Infrastructure Showcase: Co-Winners of the 2016 Sidney Freedman Craftsmanship Award
The Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute (PCI) announced co-winners of the fifth annual Sidney Freedman Craftsmanship Award, which recognizes PCI-certified plants for excellence in manufacturing and craftsmanship of architectural precast and glass fiber-reinforced concrete (GFRC) structures and individual components. The awards program was judged by the PCI Architectural Precast Concrete Services and Manual Committee based on the precasters’ success in overcoming obstacles to production, so...
Collect Data Once, Use Whenever Needed: Mobile-Mapping Systems Create Quick and Detailed 3D Models of Infrastructure
European engineers have long been at the forefront of scanning and infrastructure technology, being much faster to adopt all-digital workflows than most of their American counterparts. One of these technologies is mobile mapping, which is typically a combined system that includes GNSS satellite positioning equipment, inertial measuring units, distance measuring, 3D laser scanning and some form of digital imaging. All of this is combined in a mobile platform such as a car or truck; rail c...
Final Thoughts: The Tools Are Nothing Without the Engineer
In the September/October 2016 issue of Informed Infrastructure, I described showing up for my first day of work back in the early 1970s with my slide rule, mechanical pencil and scales. If I were to start working today, fresh out of college, I wouldn’t have any of these. I would bring my smartphone and expect an extremely fast computer to be provided. In most cases, this is the way of the engineering world: find my cube, log in, create a password and start working. If only it were that easy …...
A Scenic, Secure Thriller: Elk Falls Park Suspension Bridge Provides Sensitive Access to Canadian Treasure
By Angus W. Stocking, L.S. Elk Falls, beautifully cascading for 89 feet (27 meters), is the centerpiece of Elk Falls Provincial Park on Vancouver Island. By all accounts, it’s one of Canada’s most-scenic waterfalls, but for most of the park’s existence, Elk Falls has been underappreciated simply because it’s difficult to see. The falls tumble down into a small, misty, heavily wooded and very steep canyon with no trails, and only the very agile and slightly reckless can scramble to van...
From the Editor: Celebrating the Work We Do
Timing is everything, and I couldn’t have timed my joining Informed Infrastructure any better. The AEC industry continues to grow at a rapid rate, and the key technologies such as BIM, reality capture and even virtual and augmented reality are finally growing in adoption, which is going to lead to all of us working smarter, better and faster. And I wouldn’t be doing my new job if I didn’t note that this multi-platform media company I recently joined seems like it’s poised to take off in major...
BIM Breakthrough: Historic Grand Paris Express Employs BIM on Monumental Scale
When the original Paris Metro system was built more than a century ago, it connected all the most vital parts of the city. But Paris has changed a lot in 116 years. Now outlying neighborhoods are home to Europe’s largest business district, the world’s largest produce market, several universities and areas with denser populations than Paris itself. The Grand Paris Express (GPE) aims to ease travel to and from these outlying neighborhoods by adding four new metro lines, extending two ex...
Engineer Spotlight: Differentiate Your Business to Achieve Success
As a brief personal background, I created RAM International back in 1998, which was one of the first companies to incorporate an entire building model into one dataset with a Windows interface, setting the stage for a lot of the AEC technology that exists today. After I sold RAM to Bentley Systems in 2005, I went into mergers and acquisitions at Bentley, and I did about 10 of those in structural, architectural, electrical and other software technologies. I later led a global sales team for th...
Optimizing Time with VDC:Steel
By Josh Zimmerman Project teams are beginning to integrate services inhouse, including steel fabrication, to optimize overall cost and shorten timelines. In the past, the steel fabricator hired a detailing firm, who then created its own model and set of drawings. In the new approach, the detailing is scheduled up-front instead of in the middle of the project—typically about 60 percent of the way through the design phase. This article details some key considerations to optimize al...
Structural Solutions: Proper Communication - Engineers Need It Just Like Everyone Else
I’m sure there are many readers of this column who can remember when the telephone was the only substitute for an in-person meeting—it wasn’t that long ago. Today, we have myriad ways to communicate through the internet: talking to multiple people at once via conference calling and video conferencing, talking and watching via screen-sharing apps, and writing via e-mail. And where would we be without chatting, blogging, texting and messaging? One thing that hasn’t changed is the need to commun...
Keeping Ocean Shores Clean: Coastal Town Relies on Vacuum Sewers
By Steve Gibbs Some public works officials and civil engineers think twice when considering vacuum sewer technology as a viable alternative for municipal wastewater collection. Vacuum sewers provide several advantages, including significant upfront cost savings, easier installation, minimal exposure to raw sewage and near-zero infiltration (which also saves money at the treatment plant). But there have been lingering questions about long-term operations and maintenance (O&M). Wi...
Video: Crashes Drop Measurably After Rural Road Safety Improvement Project on US 521 in Lancaster County
AdventHealth Weaverville Hospital
June Issue 2026
.jpg?width=225)