Category: Structures

Build­ings, Bridges, & Archi­tec­ture… Oh My!

Open Building Codes

Carl Mala­mud’s 5 minute Ignite! pre­sen­ta­tion on mak­ing build­ing codes avail­able for free to the pub­lic once they’ve been adopt­ed as law. I’ve been argu­ing for this ever since I was in college.

UVA Stadium Pergola

UVA Sta­di­um Per­go­la 1 by Jason Cole­man — I was at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia yes­ter­day for a work meet­ing, and thought I’d walk around for a few min­utes after­wards to take a few pho­tos. I’ve had far worse days at work than spend­ing the last day of sum­mer walk­ing around a col­lege cam­pus on… Con­tin­ue read­ing UVA Sta­di­um Pergola

Google Library

Sci-Fi author and blog­ger Cory Doc­torow has writ­ten an excel­lent arti­cle at Boing­Bo­ing on why Google Book Search is one of the great­est things to ever hap­pen to the inter­net. Typ­i­cal of his writ­ing, it’s well worth the read and he demon­strates, at least in this case, how Google’s build­ing of the new Library of… Con­tin­ue read­ing Google Library

Wired Features Storm Resistant Homes

Wired has an arti­cle on design­ing storm resis­tant hous­ing that is becom­ing a pop­u­lar option for rebuild­ing in the Gulf Coast. Ideas includ­ing low cost hous­ing (like I wrote about last week), steel homes designed in PA, float­ing homes from Ams­ter­dam, and rein­forced con­crete domes.

Design With Social Purpose

Kat­ri­na Cot­tage by Shawn Lea of Every­thing and Noth­ing (szlea at Flickr). Image CC2.0 Shawn Lea, Jan­u­ary 2006 Flip­ping through this week’s ENR, I saw a blurb about the “Kat­ri­na Cot­tage.” This 300ft² struc­ture, designed by archi­tect Mar­i­anne Cusato (arti­cle at Dex­ign­er) has one bed­room, liv­ing area, kitchen and bath­room. The design is such that the… Con­tin­ue read­ing Design With Social Purpose

Reassurance

The worst part about being an engi­neer, is that a lot of your calls are because some­thing has gone wrong. Peo­ple are already upset due to the fact they are hav­ing to hire you and the very best out­come if that you can make every­thing as good as it was before. This was espe­cial­ly true… Con­tin­ue read­ing Reas­sur­ance

Grand Canyon Skywalk

The Native Amer­i­can tribes of the Huala­pai Nation are build­ing a giant hor­shoe-shaped glass walk­way on part of the reser­va­tion in order to attract tourism. What makes this even more amaz­ing is the fact that this part of their land is 4,000 feet above the base of the Grand Canyon. The bridge is a struc­tur­al… Con­tin­ue read­ing Grand Canyon Skywalk

West Houston’s KATY Freeway

Over two years ago, I began work­ing on part of the design team for the IH-10 and Belt­way 8 inter­change West of Hous­ton, Texas.

Like Passing A Stone

I found out today that I passed my Pro­fes­sion­al Engi­neer exam, which is great news! Odd­ly, I don’t feel any different…

Fast-Paced First Week

I can hard­ly believe that five whole days have gone by since I start­ed my new job. I have to say that I’m feel­ing a great deal more opti­mistic since my last post, too.