In an unusual move in the highly commercialized sports market, the city council of Irving, Texas, voted on Dec. 31 to award naming rights to the demolition of Texas Stadium to Kraft Foods Global. The city council says the partnership, nicknamed “The Cheddar Explosion,” will yield $1 million in promotional value for the city. Kraft agreed to pay $75,000 for the naming rights and provide an additional $75,000 in products to local food banks. Weir Bros. Inc., a Dallas-based contractor, received a notice to proceed on the demolition project on Oct. 20, 2009. The implosion of the stadium is tentatively
The specific date in December for the implosion of the faulty, 376-ft-tall condominium tower on South Padre Island in Texas has not been set. But the demolition contractor says it has solved almost all the quandaries of one of its most challenging razings using explosives. If all goes according to plan, when the dust settles, Controlled Demolition Inc. (CDI) will have broken the height record, which it set in 1975, for imploding a reinforced-concrete tower. Slide Show Photo: Controlled Demolition Inc. Aluminum alloy shores around failed columns have to be factored into implosion plan. Photo: Controlled Demolition Inc. Walls were
When the University of Chicago’s Joe and Rika Mansueto Library opens its doors in spring 2011 as planned, it will combine distinctive above-ground architecture with sophisticated underground support. Designed by Chicago architect Helmut Jahn of Murphy/Jahn Inc. and built by Barton Malow Co., the one-of-a-kind library will feature reading areas enclosed by a four-story glass-and-steel dome above a five-story-deep, climate-controlled underground storage vault that will protect and automatically deliver up to 3.5 million periodicals, books and rare research materials. Photo: Barton Malow Co. Oval-shaped glass dome will rest on a 120-ft by 240-ft slurry wall, initially drawn as a perfect
The Portland Cement Association is defending its sample ordinance for high-performance buildings despite strong objections from critics and a call to withdraw the proposal. “PCA will continue to promote our concepts and views, work to educate the general public and encourage the adoption of more stringent building-code requirements by state and local jurisdictions for the good of the people and their communities and the environment,” says Stephen S. Szoke, PCA’s director of codes and standards. The group has “no intention” of withdrawing its recommendation for code changes, says Szoke, the lead author of the controversial document. He says PCA plans
As stormwater runoff from streets and parking lots becomes an ever-more sensitive environmental issue, eliminating it altogether with pervious pavement can be an elegant solution. Two projects now under way in Connecticut and Minnesota have facilities owners, municipal officials and the paving sector taking notice. One involves a parking lot at a university committed to cutting its impervious surfaces by half. The other is a public road in Minnesota, where a city engineer insists he is not experimenting; he is just applying a best-fit solution to a 50-year-old problem. Both applications share one thing in common: they are engineered to
Builders of the U.K.’s tallest skyscraper, London’s Shard, will save valuable time by excavating its three-floor basement while slipforming the core. A novel machine is now at work, plunging columns into pile tops some 15 meters below ground to prop up the rising core as soil beneath is removed. Slide Show Photo: Peter Reina / ENR The small site sits hard against the busy London Bridge railroad hub. Related Links: Top Down To Speed Shard Building With the core on the critical path, “the month or two” top-down exercise is “giving us breathing space,” says Bob Gordon, chief engineer of
U.K. investigators studying the April 6 earthquake that rocked Italy west of Rome, killing some 300 people, found that traditional stone masonry buildings with even basic strengthening survived the temblor. As a result of their findings, the engineers are calling for simple reinforcements of older masonry buildings throughout Europe. Slide Show Photo: Cury Price Court Engineers are calling for retrofits of older stone masonry buildings after an earthquake that rocked an area west of Rome on April 6 killed 300 people. "It was good to see, where there had been upgrades, the buildings performed better," says Tiziana Rossetto, who led
Progress on two major European skyscrapers may not represent the green shoots of economic recovery, but they help lighten the gloom. In London, pile work is just starting on the 310- meter-tall “Shard,” planned as Europe’s second-tallest building. Elsewhere, workers in Frankfurt are beginning to mobilize the planned Tower 185. Photo: London Bridge Quarter Ltd. Celtic Crossing. Suspension bridge will maintain a context-sensitive profile. Related Links: London Shard Tower Rises From Gloom Photo: Viveco Real Estate With Middle Eastern backing, London Bridge Quarter Ltd. recently signed a construction contract with London-based Mace Ltd. for the estimated $1.5-billion riverside development, including
What do you get when you cross a farm commune with a traditional neighborhood, a suburban subdivision and a golf community? If T. Wall Properties has its way, you get the 717-acre Bishops Bay, a planned development for the rural towns of Westport and Middleton, Wis. The scheme, if approved, would contain a 240-acre neighborhood that integrates farming with housing. Slide Show Image: SWA Neighborhood planned near Madison, Wisc., would help preserve agriculture in the area. “This development can truly be a model to transform and improve the way communities are planned and the way people live,” says Andy Inman,
Cement scientist Brent Constantz wants concrete to be the "hero" that cleans up dirty coal. "The reality is, coal is not going away," he says. "We need to meet the world’s power demands without emitting more carbon." His answer? A new type of concrete that sequesters carbon without disturbing its traditional binder: portland cement. Slide Show Illustration: Calera Corp. How the Calera Process Works Photo: Tudor Van Hampton / ENR In Las Vegas, Constantz said he can use aggregate to store carbon in concrete. This past summer, the Stanford University professor’s Los Gatos, Calif.-based startup, Calera Corp., began making cement