El Cosmico campground hotel, Marfa, Texas. Rendering courtesy ICON and Bjarke Ingels Group

3D-printed construction milestones take shape in Tennessee and Texas

Two notable 3D-printed projects mark milestones in the new construction technique of “printing” structures with specialized concrete. In Athens, Tennessee, Walmart hired Alquist 3D to build a 20-foot-high store expansion, one of the largest freestanding 3D-printed commercial concrete structures in the U.S. In Marfa, Texas, the world’s first 3D-printed hotel is under construction at an existing hotel and campground site.

Brick and Masonry

A journey through masonry reclad litigation

This blog post by Walter P Moore's Mallory Buckley, RRO, PE, BECxP + CxA+BE, and Bob Hancock, MBA, JD, of Munsch Hardt Kopf & Harr PC, explains the importance of documentation, correspondence between parties, and supporting the claims for a Plaintiff-party, while facilitating continuous use of the facility, on construction litigation projects.

AEC Tech

Construction industry report shows increased use of robotics on jobsites

Nearly two-thirds of contractors surveyed, who cited use of robotics on jobsites, are either using monitoring and/or service/labor robotics.

3D Printing

Alquist 3D and Walmart complete one of the nation’s largest free-standing, 3D-printed commercial structures

Walmart has completed one of the largest free-standing, 3D-printed commercial structures in the US. Alquist 3D printed the almost 8,000-sf, 20-foot-high addition to a Walmart store in Athens, Tenn. The expansion, which will be used for online pickup and delivery, is the first time Walmart has applied 3D printing technology at this scale.

Aug 11, 2010

Concrete Solutions

About five or six years ago, officials at the University of California at Berkeley came to the conclusion that they needed to build a proper home for the university's collection of 900,000 rare Chinese, Japanese, and Korean books and materials. East Asian studies is an important curriculum at Berkeley, with more than 70 scholars teaching some 200 courses devoted to the topic, and Berkeley's pro...

Aug 11, 2010

Piano's 'Flying Carpet'

Italian architect Renzo Piano refers to his $294 million, 264,000-sf Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago as a “temple of light.” That's all well and good, but how did Piano and the engineers from London-based Arup create an almost entirely naturally lit interior while still protecting the priceless works of art in the Institute's third-floor galleries from dangerous ultravio...

Aug 11, 2010

Bronze Award: John G. Shedd Aquarium, Chicago, Ill.

To complete the $55 million renovation of the historic John G. Shedd Aquarium in the allotted 17-month schedule, the Building Team had to move fast to renovate and update exhibit and back-of-house maintenance spaces, expand the visitor group holding area, upgrade the mechanical systems, and construct a single-story steel structure on top of the existing oceanarium to accommodate staff office sp...

Aug 11, 2010

AIA Course: Building with concrete – Design and construction techniques

Concrete maintains a special reputation for strength, durability, flexibility, and sustainability. These associations and a host of other factors have made it one of the most widely used building materials globally in just one century. Take this free AIA/CES course from Building Design+Construction and earn 1.0 AIA learning unit.

Aug 11, 2010

Great Solutions: Green Building

27. Next-Generation Green Roofs Sprout up in New York New York is not particularly known for its green roofs, but two recent projects may put the Big Apple on the map. In spring 2010, the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts will debut one of the nation's first fully walkable green roofs. Located across from the Juilliard School in Lincoln Center's North Plaza, Illumination Lawn will consist ...

Aug 11, 2010

Pioneer Courthouse: Shaking up the court

In the days when three-quarters of America was a wild, lawless no-man's land, Pioneer Courthouse in Portland, Ore., stood out as a symbol of justice and national unity. The oldest surviving federal structure in the Pacific Northwest and the second-oldest courthouse west of the Mississippi, Pioneer Courthouse was designed in 1875 by Alfred Mullett, the Supervising Architect of the Treasury.

Aug 11, 2010

Gold Award: Eisenhower Theater, Washington, D.C.

The Eisenhower Theater in the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., opened in 1971. By the turn of the century, after three-plus decades of heavy use, the 1,142-seat box-within-a-box playhouse on the Potomac was starting to show its age. Poor lighting and tired, worn finishes created a gloomy atmosphere.

Aug 11, 2010

Great Solutions: Business Management

22. Commercial Properties Repositioned for University USE Tocci Building Companies is finding success in repositioning commercial properties for university use, and it expects the trend to continue. The firm's Capital Cove project in Providence, R.I., for instance, was originally designed by Elkus Manfredi (with design continued by HDS Architects) to be a mixed-use complex with private, market-...

Aug 11, 2010

Seven tips for specifying and designing with insulated metal wall panels

Insulated metal panels, or IMPs, have been a popular exterior wall cladding choice for more than 30 years. These sandwich panels are composed of liquid insulating foam, such as polyurethane, injected between two aluminum or steel metal face panels to form a solid, monolithic unit. The result is a lightweight, highly insulated (R-14 to R-30, depending on the thickness of the panel) exterior clad...

Aug 11, 2010

Nurturing the Community

The best seat in the house at the new Seahawks Stadium in Seattle isn't on the 50-yard line. It's in the southeast corner, at the very top of the upper bowl. "From there you have a corner-to-corner view of the field and an inspiring grasp of the surrounding city," says Kelly Kerns, project leader with architect/engineer Ellerbe Becket, Kansas City, Mo.