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.

When I think about DIY painting basics, I think about process and procedure -- setting up an effective work space and job sequencing. I have been at this business for a long time, and I have seen and learned a lot. I have met homeowners of all competencies, each of whom seemed to lack this understanding of process and procedure. Throughout this series, we will look at interior and exterior application techniques, including tips and tricks. The goal is to help the DIYer produce a higher-quality result using fewer resources.

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.

Flooding occurs when water exceeds normal cyclical levels in areas that are largely considered to be dry land. Flooding can result in damage to property and subsequent expenses. Flood maps illustrate which areas of a region are more likely to flood than others in a given year and are used by insurance companies to determine flood insurance premiums.

Wastewater systems is the sixth topic in our U.S. infrastructure series. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) assigned the United States’ WASTEWATER infrastructure a grade of “D-” on their 2009 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure. Here we explore the funding issues that effect the aging treatment plants and waterways that make up our nation's wastewater infrastructure.

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.

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.

Although it is surrounded by water, New York City offers few opportunities to physically interact with the shoreline. The new Brooklyn Bridge Park proves an exception; its 85 acres of green space and recreational facilities, designed by landscape architecture firm Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, will span 1.3 miles of post-industrial waterfront between the Manhattan Bridge and Atlantic Avenue, bracketed by the East River and Robert Moses' tiered Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.

The Falkirk Wheel, constructed in Falkirk, Scotland in 2002, was developed to connect the Forth and Clyde Canal and the Union Canal so travelers could easily navigate through central Scotland. After consideration was given to several designs including a see-saw-like structure and a rolling eggs structure, a rotating boat design was chosen. British Waterways, Morrison-Bachy-Soletanche, and specialists from Butterley Engineering, RMJM Architects, and Ove Arup Consultants engineered a one-of-a-kind rotating boat lift to connect the two canals.

One of the most important climate change reduction advances in architecture and building in America is unfolding in the foothills of the Front Range outside Denver where the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is completing a flagship for renewability and energy efficiency. The Research Support Facilities (RSF) in Golden, Colorado, were built and furnished for $67 million, comprise 222,000 square feet of zero-energy building (ZEB), were designed by RNL Design with Stantec, and were built by Colorado’s Haselden Construction. Seeking the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) LEED Platinum status, NREL is certainly practicing what it preaches: its scientists and technologists are occupying daylit spaces this summer to deliver energy strategies as they work to battle climate change and strive for national energy independence.