Sustainable Design and Green Building Standards Revised
With energy resources depleting at an alarming rate, architects and engineers worldwide have realized the need to have energy and sustainable building design to ensure that a structure is eco-friendly and energy efficient. Image Credit: http://www.cearchitects.com/green/index.php The U.S. Green building Council and Illuminating Engineering Society recently came up with stricter water-use and energy-efficiency requirements to further reduce a buildings environmental impact in the latest v...
Preparing Today’s Students to Create a Smarter Tomorrow
There is a great deal of buzz in recent years about the concept of “Smarter Cities.” Despite increasing numbers moving to urban areas, there is significant concern that our nation’s infrastructure still ranks woefully behind the rest of the world in terms of quality. With no solid long-term plans to fund required repairs and renovations, much less building the new infrastructure required to support our evolving needs, the conversation is sharply focused on how to do more with less by leveraging...
Three Ideas That Are Likely to Change the Way DOTs Work
It has been 100 years since the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, or AASHTO, was conceived by visionary leaders. In this significant anniversary year, we acknowledge innovations and achievements that have changed the way transportation projects are planned, designed, built and managed. More change is on the way and many people would say we are on the brink of technological and process changes that will transform the industry. While civil engineers may not lik...
Technology-Enabled Organizational Efficiency with Greater Field-to-Office Connectivity
Higher efficiency and quality are equally needed across different industries. The global financial crisis has tightened its grip on professionals and organizations in almost all fields. As a result, several economic and environmental challenges are at play. Sprawling patterns of development, aging infrastructure and resource limitation are the symptoms of this global crisis. Governments and businesses alike strive to cut costs and maintain quality in light of resource limitations. Connectin...
Scan to BIM Still Requires Expert Modelers
It is interesting how an entire 3D space can be scanned into a point could model, replete with intrinsic geometry details. This technology is popularly and very efficiently used to represent the ‘As built’ environment for both new buildings and refurbishment/renovation projects. BIM point cloud technology might sound very costly, but for large scale renovation projects, it is extremely useful and cost effective. Why has Scan to BIM gained popularity? BIM has become an integral part of buildi...
Cultivating Community Potential through Economic Gardening
With the global financial crisis, many local communities struggle to stay afloat. Despite the many ongoing conversations about the nation’s economy and what needs to be done to fix it. Detroit is the latest casualty of this unsustainable economic climate, holding the dubious distinction of becoming the largest city in the U.S. to file bankruptcy. There has never been a greater need for a renewed approach to economic development than today. The economic crisis that the U.S. faces today goes de...
Manufacturing a New Kind of Construction
What comes to mind when you think about modular design? Did you come up with an image of half a house on the back of a flatbed trailer, or one of a modern high rise? While most people these days still have memories of the double-wide’s on the highway, there are more and more projects appearing in unexpected places that are incorporating modular design, and in most cases you wouldn’t even know it when you see it. What makes something modular? Modular design by definition is the breaking down...
Three Things You Should Know About Managed Services
The simplicity of the user experience that we have grown accustomed to with our smartphones and tablets is in stark contrast to the growing complexity of the cloud computing technology that makes it possible. Enterprise information technology has experienced a series of disruptions and an increasing rate of change over the last ten years that indicate we have entered into a whole new era of computing. Small wonder then that the IT shop in the typical architecture, engineering and construction...
Advancing BIM Toward “Level 3”: Compounding Benefits
Among the multitude of viewpoints regarding a “new level” of BIM aspirations, I would like to offer Bentley Systems’ perspective, as a leading software provider dedicated to “sustaining infrastructure,” on how and why the advantages at each BIM advancement can accumulate exponentially. For context, we conceptualize the many potential advances, in technology and workflow processes, as pushing out a frontier arrayed across two axes (Fig. 1). BIM strategies support better asset performance throu...
Is Green Infrastructure Diminishing Innovation?
Since the Environmental Protection Agency, and in turn state and local regulators, have gone all in on green infrastructure (GI) and low impact development (LID) concepts a seemingly regrettable consequence has emerged. Topics specific to the broader adoption and implementation of GI have monopolized our collective dialog on stormwater management of late. The predominantly positive press and barrage of GI heavy conference agendas seemingly suggest that if we apply GI far and wide then water q...
Video: Crashes Drop Measurably After Rural Road Safety Improvement Project on US 521 in Lancaster County
AdventHealth Weaverville Hospital
June Issue 2026
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