Nadine M. Post

Record number of high-rises completed last year; more expected this year. Image courtesy CTBUH Click on the slide show button to learn more about the 10 tallest towers completed last year. History keeps disproving predictions that the supertall skyscraper, as a developer’s building type, was destroyed when the two 110-story towers of New York City’s World Trade Center went down. Last year alone, 66 towers taller than 200 meters opened their doors, breaking the 2007 record of 48. Of these, eight are taller than 300 m, according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, which is the keeper

Some see a frozen tear clinging to the “cheek” of the new Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. Others see a melting crystal.

Ove Arup & Partners says it is "incredulous" over a lawsuit by the Art Institute of Chicago accusing the company of errors on the museum’s 264,000-sq-ft Modern Wing. Filed in federal district court in Chicago, the lawsuit claims the multidisciplinary engineer failed to discharge its obligations during design and construction of the wing, which opened in May 2009. Photo © Charles G. Young Interactive Design Architects Art Institute of Chicago alleges Arup did not provide adequate engineering services for the 264,000-sq-ft Modern Wing. The lawsuit, filed Sept. 21, claims Arup's services were "woefully inadequate." The museum asked the court to

Licensed U.S. architects working globally, a group that is growing, need support from the American Institute of Architects in several ways, including promoting and endorsing a strategic plan that enables U.S. architects to gain professional practice licenses in foreign jurisdictions. AIA also should endorse the International Union of Architects’ (UIA) professional advisory standards, international education standards and international accreditation/validation standards. “The AIA should be advocating practices that enable its members to diversify their geographic, civic and cultural involvements,” said Thomas Vonier, an architect based in Paris and AIA’s international director. These recommendations and others relating to working globally were issued

The American Institute of Architects has released an Excel-based tool that generates a report on predicted energy use and project modeling. The tool, called the 2030 Commitment Annual Progress Reporting Tool, is part of the group's push to get its members to design carbon-neutral buildings and practice architecture in a more sustainable way. Although the tool was designed for architecture firms only, it is being tweaked for use by structural engineers. AIA released the tool at its 2010 convention in Miami. To date 105 architects have signed on to the AIA's voluntary 2030 commitment program, said Kelly Pickard, AIA's project

Photos © UB-MCEER Seminar tents housed 100 participants each day (top). The introductory seismic program included field evaluation training (above) Related Links: Special Section: Rebuilding Haiti Congress Moving on Aid for Haiti, But Little Rebuilding in Country Interview with Yves Fran'ois, a Haitian Designer Some 200 Haitian engineers and engineering students gathered in Port-au-Prince on May 20-22 under a tent in plus-90°F heat to learn about seismic-resistant design and construction. The four introductory courses—which covered topics such as the seismology and seismicity of Haiti, earthquake-resistant design principles and rapid building assessment methodology—were held thanks to an agreement between the University

Replicable test case in Colorado nears completion on time and within its $64-million budget The progressive aspect of the job—and a big departure for DOE—is that it was divided into three parallel design packages: site, shell and interiors. Similar to fast-tracking, the approach allowed the project to be done a couple of years faster than a design-bid-build approach. But because DOE is not set up for fast-tracking, the DB team still had to respond to contract milestones at the end of schematic design, design development and construction documentation. However, the milestones did not coordinate with the way the team was

Replicable test case in Colorado nears completion on time and within its $64-million budget While some are testing the waters of integrated project delivery, a group within the U.S. Dept. of Energy is tilling greener pastures by devising a new design-build project-delivery model for fast-tracked, net-zero-energy buildings, public and private. DOE calls the process progressive, performance-based design-build (DB). Haselden Construction, DOE’s DB contractor for the first application of the model—the $64-million Research Support Facility of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colo.—calls it design-build “on steroids.” The 222,000-sq-ft RSF is the largest known net-zero-energy building in North America,

Building teams can collaborate without complex multiparty contracts, say IPD skeptics Under most multiparty contracts, the architect and contractor are paid on the basis of cost, plus some or all of their overhead and an agreed-upon profit, a percentage of which is at risk. The owner funds a contingency. If it is preserved, savings are shared with the team. If there is a cost overrun and the contingency is exhausted, team members fund it out of their collective profits up to limits set in the agreement. “We are asking the parties to strip profit out of their costs and tell

Building teams can collaborate without complex multiparty contracts, say IPD skeptics Other highly desirable elements of IPD are mutual respect and trust among participants, collaborative innovation, intensified early planning, open communication within the team, use of building information modeling (BIM) by multiple parties, collocation of teams, transparent financials and use of lean principles of design, construction and operations. The report is available as a free download at www.aia.org/ipdcasestudies. Five different “flavors” of the model contracts also present a problem. Lawyer Will Lichtig, a shareholder with McDonough, Holland & Allen, Sacramento, wrote the first one, in 2005, as general counsel for