The U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC's) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program is the nation’s leading standards-based green building program. In 2009 the USGBC released its most recent version of the rating system and embarked upon its latest stage of development.
When Denver’s commercial real estate industry outlines criteria for developing a successful project, it typically starts with whether the site provides any views of Colorado’s Rocky Mountain Front Range to the west of the city. It follows, of course, that these units hold a value premium, as owners will pay more for this look at the mountains, a source of comfort and inspiration and an iconic representation of Colorado’s strong sense of identity.
The Denver Art Museum may well be the most prominent expression of Denver’s cultural heart. Daniel Libeskind’s 146,000 sq. ft. extension to the museum, The Frederic C. Hamilton Building, was a joint venture with the Davis Partnership and houses Modern, Contemporary, Oceanic, and African Art collections. The original museum, which opened in 1971, was Italian architect Gio Ponti’s first American commission and boasted an exterior of Italian tile and the innovation of stacking its galleries vertically, which sought to combat the “museum fatigue” that resulted from traversing the long horizontal layout typical of museums at the time.
The time between receiving bids (or a proposal for sole source work) and the start of construction is a busy time for the contractor, the owner, and the design professional. The design professional must quickly check the bids and verify that the low bidder truly has the qualifications to do the work, then prepare the contract documents for signatures. The owner needs to proceed through the necessary steps to award the project, which include having financing ready. The low bidder must begin to expand upon the data assembled during the bid phase and prepare for mobilization.
The Bertschi School, an independent elementary school in Seattle, Washington, has a history of emphasizing sustainability. In 2007, it was the first school in the state to have an elementary classroom building awarded LEED Gold certification. Now, with a new 1,425 sq. ft. science classroom scheduled for completion in November, the school is attempting to comply with an even more stringent green building rating system, the Cascadia Region Green Building Council’s Living Building Challenge.
Michael Hughes is Chief of the Construction Department for the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority (CMHA) in Cleveland, Ohio. He’s also one of the people most familiar with CMHA’s Building Automation System (BAS). In this lead article initiating a case study with CMHA, we’ll provide a summary overview of their BAS, which was installed by Siemens Building Technologies. In future articles, we’ll take some more in-depth journeys with Mr. Hughes into the BAS, including the daily use of the system. Throughout this series, we’ll cover some detailed time and cost-savings scenarios that BASs offer to building owners.
Tell someone that you work in construction -- heavy construction, that is -- and they most likely will have a mental image of earth-moving equipment, trenches, concrete, and asphalt. Paperwork may not come to mind, nor contracts or documents. Yet the success of a construction project depends not only on the work at the site but also on the paper documentation that defines what must be done.
The number of green design materials available has exploded in recent years. Products that used to be offered in limited colors or designs are now as varied as their traditional counterparts. Because of consumer demand, sustainable painting, flooring, and countertop products that might have been less durable and expensive in the past are now stronger, longer-lasting, and often more affordable.
Denver’s Union Station is a regional multi-modal hub that embodies everything about Denver’s upbeat future. The Union Depot & Railroad Company built Denver's first Union Station at the city's northwest edge. It cost $525,000 to build and opened on June 1, 1881. Union Station houses the Amtrak service and, more uniquely, the Ski Train, a local favorite that takes skiers on an entertaining ride through the Rockies to the Winter Park Ski Resort.
I learned a hard lesson regarding the required use of spreader bars when lifting heavy angular objects with a crane: I was placed in harm’s way and witnessed the destruction of over $20,000 worth of property during a construction mishap. Fortunately, following some tense seconds, there were zero injuries and several lessons learned.
When you begin a development project, you never know what you will encounter along the way. You think you have spotted a property, and you think you have determined a profitable use for that piece of land or building. However, the unknown lies ahead.
In the 1950s, the construction of elevated and sunken highways marred many cities in the name of progress and the almighty automobile. Even brownstone Brooklyn wasn't spared. Under the heavy hand of Robert Moses, the infamous chair of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE) severed several neighborhoods in order to connect the two boroughs. Some neighborhoods fared better than others; affluent Brooklyn Heights bargained for a scenic promenade to disguise the BQE. However, their neighbors to the south along the Columbia Street waterfront, an area primarily inhabited by Italian immigrants at the time, were cut off from the picturesque portions of Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill by a sunken, six-lane stretch of highway.
