidated warehouse into state-of-the-art school campus.
February 1, 2007... Staff No stranger to the Bronx, N.Y., neighborhood that is home to the new $52 million Bathgate Educational Campus would ever know that the colorful, vibrant school was once a rundown warehouse. The 140,000-sf campus houses 1,300...

Georgia medical center shifts to an all-digital, paperless workflow.
February 1, 2007... Staff Gwinnett County, Ga., recently opened a 185,000-sf, 79-bed addition to the Glancy Outpatient Center in Duluth, Ga. The new Gwinnett Medical Center-Duluth features a four-level, 343-car parking deck, and is the first facility in...

LA's date-jumping game forces USGBC to move Greenbuild 2007 to Chicago.
February 1, 2007... Staff Following multiple forced date changes at the hands of the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau (LA Inc.), officials with the U.S. Green Building Council say they're moving Greenbuild 2007 to Chicago. The abrupt move was...

News Briefs.
February 1, 2007... Staff Bank gives favorable terms to 'green' building projects. The newly created New Resource Bank, San Francisco, now offers lower interest rates and more generous loan terms to developers and owners who invest in 'green' building...

People + Firms.
February 1, 2007... Staff The Walsh Group , Chicago, has promoted Harry L. Walder, Jr. , to business group manager. Walder will oversee all activity related to concrete operations and will manage a variety of building projects, especially local public work....

Letters.(Letter to the editor)
February 1, 2007... Staff Air barriers are important, but that shouldn't be news to anyone in the AEC industry In a recent issue of BD+C (January 2007, p. 79), you authored an article about the importance of air barriers in building construction. ...

Center spells hope for wounded veterans.
February 1, 2007... Jeff Yoders The 65,000-sf Center for the Intrepid, at Brooke Army Medical Center near San Antonio, was recently handed over to the U.S. Army in a gala ceremony attended by 3,000 onlookers and featured speeches from two presidential...

The Top 3 Patient Safety Concepts Influencing Hospital Design.
February 1, 2007... By Jay W. Schneider, Senior Editor Hospital Building Teams are giving increasing attention to patient safety, and with good reason: The Institute of Medicine reports that as many as 1 out of 27 patients admitted into a hospital is harmed by...

Composite toilet partition saps will of vandals.
February 1, 2007... Staff Ron Rudi, assistant director of maintenance for the Sacramento Unified School District, has included Bobrick's SierraSeries solid color reinforced composite material as the master specification for toilet partitions in the district's...

Fiber cement panels give mixed-use center some upscale panache.
February 1, 2007... Staff When planning his Liberty Square work/live/play community in Sun Prairie, Wis., local builder/developer Bob Kraus wanted to create the look and feel of an upscale community, but without increased material and labor costs. The...

Mesh links the priorities of design and security.
February 1, 2007... Staff A metal mesh system helps define boundaries yet still gives the feeling of an open design in the exterior dining area of the $22 million National Archives Southeast Region building in Morrow, Ga. The use of architectural mesh helped...

Oil-free compressors cool energy costs for the Engineers Pension Fund.
February 1, 2007... Staff The Operating Engineers Pension Trust Fund Local 12 is headquartered in a 210,000-sf, four-story office building in Pasadena, Calif. Bruce Manning, chief engineer for the OEPTF, looked at every possible way to minimize energy...

It's all rubber for this school district.
February 1, 2007... Staff In an effort to keep pace with enrollment that has grown by more than 2,500 in the past three years, the Boone County (Ky.) School District is investing more than $170 million in five new construction and renovations projects. To...

Redding, Calif., office building gets wrapped in titanium.
February 1, 2007... Staff Perched atop a bluff on the Sacramento River in Redding, Calif., the Shasta Enterprises Office Building provides tenants with a beautiful view of Mount Shasta and the river valley below. To provide the building with an...

Pillsbury Doughboy gets a new floor.
February 1, 2007... Staff It had all the ingredients for a production slowdown at one of the world's largest food manufacturers: an epoxy flooring system falling apart at General Mills' bakery facility in Minneapolis. Delamination and pitting were caused by...

Nashville's Motherhouse gets new windows to match its historic aesthetic.
February 1, 2007... Staff Faced with issues of overcrowding and an outdated infrastructure, the Motherhouse of the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia Congregation, a nationwide community of teaching sisters founded in 1860, set forth a massive, $45 million...

Wienerberger ArGeTon Bricks.
February 1, 2007... Staff ArGeTon terra cotta bricks are part of Wienerberger's Terca line of façade bricks. The bricks consist of two individual panels of fired clay with the top, bottom, and drip notches combined with connectors to create a single...

Healthcare Design That Strips the Atom.
February 1, 2007... By Jeff Yoders, Associate Editor Proton therapy is changing the way physicians treat cancer--and changing the design criteria for treatment centers that offer the revolutionary therapy. In proton therapy, the medical team directs a...

5 Tips on Building a Sloped Green Roof.
February 1, 2007... By Dave Barista, Managing Editor Experts on vegetated roof systems share their thoughts on designing and building green roofs that slant, slope, tilt, and turn. As the popularity of vegetated roofs grows in the U.S., Building Teams are...

'The purchasing cycle is moving forward into design'.
February 1, 2007... Staff Sue Stewart, senior vice president of preconstruction for McCarthy Building Companies, manages preconstruction and estimating activities for the firm's Midwest division. A 27-year veteran at McCarthy, she has been an associate...

Retail's Rotating Wall.
February 1, 2007... By Jeff Yoders, Associate Editor A flip of the switch transforms the retail store in Boston's TD Banknorth from basketball to hockey. While Boston Red Sox fans had to wait 86 years between World Series Championships, they at least had...