Building Design & Construction articles from July 2003

Building Design & Construction archives from July 2003

Giants' cup: half full, half empty? (Editorial).
July 1, 2003... Our annual "Giants" report on the 300 biggies in design, engineering, and construction (with a special feature on building owners) presents a mixed picture for 2002. Overall, it was a fairly decent year, despite the post-9/11 impact and...

Needed: education and facts. (Letters).
July 1, 2003... I am a structural engineer with 49 years of experience and still going as president and chairman of an 82-year-old firm. I read with interest your editorial in the June issue ("What next for sustainability?"). As I see so often, we seem to...

Ford's new Rouge plant gets "living roof". (News & Trends).
July 1, 2003... Ford Motor Co. last month unveiled a huge green roof at its new truck plant in Dearborn, Mich. The roof is covered with 10.4 acres of sedum, a genus of perennial plants that tops a 3-in.-thick, four-layer system incorporating a...

Revised plan for troubled L.A. school. (News & Trends).
July 1, 2003... The Los Angeles Unified School District has approved a new plan to complete the long-delayed Belmont Learning Center project, which has already cost more than $154 million. Construction at the 34-acre Belmont site, at the edge of downtown...

Mixed-use right medicine for old hospital?
July 1, 2003... * Mixed-use right medicine for old hospital? Cook County Board commissioners in Chicago are debating the fate of the venerable Cook County Hospital, which was replaced Fast year by a new 1.2 million-sq.-ft. facility next door. The original...

Slow rebound expected in commercial space. (Industry Data).
July 1, 2003... Commercial spending rose 2.5% last summer and early fall, until pre-Iraq war investment caution led to a six-month decline totaling 5%. Spending is expected to grow at a 4% annual pace late ill 2003 and accelerate to 8-9% by the end of next...

Handhelds get handier. (Computer Applications).
July 1, 2003... A firestorm erupted recently in the computer community when the Harvard Business Review published "I.T. Doesn't Matter," in which Nicolas Carr asserted that information technology was now a given in corporate infrastructure, like plumbing....

A year for ingenuity and innovation. (Giants).
July 1, 2003... The true test for champion Building Team firms comes not in times of bull markets and plentiful investment capital, but when times are bad. That's the situation in which the commercial, institutional and industrial building industry has been...

All the right moves: design firms are using a grab bag of strategies to keep growing in the face of recession. (Architects/Architect-Engineers Report).
July 1, 2003... Now into the third year of the current economic recession, the nation's top design firms have come to grips with the stagnant market. While many finns were cushioned from the recession by work already in the pipeline when the downturn...

Architects.
July 1, 2003... 2003 rank Annual volume (2002 in millions rank) ARCHITECTS 1 (1) Gensler 193.00 (415) 433-3700 www.gensler.com 2 (4) Perkins &...

Architect/Engineers.
July 1, 2003... 2003 rank Annual volume (2002 in millions rank) ARCHITECT/ENGINEERS 1 (1) Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum Inc. 197.19 (314) 421-2000 www.hok.com 2...

Leaders of the pack: engineers and E/A firms posted healthy gains last year, well ahead of what architects and contractors did. (Engineers/Engineer-Architects Report).
July 1, 2003... Engineers and engineer/architects as a group fared better than other Building Team disciplines last year, according to Building Design & Construction's 2003 survey of the top 300 firms. While billings of architect/engineer firms fell an...

Engineers.
July 1, 2003... 2003 rank Annual volume (2002 in millions rank) ENGINEERS 1 (1) Fluor Corp. 1,146.5 (949) 349-2000 www.fluor.com 2 (2) BE&K Inc. ...

Engineer/Architects.
July 1, 2003... 2003/ rank Annual volume (2002 in millions rank) ENGINEER/ARCHITECTS 1 (--) URS Corporation 1,147.55 (212) 736-4444 www.urscorp.com 2 ...

Staying on top: construction Giants weather the down cycle by focusing on preconstruction services, special-skill markets, and cost containment. (Contractors/CMs Report).
July 1, 2003... Given the cyclical nature of building construction, riding out a down market is nothing new to most of the 75 contracting and 25 construction management firms in this year's Design/Construct Top 300. Not surprisingly, the majority of Giants on...

Contractors.
July 1, 2003... 2003 rank Annual volume (2002 in millions rank) CONTRACTORS 1 (1) The Turner Corp. 6,018.77 (214) 915-9600 www.turnerconstruction.com 2 ...

Construction managers.
July 1, 2003... 2003 rank Annual volume (2002 in millions rank) CONSTRUCTION MANAGERS 1 (1) Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. 3,813.00 (626) 578-3500 ...

Coming up for air: building owners and developers are struggling to keep their heads above water in most construction sectors. (The Owner's Perspective).
July 1, 2003... It's been a heckuva year for building owners and developers. Even giants are faltering in markets such as hotels, industrial facilities, and office buildings. Healthcare, multifamily housing, and retail are bumping along, but no single sector...

Do the wave! (Ceilings & Walls).
July 1, 2003... Canopy accent ceiling panels allow designers to use different colors, textures, and sizes at a variety of heights to accent ceilings in hotels, restaurants, and retail stores. Available in 2x5- and 2x6-in. sizes, the Infusions collection ranges...

Patterned walls. (Ceilings & Walls).
July 1, 2003... Opaque glass surface material can cover elevator cab interior or freestanding walls. ChromaSurface is made by laminating a printed interlayer between two pieces of safety glass. Because the color or image is in the middle and the glass is...

Six different flavors. (Ceilings & Walls).
July 1, 2003... Acoustical ceiling panels come in six varieties, all which have a noise reduction coefficient of up to 1.00, a lifetime warranty against breakage, an R-value of 1.75/in., and a light reflectance of up to 0.75. The panels can be painted or used...

Drywall-like ceiling. (Ceilings & Walls).
July 1, 2003... Ceiling panels made in large-formats create a monolithic, drywall-like appearance that can be used in museums, airports, theatres, and sports arenas. Techsytle Acoustical Ceilings are made of a honeycomb structure and absorb sound at both high...

No need to be quiet. (Ceilings & Walls).
July 1, 2003... Textured, fiberglass-ceiling panels hold the highest possible noise reduction coefficient rating of 1, for use in lobbies, libraries, and open offices. The panels have a light reflectance property of LR .88, which makes them suitable for spaces...

Clouds capture imagination. (Products at work).
July 1, 2003... The Children's Place retail stores chose Harmoni ceiling tiles for their 35 new stores and any future remodeling to their 629 existing stores. The store's design director, Michael Dubiel, chose Harmoni tiles because they appear "child-friendly...

Education station. (Products at work).
July 1, 2003... To prepare for increased enrollment in the next five years, Hamilton, Ohio's McMaster University built a new e-commerce wing in its Michael G. DeGroote School of Business. For flooring, the school selected the slip-resistant Impressionist II in...

Simplicity returns to flooring. (Ceilings & Walls).
July 1, 2003... Textured carpet offers the ribbed look with a grainy texture and can be mixed and matched for design flexibility. The Simply collection was created with 18 designs within six families to allow designers to coordinate patterns, scales, and...

Spanning the ocean. (Products at work).
July 1, 2003... Tampa's International Airport newly constructed Airside E, a 14-gate facility for Delta Airlines and Hillsborough County Aviation Authority, combines carpet and 21,000 sq. ft. of porcelain stone tile to create a "shimmering effect of the...

Operation safety. (Ceilings & Walls).
July 1, 2003... Slip-retardant flooring created for hospital operating rooms works by incorporating a ceramic technology into the PUR-reinforced wear layer of the floor. This minimizes the need for wet cleaning methods and eliminates the need for polishing and...

Caution: wet floor. (Products at work).
July 1, 2003... Londura, with its ability to remain slip-free even in the presence of dampness and corrosive chemicals, led Rehab Hospital in New Albany, Ind., to choose the anti-microbial, smooth sheet-vinyl flooring for its hydrotherapy room. Londura made...

Recycled and reused. (Flooring).
July 1, 2003... Carpet collection features a minimum of 75% post-industrial recycled content nylon. The Encore Collection is solution-dyed and uses type 6.6 nylon fiber system. The carpet features 100% recycled ER3 backing. C&A. Reader Service No....

Contaminant-free flooring. (Flooring).
July 1, 2003... Rubber flooring offers resistance to oil and grease in a smooth, nonglare surface. The product is intended for buildings that are subject to oil and grease contamination, including shops, production areas, and assembly rooms. Flooring is PVC-...

Studying under the sun. (Products at work).
July 1, 2003... Harvard University's Widener Library renovations included designing a building-within-a-building to create a reading room "under the sun." Two skylights were installed while the building remained open. The skylight frame was mounted to hold...

Healing rays. (Products at work).
July 1, 2003... The Pharmacia building in Skokie, Ill., installed two skylights in its south atrium with a reflective lens film and a linear fresnel lens pattern in combination with a transparent radial lens film. The reflective film was installed to act as a...

See-through sky. (Skylights).
July 1, 2003... Hathaway Brown School in Shaker Heights, Ohio, asked van Dijk Westlake Reed Leskosky, Cleveland, to design a connection to the school's new addition. For special effect, the four-story atrium Great Hall was topped off by a large skylight. The...