Architects & Designers Archives

HOW’S THE WATER?

Stan Agee
“You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.” This 12th Century English homily presents a classic conundrum: Why won’t the horse drink the water? Not drinking is clearly self-destructive. Refusing water seems absurd. But let’s look at the situation from the horse’s point of view. If the horse has been led to the water …

SPALLING IS BAD, FALLING IS WORSE

Stewart M. Verhulst, M.S., P.E., RRC
Public safety is of paramount importance for engineers and architects designing buildings. Most design professionals are diligent in their pursuit of safe structures, carefully calculating the loading conditions, detailing connections and support conditions, and preparing their drawings and specifications. …

FOR WANT OF A NAIL – Cost of Cutting Corners on Drilled Cage Alignment

Bradford Russell, AIA, P.E., SECB, F.SEI
“For the want of a nail the shoe was lost, For the want of a shoe the horse was lost, For the want of a horse the rider was lost, For the want of a rider the battle was lost, For the want of a battle the kingdom was lost, And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.”…

REINFORCEMENT IN DRILLED SHAFT DEEP FOUNDATIONS

John B. Turner, P.E.
The foundation of a building or other structure is designed and constructed to transmit forces from the structure to the soil. Under typical conditions, these forces are the result of gravity – the weight of the building, occupants, and materials…

WHY SPECIFICATIONS MATTER

Walter Scarborough FCSI, SCIP
To almost everyone involved with the construction of buildings, specifications seem to be a strange and mysterious world: massive amounts of technical information, references to obscure standards, and no graphics, just thousands of incomprehensible words...

THE WHAT & WHY OF BUILDING CODES

Hamid Naderi, P.E., CBO
Margi M. Leddin
Building codes are sets of rules defining how buildings can be designed and constructed to a minimum level of safety. They are not a phenomenon of the modern world; rather, they have been around for centuries, one of the...

SAFETY AWARENESS AND PRACTICES FOR CONSTRUCTORS AND ENGINEERS

S. Scot Litke, Honorary D.GE
One would hope that by now virtually every company that works in the field of geo-design and geo-construction would have a full understanding of the importance of making company-wide commitments to developing and...

WOMEN IN CIVIL ENGINEERING & CIVIL CONSTRUCTION: TAKE CHARGE OF YOUR OWN CAREER

S. Scot Litke, Honorary D.GE
I realize that I could be criticized as being guilty of “looking from the outside in” without a personal understanding of what women working in civil engineering (CE), and civil construction (CC), are up against...