August 2015 – SpecNews

Can Design Change Society? Symposium and Exhibition in Berlin

Can Design Change Society? pop-up exhibition will run from 2 – 20 September in Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin.
Can Design Change Society? It is, indeed, the big question that has plagued the design profession right from the beginning.
The pop-up exhibition will present prototypical projects, both historical and contemporary, that have tried to use design for social change.
By what means can we approach design change and the future in a new way today?
Starting with the high aspirations of Bauhaus to use rational, humanist design to transform every aspect of life, the spectre of social change continues to haunt design.

Police: Construction crooner found dead in apparent suicide

This story has been corrected to show that Russo’s body was found one month, not two months, after he went missing.
Four years after Gary Russo’s brush with fame, the “Second Avenue Sinatra” vanished without a trace after leaving his home shortly after midnight on July 28.
NEW YORK (AP) — A karaoke-loving ironworker who briefly became a New York sensation for his serenades from a subway construction site has been found dead in an apparent suicide, a month after he disappeared from his Queens neighborhood, police said Friday.
Earlier this month, Russo’s car was found abandoned in the same neighborhood.
Russo was helping build the future Second Avenue subway under Manhattan’s Upper East Side in late July 2011 when he began using his lunch breaks to start singing in public, serenading onlookers.

Cameron Sinclair interview about humanitarian architecture

Cameron Sinclair: I’m the co-founder of Architecture for Humanity and I ran that for close to 14 years.
They’ve been snaked there, they’ve had a taste of humanitarian work and they would rather starve than work in an office.
“And I am never going to win the Pritzker Prize, I’m going to die happy knowing that.”
“I will never do a skyscraper in my life ever, I’m going to die happy knowing that,” said Sinclair.
Cameron Sinclair: It makes it hard to critique because I’m doing something similar.

Drone Oversight Is Coming to Construction Sites

For some construction workers, any thoughts of slacking off could soon seem rather quaint.
Monitoring activity across a large, complex construction site is particularly difficult because there are so many moving parts, and because the jobs being performed change frequently.
Once per day, several drones automatically patrol the Sacramento work site, collecting video footage.
The software developed by the University of Illinois team can show how different subcontracting teams are working together.
At the Sacramento project, video is being captured by a drone-operating company called ImageInFlight.

£22m Worcestershire Parkway gets green light Ι Construction Enquirer

Members of Worcestershire County Council’s Planning and Regulatory Committee have rubber stamped the plans to build Worcestershire Parkway, near Junction 7 of the M5 for Worcester.
Contractor Osborne has got the green light to start work on a new £22m rail station in Worcestershire.
Osborne will build a single platform on the Cotswold Line and two platforms on the Birmingham to Bristol Line.
Under the plans, the proposed station in Norton would include up to 500 car parking spaces, with provision for people with disabilities, bus stops and a taxi rank.
Work on the station, which will link the Cotswolds and Birmingham to Bristol lines, is being paid for by both the county council and the Worcestershire Local Enterprise Partnership.

Bill Shorten open to ‘collaborative’ industrial relations reform

Bill Shorten has signalled he could pursue “collaborative” reform to industrial relations with an eye to boosting productivity.
At one point Michael Stutchbury, editor of the Australian Financial Review, chided summit participants for a lack of ambition.
Shorten called on business leaders to get behind an emissions trading scheme to cut carbon pollution, saying “opposition to this economic reform often borders on the hysterical”.
He said “reform” was an abstract idea but voters would respond to a conversation about boosting economic growth, which is running below trend.
The Reserve Bank governor, Glenn Stevens, advised attendees to focus on concrete steps to boost Australia’s economic growth, and make that growth sustainable.

Tekla Appoints AF Infotech As it’s Centre of Excellence in Ranchi, Jharkhand

Tekla has appointed AF Infotech as one of its Centres of Excellence in India for their Tekla Structures software.
Vikash Kumar, Business Head, AF Infotech, said, “We are happy to be appointed as the Tekla Centre of Excellence in Jharkhand.
AF Infotech will provide quality technical education with adequate industrial exposure with its innovative teaching methods.
The institute will impart special certification course on Tekla BIM technology in their curriculum.
Tekla in India will also conduct training sessions at AF Infotech to enable the industry people and students to explore Tekla’s technology.

Super Lamp by Martine Bedin

Pomo summer: Memphis Group designer Martine Bedin’s Super Lamp can be trailed along like a dog on a leash, demonstrating the collective’s playful style.
“We were always discussing the possibilities of new furniture, furniture that could move,” said Bedin. “I was designing everything on wheels at this time.
The Super Lamp was one of a variety of lighting designs that Bedin created for Memphis.
The Super Lamp is still produced and sold through the Memphis Milano gallery, and has remained one of Memphis’ most recognisable pieces.
Sottsass and his wife Barbara Radice also visited Bedin in Paris, and spotted the design for the Super Lamp while flicking through her sketch book.

Inland Bays, Atlantic Ocean, Rehoboth Beach, Lewes, Milton, Dewey Beach, USA

For more information, and to view Building Design+Construction magazine’s full Giants 300 Report online, go to www.dbfinc.com.
Moving up in the Engineering/Architecture Firms category from No. 31 in 2014, DBF now ranks No. 27 in Building Design+Construction magazine’s Giants 300 Report for 2015.
Once again, Davis, Bowen and Friedel Inc. has been ranked in the top 300 architecture, engineering and construction firms in the country.
Michaels, Md., and Delmar, Del. and Md.; and the new regional service center now under construction for Choptank Electric in Salisbury, Md.
With an annual list based on revenue data, the magazine charts the largest commercial AEC firms in the United States based on their building-type revenue, building information modeling revenue, green building work and other criteria.

High Construction Completes Reconstruction of Turnpike Service Plaza – Press Release Rocket

High Construction is an affiliate of High Real Estate Group LLC, which also includes Greenfield Architects Ltd., High Associates Ltd., High Investors Ltd., and High Hotels Ltd.
High Construction Company has completed the reconstruction of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Service Plaza at Valley Forge.
High Construction Company announced that it completed the reconstruction of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Service Plaza at Valley Forge.
The new Valley Forge plaza, located at milepost 324.6 (eastbound between the Downingtown Exit #312 and the Valley Forge Exit #326), is open 24 hours.
High Construction Company provides design-build, general contracting, and construction management services throughout the mid-Atlantic region of the United States.