Building Design & Construction articles from June 2006

Building Design & Construction archives from June 2006

Fighting drug abuse on the job site.(EDITORIAL)
June 1, 2006... According to the government's Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 14% of full-time construction workers aged 18-49 were drug users in 1998, second only to bartenders, waiters and waitresses, and food preparers (19%). Even...

Air Force facility is the result of a rare land swap.(NEWS & TRENDS)
June 1, 2006... The development team working on the nation's first-of-its-kind land swap arrangement with the U.S. Air Force recently completed construction of a new facility for the Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles Air Force Base in El Segundo,...

Engineers' group files suit to protect qualifications-based selection.
June 1, 2006... Engineers' group files suit to protect qualifications-based selection. The National Society of Professional Engineers has sued the U.S. government in an effort to force federal agency compliance with the 1972 Brooks Act (amended in 1988), which...

Lab construction costs continue to climb.
June 1, 2006... Lab construction costs continue to climb. The cost to build a laboratory in the U.S. increased 6-10% within the past year--the third increase in as many years, according to the "2006 R&D Facility Construction Cost Index Report," compiled by HLW...

Frank Lloyd Wrights only skyscraper to be honored by the National Building Museum.
June 1, 2006... Frank Lloyd Wrights only skyscraper to be honored by the National Building Museum. The 19-story Price Tower in Bartlesville, Okla., will be the subject of an exhibit at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. The exhibit, which will be...

Native American factory to a new life--as a jail.(NEWS & TRENDS)
June 1, 2006... Plans to transform a former factory into a new correctional facility in Wagner, S.D., will begin to take shape next month, as the unusual project breaks ground. Working with the Yankton Sioux Tribe, Minneapolis-based KKE Architects decided...

WWCOT, a Palm Springs, Calif.-based architectural firm employing more than 120 people, is merging with Christopher S. Mills Architects of Palm Springs to form WWCOT/Mills.(PEOPLE/firms)
June 1, 2006... WWCOT, a Palm Springs, Calif.-based architectural firm employing more than 120 people, is merging with Christopher S. Mills Architects of Palm Springs to form WWCOT/Mills. Christopher Mills and Pam Touschner will act as co-managing partners of...

Cannon Design.(PEOPLE/firms)
June 1, 2006... Cannon Design has appointed Salwa A. Zakhary and Richard Bacino to VP positions. Zakhary has more than 25 years of experience in architecture and planning for healthcare, and Bacino has more than 12 years of experience as project architect and...

Christopher Gale, who previously owned and operated his own firm, will head the new Kansas City, Mo., healthcare division of Ellerbe Becket.(PEOPLE/firms)
June 1, 2006... Christopher Gale, who previously owned and operated his own firm, will head the new Kansas City, Mo., healthcare division of Ellerbe Becket. Howard Galtz has joined the firm's Minneapolis office as architectural director after 20 years as...

Employers should submit I-9 forms for workers.(LETTERS)
June 1, 2006... The 1986 immigration reform law signed by President Reagan stipulated that employers have employees submit an I-9 form ["The 'unauthorized workers' debate," May 2006]. It is not too much to ask any employer, large or small, to have the...

Joshua Prince-Ramus 'shocker' planned for Louisville.(ON THE DRAWING BOARD)
June 1, 2006... Joshua Prince-Ramus, principal architect of Museum Plaza in Louisville, Ky., hopes people will be "shocked" by the building he's designed. The $305 million project consists of a 1.2-million-sf mixed-use building, 61 stories at its tallest,...

Light-Rail Station to serve downtown Tempe.(ON THE DRAWING BOARD)
June 1, 2006... The Tempe, Ariz., office of Otak has been selected for final design of the new City of Tempe Transportation Center adjacent to the Central Phoenix/East Valley Light Rail Project. The transportation center will become the front door to Arizona...

Napa Valley Spa gets the green treatment.(ON THE DRAWING BOARD)
June 1, 2006... Napa Valley's indoor/outdoor character of living will be reflected in its new Bardessono Inn and Spa, using a green design by Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo, Honolulu. The 62-room boutique luxury lodge and spa, located on a 4.9-acre site in...

Home for 'Austin City Limits'.(ON THE DRAWING BOARD)
June 1, 2006... At 29-story W Hotel and condominium tower with street-level restaurants, retail space, a 1,000-person recording studio for KLRU's "Austin City Limits," and a 30,000-sf space for the Dell Discovery/ Austin Children's Museum is being planned for...

Pennsylvania church expands and renovates.(ON THE DRAWING BOARD)
June 1, 2006... Ernst & Ernst Building Contractors of Hatfield, Pa., will build a new sanctuary and renovate an existing building for Congregation Beth Hamedrosh of Pennsylvania. The new 5,700-sf facility in Wynnewood, Pa., will include a 4,000-sf sanctuary...

Boston bank transforming to apartments.(ON THE DRAWING BOARD)
June 1, 2006... Boston's former Penny Savings Bank building, first constructed between 1911 and 1917, recently began its transformation into 23 luxury residences and 9,000 sf of retail space. The building, located on the corner of Union Park and Washington...

Abu Dhabi skyscraper will be tallest in town.(ON THE DRAWING BOARD)
June 1, 2006... Construction of the $2.7 billion Shams Abu Dhabi project, located on Reem Island, off the northeastern shore of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, will be managed by a joint venture of Hill International, Marlton, N.J., and 3D/I. The...

Seattle tower first to meet city's new zoning laws.(ON THE DRAWING BOARD)
June 1, 2006... Seattle's tallest residential tower, 1521 Second Avenue, will begin rising this summer. The 440-foot glass-and-steel tower will be the first tower to be designed and completed under the city's new downtown zoning regulations, which encourage...

Golden gophers trade land for new football stadium.(ON THE DRAWING BOARD)
June 1, 2006... The Minnesota Legislature recently approved a bill that calls for a new $248 million, 50,000-seat TCF Bank Stadium on the campus of the University of Minnesota. As part of the legislation, the university will exchange 2,840 acres of undeveloped...

Construction under way on Kansas City Heart Center.(ON THE DRAWING BOARD)
June 1, 2006... Ground was recently broken on the $5 million Kansas City Cardiology Outpatient Heart and Vascular Center, which will offer a more convenient location for Lee's Summit residents seeking outpatient cardiac and vascular care from Kansas City...

Riverfront LEED building planned for Milwaukee.(ON THE DRAWING BOARD)
June 1, 2006... Gilbane Building Co., Providence, R.I., was selected as construction manager far the new headquarters of Manpower, a Fortune 200 company, on the banks of the Milwaukee River. The four-story, 280,000-sf facility will connect to a seven-story,...

Washington, D.C.-area condos going up, up, up.(ON THE DRAWING BOARD)
June 1, 2006... Construction is underway on the first condominium at University Town Center, a 40-acre community in northern Prince George's County, Md. The 112-unit luxury tower, along with a second condominium featuring 22 loft-style units, will be located...

Office starts soar as vacancy rates plummet.(INDUSTRY DATA)
June 1, 2006... The national office vacancy rate declined 0.2% to 16.4% in the first quarter, according to Property & Portfolio Research, with new demand for office space outgrowing supply by a 3:2 ratio. The value of private office construction starts...

Foreign demand cause construction material prices to spike.(INDUSTRY DATA)
June 1, 2006... Construction material prices experienced a 9% growth rate during the first quarter of 2006, with international markets, especially Asia, greatly influencing price surges. The pace of inflation, however, is projected to gradually taper off to...

Demand for college dormitories continues to fuel construction.(INDUSTRY DATA)
June 1, 2006... Construction spending for college dormitories will jump 26% this year, and will once again reflect a period of growth, which it's sustained almost uninterrupted since 1996. However, last year spending dropped 8% when projects were delayed by...

Cost comparisons in dollars per square foot in select metro markets.(INDUSTRY DATA)
June 1, 2006... Cost comparisons in dollars per square foot in select metro markets Hotel, 4-7 stories '06 '05 % chg. Atlanta 123.22 111.54 10.5 Baltimore ...

BIM modeler forms the country's first regional users group for Autodesk Revit.(TECH briefs)
June 1, 2006... BIM modeler forms the country's first regional users group for Autodesk Revit. Patrick Davis, a senior BIM modeler in the Kansas City office of New York-based structural engineer Thornton-Tomasetti Group, has formed a Revit users group in...

Dell PCs most popular brand among U.S. contractors.(TECH briefs)
June 1, 2006... Dell PCs most popular brand among U.S. contractors. Dell remains the most popular brand of PC workstation for contractors, according to the Construction Financial Management Association, Princeton, N.J. Of the more than 2,400 respondents to...

School design that's not by the book.(K-12 DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION)
June 1, 2006... America needs more schools. Forty-five percent of the nation's elementary, middle, and high schools were built between 1950 and 1969, according market research firm ZweigWhite, Natick, Mass. Yet even as the stock of K-12 schools ages and...

Insulation is not enough; how to improve the energy, comfort, cost of ownership and durability of buildings.
June 1, 2006... Is YOUR project full of holes? Unless the design and construction techniques include a continuous air barrier system, it is. It's quite literal. The building draws unconditioned air in, then leaks conditioned air back out through holes,...

The times--and the Codes--they are a-changin': provisional changes to ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2004 will mean big opportunities in the non-residential air barrier market.
June 1, 2006... For the first time, continuous air barrier systems will be required by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) under Addendum z to Standard 90.1-2004, Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise...

It takes more than reflectivity to be a cool roof.
June 1, 2006... What image comes to mind when someone says the phrase, "cool roofing?" A white EPDM membrane instead of traditional black? A roll-on coating on an otherwise ordinary roof? Texas A&M University thinks chemistry. The main campus boasts over...

WALLTITE[R] Insulating Air Barrier: outperforms on eco-efficiency analysis.
June 1, 2006... The WALLTITE[R] Insulating Air Barrier System from BASF Polyurethane Foam Enterprises LLC outperforms traditional insulation materials in eco-efficiency, according to a recent study conducted by BASF's lifecycle assessment group. The...

Chemistry 101: are all foams created equal?
June 1, 2006... You probably don't spend a lot of time thinking about chemistry when you consider adding insulation to improve energy efficiency. Yet one popular insulation material--spray-applied polyurethane foam (SPF)--relies entirely on chemical...

Big tram on campus: San Diego State University lobbied hard for a light-rail station that connects the campus to downtown and reduces students' dependence on automobiles.(TRANSIT FACILITY)
June 1, 2006... When students, faculty, and staff moved into seven brand new buildings clustered around a quad in February 1931, the San Diego State Teachers College stood alone on this mesa east of downtown San Diego. Flash forward 75 years and several...

Arizona's new biotech magnet: the award-winning Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University is attracting scientists at a furious pace. Will Tempe be the U.S.'s next great biotech center?(LABORATORY FACILITIES)
June 1, 2006... Ask Stephen A. Johnston, PhD, why he moved to the desert, and it's fair to say that the blistering sun and 100-degree heat won't get mentioned. Johnson, who in 1998 co-founded (and then directed) the Center for Biomedical Inventions at the...

NeoCon 2006 preview.(INTERIOR SOLUTIONS)
June 1, 2006... The 2006 NeoCon World's Trade Fair is North America's largest interior design and facilities management conference, with more than 1,200 exhibiting companies and 1.2 million sf of exhibit space in Chicago's 4.2-million-sf Merchandise Mart. The...

Steel meets concrete in U.S. courthouse: an unusual structural system combines steel plate and concrete-filled pipe to produce a cost-effective seismic-resistant frame for a federal courthouse.(CORE & SHELL SOLUTIONS)
June 1, 2006... When officials at the U.S. General Services Administration first presented the program requirements for the new federal courthouse in Seattle, the building's structural engineer knew exactly what to pull out of its bag of tricks. GSA...

The demographics of color: there's a science to color selection and how different generations react to hues. Wondering what to use in that new college rec center? Think electric blue.(BUILDING TECHNOLOGY)
June 1, 2006... Red is now the hot color! Or is blue cool? Silver might be the in thing. Maybe it's black; then again, has black ever stopped being trendy? Color trends influence the design and construction industries as significantly as they affect the...

Milliken Theory modular carpet.(The Professional's Choice)
June 1, 2006... The 36x36-inch carpet tiles are available in eight different patterns and with a variety of features, including an antimicrobial coating and stain repellent. Milliken Theory is designed for installation without permanent adhesives. This allows...

Famous fish market keeps cool with metal panels.(PRODUCTS AT WORK)
June 1, 2006... Fulton Fish Market, the nation's oldest and largest wholesale fish market, relocated last year from its original site on Manhattan Island, N.Y., where it had operated since 1835, to a new 400,000-sf facility in the Bronx's Hunts Point Food...

Translucent roof sheds light at China rail station.(PRODUCTS AT WORK)
June 1, 2006... China's Shanghai South Railway Station is being fitted with the largest round roof of its kind in the world--a massive multi-modal hub covered with clear Lexan polycarbonate sheet manufactured by GF. The translucent roof design welcomes both...

Water-tough coatings are a perfect fit for a new Mexico brewery.(PRODUCTS AT WORK)
June 1, 2006... When Rod Tweet, owner of the Second Street Brewery in Santa Fe, N.M., was looking for floor and wall coatings to protect his new 1,200-sf brewery addition, he knew he needed a product that could stand up to wash-downs and excessive moisture...

School gets a view.(PRODUCTS AT WORK)
June 1, 2006... Seeking an out-of-the-ordinary design for its new Roger Ludlowe Middle School in Fairfield, Conn., the school district picked Perkins Eastman Architects view- and light-enhancing plan-a long L-shaped building constructed onto a hillside--from a...

Fans keep kennel in the green.(PRODUCTS AT WORK)
June 1, 2006... In a 6,000-sf boarding kennel, finding a way to create clean, cheap, and energy-efficient airflow is a pesky but necessary concern. The owners of Pet Camp, a San Francisco kennel, were looking for a solution to replace the 15 small fans they...

Weather center gets massive green roof.(PRODUCTS AT WORK)
June 1, 2006... With a goal of emphasizing open space and concealing the appearance of the vastly subterranean National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration headquarters in Suitland, Md., the facility's designers turned to Henry Company's 790-11 Green Roof...

Roof welcomes pet adopters.(PRODUCTS AT WORK)
June 1, 2006... Rather than creating a typical, tense shelter experience for potential pet adopters at the Humane Society of San Antonio and Baxter County, Mangold Roofing & Sheet Metal of San Antonio installed more than 20,000 sf of 24-gauge Galvalume Plus...

Residential and retail giant gleams.(PRODUCTS AT WORK)
June 1, 2006... Located in a trendy Atlanta neighborhood, the newly constructed mixed-use Plaza Midtown needed to shine. So more than 53,000 sf of silver metallic Alucobond Plus Material was installed by subcontractor Miller-Clapperton Partnership of Austell,...

Let there be evenly distributed light.(EDITOR'S PICKS)
June 1, 2006... Luxxtra FL indirect compact fluorescent lighting fixtures offer energy-efficient performance for virtually any commercial, institutional, or light industrial environment. Illumination can be specified in uplight-only, downlight-only, or a...

Artsy floor creates illusion of space.(EDITOR'S PICKS)
June 1, 2006... Cubis--a new texture in Johnsonite's Roundel rubber flooring line--creates illusions of depth as its geometric progressions become increasingly multilayered. Cubis is available in more than 70 solid rubber colors, and it can be special ordered...

Recyclable chairs that aren't wicker.(EDITOR'S PICKS)
June 1, 2006... Bonding of non-woven polyethylene terepthalate (PET) fiber and a 100% recycled polyester fabric creates a structural shell that's entirely recyclable for Metro's Poly family of office seating. When assembled with the base the lounge, ottoman,...

Energy-saving roof.(EDITOR'S PICKS)
June 1, 2006... Sharp Electronics' ND-62RU1 62-watt solar roof modules are designed to help conserve energy and save on utility bills. An anti-reflective coating increases the absorption of light under low-light conditions. The panels lie nearly flat on...

Change light bulbs without ladders.(EDITOR'S PICKS)
June 1, 2006... Recessed downlights, a new addition in the Ladderless product line, allow lights to be installed in high ceilings without the hassle of using a ladder to change a burnt-out bulb. By using a pole-mounted tool, the light's subassembly of a lamp,...

Trick bricks.(EDITOR'S PICKS)
June 1, 2006... Rough, worn edges combined with a body of various thicknesses, sizes, and textures mean no two veneer bricks in the Eldorado Brick line are the same. Four styles of brick are manufactured in 14 different colors using the same mold techniques as...

Got multiple monitors? Support them.(EDITOR'S PICKS)
June 1, 2006... The SteadyArm multiple monitor mount series offers the flexibility to support from two to six monitors. Constructed from steel and die-cast aluminum, SteadyArm offers a wide range of configurations. Eight separate models are available with...

Light up your space.(EDITOR'S PICKS)
June 1, 2006... LightCast acrylic panels are made of a plastic that is stronger than glass, resistant to scratching, and has a colorful glow when backlit. LightCast panels are double-sided, created as a single piece without laminations, and available in...

I-BEAM runs clean, steady, and cool.(EDITOR'S PICKS)
June 1, 2006... I-BEAM fluorescent high lighting bays deliver significant energy savings over 400-watt metal halide fixtures while using advanced optical control to maintain designed light levels for the life of the system. I-BEAM is the first T5HO fluorescent...

Wood tile brings nature inside.(EDITOR'S PICKS)
June 1, 2006... Tiles made entirely of mesquite wood harvested in Texas bring a little bit of nature indoors. The organic tiles are made of a dense wood that has minimum warpage and absorption, and they're available in three colors: a natural finish with no UV...

Peter Belisle: 'one of the strongest markets ever'.(THOUGHT LEADERS)(Interview)
June 1, 2006... Peter T. Belisle II is president of Jones Lang LaSalle's project and development services group for the Americas. He and his staff of 700 supervise more than 20,000 projects a year, with an aggregate construction volume of $5 billion. Clients...

Creating accurate early estimates for fast-track jobs.(INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY)
June 1, 2006... In the fast-track world of today's construction industry, hurried owners are finding less appeal with slow, sequentially staged projects. When an owner has to hire a designer, wait for a fully completed design, then spend even more time...

Roofing white paper for design professionals.
June 2, 2006... Staff Metal-Era has released a white paper providing key points in choosing a performance tested roof edge for use by design professionals specifying roofs for educational and healthcare facilities. "Choosing Performance Tested Roof Edge...

LA Live project announces anchor hotel tenants.
June 2, 2006... Staff Developers recently announced plans for a 1,000-room hotel complex that includes a five-star Ritz-Carlton and a four-star Marriott Marquis near the Los Angeles Convention Center. The $750 million, 54-story complex would be one of the...

George Clooney sells stake in Las Vegas casino/hotel project.
June 2, 2006... Staff The latest investor to throw in his hand in the Las Vegas construction market is actor George Clooney, who announced an agreement with his partners to sell his stake in the proposed $3 billion Las Ramblas condo-casino project near...

Products.
June 2, 2006... Staff An illusion of nature Staff Fiber cement product lines give the appearance of quarry stone, canyon brick, and field stone in a variety of natural tones. Panels are 5/8x18x72 inches, and incorporate a thin layer of silica...