Credit: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) Kansas City International Airport (MCI) has its origin in the “Great Flood of 1951,” which more or less destroyed the facilities of Mid-Continent Airlines and Trans World Airlines (TWA) at Fairfax Airport…
Return to Glory: Notre Dame’s Restoration Is On Track
Interior bracing was installed during the safety phase to stabilize stone arches. Notre Dame de Paris is not the largest Gothic cathedral in the…
A Big Deal by Any Measure: Gerald Desmond Bridge Replacement Opens for Business
Currently clunkily named, but impressive by every other measure, the Gerald Desmond Bridge Replacement opened all six vehicle lanes to traffic…
Let’s Build Two: Hub Group Breaks Ground On Replica Headquarters Building
Hub Group is a publicly traded North American transportation-management company providing intermodal, truck brokerage and logistics services. With more than $3.5 billion in revenue, Hub is one of the largest such companies in the world. And in the teenage…
A Cool-Looking Chiller: New Core Infrastructure at UMass Amherst Is Sustainable, Educational and Beautiful
The northwest corner of the chiller plant shows rhythmical façade patterns in channel glass and metal panels above ground level. Oxford’s “dreaming spires” (subject of the famous poem), Harvard’s Widener Library (home to one of the world’s few perfect…
Supercomputing that Supports Infrastructure
Argonne National Laboratories Makes Climate Modeling Practical for Regional Infrastructure Asset Management Argonne National Laboratory, located in Lemont, Ill. (just outside Chicago), has some of the trappings of an outstanding Bond villain lair, including…
Making History by Preserving History: Casino Development in Springfield Based on Extraordinary Structural Preservation
June 1, 2011, was a tragic day in Springfield, Mass. (settled since 1636, it’s Massachusetts’ third-largest city); seven devastating tornadoes touched down in and around the city, killing three people, injuring 300 and leaving more than 500 homeless.…
Making Everyone Happy: Early and Effective Collaboration to Realize a Beautiful Building
To complement this feature, Todd Danielson, the magazine’s editorial director, went to the Chicago office of Forefront Structural Engineers and interviewed Steve Franckowiak, S.E., P.E., associate, and Amanda Featherstone, S.E., P.E., project engineer.…
Oregon DOT Uses Technology to Keep up with Progressive Contractors
ODOT inspectors use the Windows 7-compatible DT Research model DT391GS tablet equipped with a GNSS antenna and MicroSurvey FieldGenius to stake out and check precise layout points as part of regular inspection duties. In 2016, construction inspectors at the…
Cell Tower Inspection and Maintenance: UAV Reality Capture and Digital Twin Pilot Project Suggest Major Efficiency Gains
Telstra’s complex cell-tower arrays typically are mounted at the top of 25-meter, non-climbable steel monopoles. Determining the precise number of cell towers in the world is a difficult task, complicated by the lack of coordinated international reporting…
