Since 2000, the City of Columbus has been proactively embarking on the revitalization of the Downtown area, including the renovation of several office buildings, as well as the construction of new condominiums and an amphitheatre. The Downtown Columbus skyline will soon be changing again due to the addition of a revolutionary design structure—the new Main Street Bridge. The bridge that previously stood in its place, running along the Scioto River, was closed in 2002 due to deterioration, 65 years after it opened in 1937. Construction, which was initially scheduled to be completed in June 2009, is now scheduled to be completed this August.

Frank Gehry's second architectural venture into New York City is also his tallest building yet. Spiraling 76 stories and enveloping 1.1 million square feet, Beekman Tower dominates the nearby Woolworth building in downtown Manhattan. Under construction since 2006, the newest addition to the city's distinct skyline is expected to open early next year, and it proves that Gehry's signature, sculptural vocabulary translates successfully into skyscraper form.

Speed matters. That is a fundamental fact of the construction business. In my years as an architect, I don’t recall ever meeting a single client who said, “It doesn’t matter when my building gets completed.” Every project has deadlines, and every deadline is important. If the owner is financing the work through a construction loan, then the faster the building is completed, the sooner they can complete the loan. If the owner is a school district or an expanding business, then there may be hard deadlines that must be met, such as the day that the new school needs to be open for students or when the business owner needs the space for additional equipment or employees.

What does the word “Integrated” in “Integrated Project Delivery” (IPD) mean? While there is no single, authoritative definition of IPD, interpretations can be taken from the IPD report published by McGraw-Hill Construction and AIA California Council, along with looking up the definition of the word “integrated” on dictionary.com:

in•te•grat•ed [in-ti-grey-tid] adjective: combining or coordinating separate elements so as to provide a harmonious, interrelated whole.

Love it or hate it, Marcel Breuer's granite-clad Whitney Museum of American Art has loomed over 75th Street and Madison Avenue in New York's Upper East Side for over 40 years. After repeated attempts to expand and add much needed gallery space, the Whitney has officially announced it is headed downtown. Renzo Piano designed a new building for the Whitney in the hip Meatpacking District adjacent to the High Line, an abandoned, elevated railway that has been converted into a highly publicized park.

Completed in 2006, the University of Cincinnati’s 350,000 sq ft Campus Recreation Center, designed by Southern California based Morphosis Architects Inc., is a successful attempt at weaving four distinctly different programs into one comprehensive building.

AEC professionals have a new technology platform to support the old-fashioned notion of planning ahead. Building Information Modeling (BIM) is bringing a sea change to the industry's workflow by facilitating a previously impossible degree of planning, coordination, and communication.

After a three year renovation, the William Oxley Thompson Memorial Library reopened in the Summer of 2009. The ambitious project created an architectural jewel on the campus of The Ohio State University. The results of the $109 million, 340,000 square foot renovation project include seating for 1,800 people, over 200 computers with wireless internet access, additional meeting and study rooms, an art gallery, and a new cafe. The library also now consolidates the University’s 250,000 volume rare book collection.

When downtown Columbus’ City Center Mall opened its doors in 1989, millions of people swarmed through them in the early weeks. Its collection of high-end department stores, boutiques, and casual restaurants kept it bustling for several years. Flash forward fifteen years, and it started to become a ghost town inside, one major retailer after another leaving many of its vast indoor spaces vacant.

Visible from the Cincinnati riverfront, Daniel Libeskind’s Ascent at Roebling's Bridge towers over the Covington, Ky. skyline. Completed in 2008, the concrete and glass curtain wall clad structure is 300’-0” tall and 310,000 square feet. Twenty-two stories (one lobby, a secure parking level, an amenities level, and 19 floors of luxury condominiums) of multifamily program are included in Libeskind's first U.S. high-rise.

Look out, Pisa, there is a new building on the block! Capital Gate, located in Abu Dhabi, now holds the Guinness Record for the "Worlds Furthest Leaning Manmade Tower." Scheduled for completion in late 2010, this 35 story building with an incline of 18 degrees is the focal point of Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Company's (ADNEC) new mixed use development.

Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) is the new paradigm in design and construction. At its core, IPD means bringing all of the parties in a typical construction project—owner, architect, and builder—together as early as possible in a more robust partnership than is traditionally seen in construction. A true IPD partnership involves changing how the project team is configured, how contracts are written, how risk is shared, how decisions are made, and the tools that are used to communicate information. Today some projects are implementing IPD in its pure form, while others are making incremental steps towards it.