Cities across the globe have experienced urban blight, where districts that have seen a significant downturn in fortunes are abandoned and residential and business properties left vacant. Responding to this change in fortunes is becoming an industry in itself.
The construction sector’s productivity challenges are well known. The advent of the Internet of Things – part of the Fourth Industrial Revolution – could see the industry’s processes and resulting buildings become more efficient.
While the private sector has been using Bluebeam for several years, the public sector is now getting in on the act. Here’s how the city of Henderson, Nevada, is using the technology.
Humans have been using the sun’s energy for millennia, but only now can industries like construction fully embrace the world’s most readily available, renewable and sustainable source of energy.
Some construction firms are well down the path toward a technologically enhanced future, with robots, drones, cloud-based resources and acres of software. But others have work to do. So what should they be thinking about?
Given the level of carbon emissions construction generates, the industry knows it has to smarten up its environmental act. Part of the sector’s response will be to embrace more green construction materials, while some, like timber, have been a part of the industry for centuries.
Plastic is a dirty word among those who are concerned about its impact on the environment. However, in construction, plastic is playing an increasingly important role in helping deliver pipes, cabling, roofing products and other elements that make up the built environment.
The construction industry lags many other sectors when it comes to adopting technology. Could robotics be the answer to the sector’s skill shortage and help deliver faster, better-quality buildings?
Rising tidal activity, in part driven by climate change, increasingly threatens coastal communities. Officials are assessing shore defenses around the country, including considering seawalls. But are such structures the answer, or are there more effective alternatives?
Engineers have a crucial role to play in making the built environment greener, particularly when it comes to delivering infrastructure that impacts the world around us. In an interview with Bluebeam, expert Tim Chapman of Arup and the Institution of Civil Engineers spells out what needs to be done.
The collapse of contracting giant Carillion offered a lesson for the construction sector. It reminded the industry of the need to carry out jobs for the right amount of money and to maintain good cash flow. It has also led to the sector looking at new technologies such as cryptocurrency to smooth out cash flow issues.
The construction industry needs to address not only the operational carbon of a building – what it emits throughout its use – but the embodied carbon in buildings, which is linked to the materials used to deliver it, along with the construction activity itself.
Construction projects can range in size, but they all require extensive planning, and this, in turn, demands collaboration from an early stage, known as the pre-construction phase.
With pressure building for the construction sector to address its carbon emissions as part of the battle to reverse the impact of climate change, designers and others are coming up with innovative ways “to do their bit” using materials like timber.
Concern around climate change and a desire to construct more sustainable buildings is driving the construction industry to deliver a built environment that has less impact on the world around it. The increased use of timber in tall buildings is part of this process.
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