Robotics: A new way to demolish buildings

The blog Technabob featured a novel technological innovation that could transform the building demolition industry.

Inspired by the movie "Wall-E," Swedish student designer Omer Haciomeroglu designed a robot prototype, called the ERO Concrete Recycling Robot, that uses water jets to break up concrete structures and then sucks up the water and debris for reuse and recycling.

Haciomeroglu envisions a fleet of these robots scanning a job site and carefully taking down a structure and recycling its components. For instance, the clean aggregate could be sent to concrete precast stations for reuse, and the rebar can be cut on the spot for reuse, writes Technabob.

Haciomeroglu calls it "smart deconstruction" versus the "brutal pulverizing" that's common in the field.

Check out Haciomeroglu's prototype (Click here for more on ERO):

More on the ERO Concrete Recycling Robot.

Hoping to send a loud message that Chicago is serious about luring tourism and entertainment spending, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has released details of two initiatives that have been developing for more than a year and that it says will mean $1.1 billion in investment in the McCormick Place and Navy Pier areas.

| May 16, 2013

Michael R. Bohn named Executive VP at Gilbane

Gilbane has promoted Michael R. Bohn to executive vice president. With over 28 years of service to the company and leadership roles on such high-profile projects as the University of Michigan Biomedical Science Building and the University of Chicago Medical Center, Bohn will now have responsibility for Gilbane’s New York and Midwest business units.

| May 16, 2013

BIM Show Live: The UK’s aggressive goal to mandate BIM on all public projects

| May 15, 2013

Schneider Electric announces Global Xperience Efficiency Events for 2013

Schneider Electric’s Xperience Efficiency series will begin with events in the United States, China, Colombia, Brazil and Russia.

| May 15, 2013

Center for Green Schools, Architecture for Humanity release new tool for green schools

The 70-page guide demystifies the processes of identifying building improvement opportunities and finance and implementation strategies.

| May 14, 2013

Paints and coatings: The latest trends in sustainability

When it comes to durability, a 50-year building design ideally should include 50-year coatings. Many building products consume substantial amounts of energy, water, and petrochemicals during manufacture, but they can make up for it in the operations phase. The same should be expected from architectural coatings.

| May 14, 2013

Advanced turbines generate 6X more energy than conventional models

US-based wind energy company SheerWind just unveiled the INVELOX – a tunnel-based wind turbine that can produce up to 600% more power than traditional wind turbines.