Building & Design News

Designed by architects Perkins + Will and located beside the U.S. International University in Nairobi, Kenya, the Kenya Women and Children's Wellness Center is a first for this largely rural region. The mostly underground medical center contains 170 beds, an outpatient clinic, an educational facility, and even a family hostel. Architects were careful to blend local traditions and social customs into the facility and its operation. They also kept the complex green, incorporating such LEED-approved products and systems as screen shading for windows, natural ventilation, open pavilions, and courtyards.

Through June 30, receive a complimentary USB receiver and stream real-time inspections live over the Web ($130 USD value). Extech's popular BR250 Wireless Video Borescope accesses hard-to-reach/concealed areas easily. View the detachable wireless display in your hand while positioning the borescope in tight spots. Improve your inspections with 2 GB video/JPEG capacity and now, Web-streaming.

e•poc® LED combines the highly popular e•poc® full distribution luminaire with advanced solid state electronics from Universal Lighting Technologies. Its high-efficacy, energy savings, long life, and sustainability make it a great choice for the general illumination market.

The E50H5 BACnet MS/TP Power and Energy Meter with Data Logging combines exceptional performance and easy installation to deliver a cost-effective solution for power monitoring applications.

Learn more about Veris Industries, Inc.

Somewhere in America the over 60,000 Siemens employees are helping to provide answers that last. Answers today, to address the Energy, Infrastructure, and Mobility questions of tomorrow.

Italy's Museo Dell'Automobile di Torino is to cars what New York's MOMA is to modern art. Conceived by architects Cino Zucchi and Francois Confino, the contemporary-style building tells the story of the car from mode of transport to object of love. With a curving mosaic facade of steel and reflective glass, the museum creates the feeling of a sleek race car driving through the alps on a sunny day.

The days of the mega-mart grocery store could be numbered. Traditional suburban 40,000 to 60,000 sq ft food stores are now giving way to smaller, mixed-use, "walkable" markets, especially in urban infill areas. What this means for architects is that more opportunities for building specialty niche food operations are rising. However, the design challenges are many, including parking provisions, trucking/delivery access, and restrictions in operating within a residential setting.

Construction workers love listening to the radio while working. Problem is, those fragile radios or "boomboxes" can't withstand the wear and tear of the typical construction job site. But now many of the world's leading tool manufacturers are designing rugged radios outfitted with roll cages, rigid dial systems, and weather-resistant speakers. The radios are also crash-tested by being catapulted into the air. See this slide show for the latest in construction-tough radios.

Able to penetrate tough surfaces, including compacted gravel, embedded rock, and asphalt, the wobble auger attachment produces a hole with minimal to zero loose dirt at the bottom or surrounding the hole on top. Since the 4 ft long auger is designed to pack the dirt as it digs, using its 2,000 ft-lbs of torque, it creates a clean hole in a very short time. The tool comes in 4, 6, and 9 in. diameters.

NSi Lighting's Compact Adjustable Wallpacks adjust to three positions for full light, semi-cutoff, and full cutoff in a single, space-saving wallpack, helping installation in different lighting zones. Heavy-duty die cast aluminum housing, bronze powder-coat finish, protective oxide-layered rust resistant aluminum reflector. UL/cUL listed wet location, lamp included (MH, HPS, 42W CFL).

With 125 years in the industry, GAF offers a portfolio of steep-slope and commercial roofing, and composite decking systems. Focused on advanced quality, industry expertise, and simple solutions, GAF is proud to be the #1 roofing manufacturer in North America and the first to offer lifetime warranties on all laminated shingles.

Use Acoustiblok's award winning family of sound deadening products! Acoustiblok® stops indoor noise problems. Acoustifence® is an effective sound barrier for residential, commercial, and industrial applications. All Weather Sound Panels absorb sound and are effective sound barriers, too! QuietFiber® provides maximum sound absorbency for industrial applications (NRC 1.00).

Parkline is your complete source for gas transmission and distribution enclosures. Leading gas industry engineers nationwide rely on Parkline for durable, cost-effective enclosures that are built to maintain the highest levels of flexibility, design integrity, and code compliance.

Timber construction is one of the oldest building methods known to man. It's also a hot trend, as seen in the UK Structural Insulated Panel Association's plans to construct a theater out of the material for this year's Timber Expo. Green structural timber construction not only saves time, but it's also cost-effective and boasts a low carbon footprint. Target applications: education facilities, clinics, hotels, and more.

Constructed at a cost of 300 million pounds, London's new five-star Corinthia Hotel combines Victorian-era elegance with modern "residential" interior design. Featuring 294 rooms and 43 suites, the facility attracted top interior designers to create public spaces, two restaurants, spas, a ballroom, and even the two-bedroom "Royal Suite," London's largest hotel room. See how materials such as plaster and timber have combined to make this one of the swankiest hotels in the world.

Finally, a longer-lasting light bulb is here, and with enough styling for use as a naked fixture. Featuring a color rendering index of 80, the Plumen 001 emits 680 lumens and uses just 11 watts of electricity. Life expectancy: eight years. The vendor sees it as an energy- saving, high-design lighting solution for lounges, cafes, and residences.

Advanced wetlands design, combined with the introduction of aeration subsurface, create a superior green system for breaking down contaminants lodged in soil. Nowhere is this natural system more evident than in Wellsville, NY, where engineered wetlands are cleaning up toxic waste left behind by an oil refinery that occupied the site from the early 1900s to the late 1950s. This article gives the details on this low-maintenance, cost-effective, non-mechanical cleaning method.

Dyson has an outstanding reputation for producing large fastening accessories for heavy construction applications. Items such as upset tie rod assemblies, custom forged eyebolts, and transitional forgings are made using stringent quality procedures. Dyson Corp has your critical infrastructure fastening system. Complete technical information.

Sierra Monitor Corporation is the major producer of gateways used in the fire alarm industry to interface Fire Alarm Control Panels to Building Automation Systems. FieldServer enables these owners to view the ancillary information and not interfere with the AHJ approved fire control system.

When Atlantic magazine decided to do a showcase article on "How Genius Works," it included world-renowned architect Frank Gehry among a stellar list of artists, musicians, writers, and business leaders. Gehry is known primarily for his untamed curvilinear style and light-reflecting metal exoskeletons, such as the one that wraps itself around the modern art museum in Bilbao, Spain. The Pritzker Prize-winning architect begins his design with the most basic feature: the entrance.

Smoke detectors are required hardware in every commercial building the world over. But how exactly do they work? In this short video, an ordinary smoke detector is reverse-engineered, or taken apart, to demonstrate how the device's radioactive element creates a small current that is broken when smoke passes through it. It's a simple yet elegant example of modern engineering.

Is Going Green Just Plain Ugly?

To many people, sources of green energy, such as solar panels and wind turbines, are just plain ugly. But are these sustainanble technologies any more unslightly than overhead powerlines, factory smoke stacks, or oil refineries?

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