Category Archives: Construction
Old school construction building the Empire State Building in 1930
5 innovations in high-rise #construction & #AEC design | call or click 1-888-BUILDER.com
The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat has named two winners and three finalists of its 2013 Innovation Award. The highlighted innovations stand to revolutionize the technology, sustainability, and efficiency of tall building construction and operation, according to the organization.
The Innovation Awards will be presented at the CTBUH 12th Annual Awards Ceremony and Dinner at the Illinois Institute of Technology, November 7, in the iconic Crown Hall, designed by Mies van der Rohe.
Here’s an overview of the winners and finalists (descriptions and images courtesy CTBUH):
1. BSB Prefabricated Construction Process
2. KONE UltraRope
3. Megatruss Seismic Isolation Structure
4. Raster Façade Precast Concrete System
5. Rocker Façade Support System
iPads Supplanting Construction Blueprints Boosts Productivity
Armed with iPads linked to the newest plans, work orders and information requests, specialists are leading a shift to building information modeling, or BIM. New types of jobs are being created, such as modelers, and updated skills are becoming mandatory for designers and contractors. As builders recover from the worst downturn since World War II, such tools are changing processes used in design and construction.
“The goal is to eliminate problems before they happen,”
via IPads Supplanting Blueprints Boosts Builder Productivity – Businessweek.
Bluebeam® Revu® for iPad lets you work without limits. Watch this video (displaying Revu iPad 1.0) to learn how to access and navigate your PDF files on the go, from anywhere, and redline PDFs with industry standard symbols. Save custom markups for reuse across sessions, and collaborate with colleagues across the globe in real time using Revu’s cloud based solution, Bluebeam Studio™. All it takes is a tap and swipe to experience the difference.
A few taps is all it takes. Use Revu’s list of markup tools, including text, notes, highlighter, lines, clouds, callouts and more to redline your PDFs. Customize your markups by easily changing the color, fill, opacity, line type or font. Want to cut, copy or delete a markup? Just tap and hold down on the markup in question to bring up its context menu.
AutoDesk BIM 360 Field: iPad Basics
@Related_Group : 6 Condo Projects Underway, 10 More Planned For South Florida
With six new condo projects already at various stages of development from Greater Downtown Miami to Hollywood Beach, the Related Group – Florida’s most prolific vertical condo developer – is planning to build an additional 10 projects in the South Florida region, according to a new report from CondoVultures.com. “I have already bought the elevators for 10 jobs,” Carlos Rosso, the president of new condo development division of the Related Group, told a sold out crowd of 200 people at the CondoVultures.com 5th Annual State Of The South Florida Condo Market Seminar on Feb. 27, 2013 at the Met 1 condominium in Greater Downtown Miami. “I have already bought the tonnage of steel in futures for those 10 projects. We have done that. Why? Because we are Related. We can buy in bulk” to achieve attractive discounts on construction materials in a highly competitive industry. Rosso added: “If there is one developer that comes to try to compete in any [South Florida] submarket with Related, he is going to have a hard time to match the prices that Related will be able to offer. That gives us a tremendous advantage.”
via Related Exec: 6 Condo Projects Underway, 10 More Planned For South Florida.
The Basics of Hybrid Designs in Construction Equipment
Hybrid is a slippery word. By one definition, anything of mixed origin or composition is a hybrid: thus, we have hybrid roses and hybrid languages. A more narrow definition has hybrids as single functioning units that juxtapose different technologies. That definition makes hybrids of decades-old hydrostatic and diesel/electric drive systems—since they juxtapose mechanical with hydraulic or electric technology—but these systems seldom are so classified. When considering the innovative energy-use systems being applied today in heavy equipment and trucks, then, perhaps “hybrid” definitions need a second look.
The most precise definition we encountered is that from Caterpillar: A hybrid is “a machine equipped with a device to collect, store and release energy during operation.”
By that definition, a number of machines and trucks with innovative energy-use technology would qualify as hybrids. A few machines, however, with technology just as innovative, would be ruled out on technicalities—the Cat D7E crawler dozer, for instance, because its distinctive electrical/mechanical power train neither collects, stores nor releases stored energy, and several wheel loaders—the Cat 966K XE, Deere 644K Hybrid, and Deere 944K—which collect and use energy that otherwise would be wasted, but do not store it.
via The Basics of Hybrid Designs in Construction Equipment | Construction Equipment.
New app coming soon construction equipment rental from your mobile phone startup investors include @a16z @sacca
With $1.8M From Andreessen, Chris Sacca & More, Rental Marketplace Getable Digs Into The $32B Construction Market
Getable has identified a more appealing opportunity. Today, the startup is unveiling a new product (and another new direction) aimed at the largest segment of the rental industry: Tools and equipment. As part of this transition, Getable is becoming a mobile-first business and has created a product that is geared exclusively to general contractors and those to whom they rent their construction equipment.
Considering there are over 10M general contractors in the U.S., the tool and equipment category represents a $32 billion market and one that’s projected to reach $46 billion by 2016. While that’s still a sizable market, it’s a fraction of the $85 billion rental industry, which includes tools, party supplies, sports equipment and more — the one Getable was initially targeting when it launched as Rentcycle back in 2009.
“It’s funny, because construction truly represents the original mobile workforce, so it’s hard to believe that contractors and construction workers lack access to great mobile products that help them manage such key components of their jobs,” Rogers says of Getable’s new direction
Post Tension concrete construction. Stressing a post-tension tendon, a video safety first, I’ve seen these cables snap!
All is calm, form deck is ready for inspection and concrete.
For you contractors and engineers’ tech jargon: Stressing an unbonded post-tensioning tendon with a hydraulic jack (8-inch stroke). This tendon was roughly 130 feet long so it required two strokes. The elongation for a 100-foot-long tendon is roughly 8 inches.