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Building, Design & Architecture

Cathedrals and Hidden Gems: Inside the Architecture of College Football’s Most Iconic—and Underrated—Stadiums

From 100,000-seat giants to mountainside gems, explore the design, engineering and traditions that make college football stadiums unforgettable

Frank Kalman
August 27, 2025

Why Unbound 2025 Is Built for Builders, Not Buzzwords

Technology & Innovation
Frank Kalman

For the people who actually build things, not just talk about It

You’ve seen the headlines: Steve Wozniak is keynoting Unbound 2025.

So is Duncan Wardle, the former head of innovation at Disney.

But this conference isn’t built around big names. It’s built around you.

Unbound is where construction’s operators come together—field leads, inspectors, PMs, digital coordinators, engineers. The ones dealing with review delays, disconnected processes and tools that create as many problems as they solve. The ones who don’t need buzzwords but better workflows.

And this year, it’s happening in Washington, D.C. Not just because it’s central. Because it matters. Infrastructure legislation, permitting reform, TMF-backed pilots, digital mandates. These aren’t distant ideas. They’re already reshaping how the work gets done.

If you’re not in this room, you’re already behind.

Why D.C. Is the Move

D.C. isn’t a backdrop—it’s a signal. It’s where federal agencies are overhauling infrastructure programs, modernizing permitting processes and investing in digital collaboration at scale.

Take the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF)—actively backing projects like digital environmental review and interagency data-sharing. Take recent guidance on permitting deadlines and shared dashboards. If your work touches public-sector projects, you’re already affected.

Being in D.C. means being part of the conversation, not just reacting to it.

What You’re Actually Getting from Wozniak and Wardle

Steve Wozniak didn’t just help launch Apple. He built the first systems by hand, making technology useful, not abstract. At Unbound, he’s going deep on how simplicity fuels innovation—and what the construction industry gets wrong when it builds around executives, not end users.

Duncan Wardle helped Disney scale creative thinking across teams, functions and regions. He’s showing how to unlock better ideas inside fast-moving teams, especially when you’re working with constraints, not unlimited budget.

They’re not just inspiration but a challenge to rethink how we work—and why.

Tactical Sessions You Shouldn’t Miss

Inspection Redesign in Arvada: Josie Suk breaks down how one city standardized digital inspections using Bluebeam—from reporting templates to cross-department collaboration. Fewer emails, less lag, more clarity.

AI in the Field with Trunk Tools: Sarah Buchner shares how her team is automating RFIs, submittals and contract analysis in live projects. In one pilot, AI flagged 85% of submittal issues before they hit review.

Permit Review Without the Bottleneck: Troy Barbu of AECOM outlines how shared standards, centralized comments and Revu-based collaboration are streamlining government review processes.

Revu Mastery | What You’re Missing: Troy DeGroot shows how to uncover underused tools, automate markups and move faster across teams. Think fewer clicks, less guesswork and real-time coordination.

Workflow Automation Without Writing Code: Bluebeam pros and power users will walk through real use cases like building smart stamps, automating field forms and triggering status updates—no dev team required.

More People Changing the Game (And Why You Should Talk to Them)

Elizabeth Larsen, Mitch Youngs, Isaac Harned: Making Revu automation usable without needing a computer science degree.
Nathan Howard, Fort Hays State: Teaching jobsite-ready digital workflows in the classroom.
Bluebeam product, support and solutions teams: They’ll be there. Ask them anything.

Don’t Just Attend. Engage.

The sessions are strong. The conversations are better.

Ask the question. Pitch the idea. Share the problem. The person next to you might have already solved it—or needs the same answer.

This is a bring-your-notebook, talk-to-a-stranger, fix-it-by-Friday crowd.

Last Thing

Skip the packing list. Just bring your problems—and be ready to solve them.

This Isn’t a Conference. It’s a Reset.

If you’ve ever looked at your current process and thought, “This shouldn’t be this hard,” this is your next move.

Unbound 2025 is where real fixes get shared, field-first voices lead and construction tech finally sounds like the people who actually use it.

Bring questions. We’ll bring solutions.

400 Whales at a Time: Inside Europe’s Tunnel Megaproject Beneath the Baltic

Project Management & Efficiency
Larry Bernstein

It’s one of the longest immersed tunnels ever built. Its 73,000-ton concrete segments float—barely—and it’s being assembled with millimeter precision beneath the Baltic Sea

Relatively unknown outside Europe, the Fehmarnbelt tunnel is quietly becoming one of the most ambitious civil engineering projects on the planet.

Slated to open in 2029, this 18-kilometer (11.2-mile) submerged connection between Germany and Denmark will cut travel time across the Baltic Sea from nearly 60 minutes—including a ferry ride—to just seven minutes by train or 10 minutes by car.

But the real story isn’t about speed. It’s about how engineers in one of Europe’s flattest regions decided not to drill or bridge, but to sink nearly 80 massive tunnel elements—each weighing roughly as much as 365 blue whales—directly into the seafloor.

This wasn’t the obvious choice, but it was the one that best balanced risk, cost and environmental impact, according to more than a decade of cross-border feasibility studies and analysis.

Drilling Was a Gamble. So They Didn’t.

In 2011, after extensive study, planners narrowed their options to three: a bored tunnel, a suspension bridge or an immersed design.

“A bored tunnel would have proved to be a very expensive and risky solution since the seabed is not suitable for drilling,” said Denise Juchem, a spokesperson for Femern A/S, the Danish state-owned firm overseeing the project.

A bridge might have saved money upfront, but wind conditions across the Fehmarnbelt are severe, and anything high enough to avoid disrupting shipping would’ve had a massive ecological and visual footprint.

“In terms of finance, environmental considerations and risk, the immersed tunnel was therefore the optimal solution,” Juchem said.

Assembly Line to Ocean Floor

The construction strategy sounds like science fiction, but it’s playing out in real time.

Crews are casting 79 concrete tunnel elements, each measuring 712 feet long and weighing 73,000 tons, at a purpose-built 1,235-acre facility on the Danish island of Lolland. Each element is formed from nine concrete segments poured in sequence.

“Production runs on an assembly line principle,” said Gerhard Cordes, a project director with Femern A/S. “A steel framework is first constructed for each segment, which is approximately 24 meters long. It’s then cast in concrete, allowed to cure and pushed forward one section at a time so that the next segment can be cast.”

Once complete, each tunnel element is sealed with steel bulkheads, floated into a lock system and guided to its final position in the trench, about 40 feet below the seabed.

Despite their weight, the elements float with just enough buoyancy to be maneuvered using specially designed pontoons and steel cables. A GPS-enabled alignment system ensures they’re guided with millimeter accuracy.

“The elements are immersed on steel cables and joined to the elements already installed by positioning the immersion pontoons,” Cordes said. “A locking system (pin and catch) secures the exact position relative to the preceding element and the alignment is ensured by adjustable supports.”

Once aligned, the joint is sealed using only water pressure.

“The water pressure from the opposite end of the element compresses the joint,” Cordes said. “The gravel layer in the tunnel trench is laid out before immersion and serves as an accurate foundation.”

It’s not welding. It’s more like interlocking stone, except each piece weighs more than a fully loaded aircraft carrier.

No Room for Error

A single misalignment could stall progress, delay schedules and complicate the precision required to connect the next segment.

There’s no easy do-over. Once placed, these elements aren’t coming back up.

That’s why the team runs detailed simulations in advance and monitors every placement in real time using underwater cameras and sensors. Each segment is a calculated risk—and a high-stakes test of coordination and trust in the system.

Environmental Tradeoffs—Without the Greenwashing

The Baltic Sea is home to porpoises, nesting seabirds and fragile marine ecosystems. Environmental scrutiny of the project has been intense—and justified.

But Femern A/S leaned heavily on experience from previous fixed links, like Denmark’s Øresund and Great Belt projects, to reduce the project’s footprint.

“The planning of the Fehmarnbelt tunnel draws on the experiences from the fixed links across the Great Belt and the Øresund, which have shown that negative environmental impacts can be avoided through careful planning and implementation of construction work,” Juchem said.

That includes relocating or replanting affected areas, minimizing on-site disruption and restoring natural habitats. In Lolland, Femern A/S has pledged to replace at least twice the area of disturbed land.

Is it perfect? No. But it’s a far cry from the zero-mitigation approach common to megaprojects just a few decades ago.

The Project So Big They Built a Tourist Platform

Public interest has been unexpectedly strong. When Femern A/S opened a viewing platform near the construction site, more than 10,000 people showed up in the first month.

Engineers have become de facto tour guides. And a project once known only to planners is now attracting visitors, photographers and school groups—long before its ribbon-cutting.

What Megaprojects Can Learn from Fehmarnbelt

This endeavor to link Denmark and Germany is about proving that modular construction, real-time simulation, environmental offsetting and international coordination don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

Want a playbook?

Modular builds. Digital modeling. Live underwater alignment. Mitigation-first planning. Public transparency. It’s a strategy other megaprojects would be smart to copy.

The Fehmarnbelt tunnel, above all, is showing what’s possible when you combine high-stakes logistics with long-term thinking—and pour 73,000 tons of concrete at a time.

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Geospatial Tech Is Rewriting Construction. Who Owns the Map?

Technology & Innovation
Frank Kalman

As geospatial data becomes central to modern construction workflows, a deeper question emerges: who owns the digital maps shaping the built world?

In construction, location used to be a constraint. Now, it’s increasingly the control panel.

Site selection, permitting, logistics, progress tracking and long-term operations are all leaning more heavily on geospatial data. While exact adoption rates are evolving, recent reports from KPMG and the Urban Land Institute confirm steady growth in GIS integration across public infrastructure and large-scale commercial projects.

But as this data becomes more central to project planning and delivery, one question is rising fast: Who owns it?

The ownership problem no one wants to touch

If a contractor uses drone scans to track progress and overlays those with GIS-based permitting zones and inspection logs, who controls that dataset after handover? If a city mandates spatial documentation for an infrastructure bid, what happens when a subcontractor dissolves or data access expires?

Some teams treat geospatial records like part of the project archive—valuable but informal. Others include them in formal deliverables. Few contracts define it clearly, and even fewer address long-term access rights, retention obligations or data reuse terms.

As more construction data gets tethered to physical coordinates—and tied to future performance—the question of who holds the geospatial record becomes not just operational, but legal, financial and strategic.

Where it’s working

Real-world examples show how geospatial workflows are producing tangible results across construction sectors.

In Singapore, the government used GIS-integrated permitting and logistics modeling to support a massive public housing buildout, delivering more than 20,000 new units between 2016 and 2020.

In the United Kingdom, a modular NHS hospital ward expansion leveraged site planning and GIS-based utility routing to complete construction in just seven weeks.

In San Luis Obispo County, California, a flood-damaged bridge replacement project employed GIS-driven span staging and traffic routing to reopen a 170-foot span in under 30 days.

And across multiple U.S. project sites, Cianbro has embedded drone-based photogrammetry into weekly progress models, integrating spatial verification directly into billing and layout workflows.

These are not pilots. They’re now part of the operating rhythm for firms that see spatial data as infrastructure, not just an overlay.

Why adoption still lags

Despite momentum, many teams remain stuck in partial or fragmented adoption.

Field leaders often lack the training or tools to interpret GIS data in real time. Systems remain siloed: drone scans, BIM files and as-builts live in separate platforms with limited interoperability. Fragmentation, combined with software costs and ambiguous handoff responsibilities, prevents spatial data from flowing cleanly across the project lifecycle.

A 2023 McKinsey study noted that lack of tool integration and change management discipline remain among the leading obstacles to construction digitization.

Standards: Still Optional

Spatial data standards—file formats, schemas, metadata tagging—are still inconsistently applied.

Teams regularly toggle between GIS formats (like GeoJSON or SHP) and design files (like IFC or RVT). But without schema alignment or shared reference systems, automation becomes unreliable. Machine learning tools can’t forecast risks or schedule slippage if spatial inputs are messy, misaligned or untagged.

Interoperability isn’t a luxury but a requirement for systems to scale.

What’s next—and what’s at stake

AI’s impact on construction will depend on the quality and clarity of its inputs. Forecasting models increasingly ingest time- and location-tagged records to anticipate risks, optimize schedules and inform jobsite logistics. A 2023 Dodge report found that firms using AI tools for scheduling and asset tracking were also the most likely to report benefits from location-based data.

Governments are responding. In the Netherlands, spatially structured environmental documentation is now standard in public-sector infrastructure bids. The European Union’s Data Act proposes standardized rules for access, reuse and retention of digital project data, including spatial records.

That regulatory shift won’t be optional for long.

Final word

Geospatial data is no longer a toggle-on layer, but it is the connective tissue linking what you build to how it’s permitted, inspected, maintained and, eventually, handed over.

The firms treating spatial data as core infrastructure—not just a project artifact—are delivering faster, reducing risk and building longer-term value. The rest are leaving leverage on the table every time a dataset is lost, a scan goes untagged or a map lives on one engineer’s desktop.

As regulation tightens and AI accelerates, one question will define who leads and who lags:

Who owns the map?

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Inside France’s Wooden Skyscraper Boom

Sustainability
Frank Kalman

From Bordeaux to Paris, France is stacking wood higher than ever—what does it mean for the future of cities?

Skyscrapers weren’t supposed to be made of wood.

Concrete and steel? Sure. That’s how we’ve built for more than a century. But in France, a different kind of skyline is emerging—one shaped by engineered timber, not poured concrete. And this isn’t just some greenwashed concept sketch. These towers are real, occupied and getting taller by the year.

From Bordeaux to Paris, France is betting big on mass timber—not as an experiment but as a mainstream material that’s fast to assemble, low-carbon by nature and increasingly cost-competitive. Spurred by tough national climate laws and a culture that values architectural ambition, the country is rewriting what’s possible with wood.

Bordeaux Quietly Leads the Timber Charge

You’d think Paris would take the lead on mass timber skyscrapers. But it’s Bordeaux that quietly stole the spotlight.

Start with Hyperion, a 17-story, 57-meter mixed-use tower completed in 2021. It remains France’s tallest wooden-framed residential building. Built by Eiffage Immobilier, Hyperion used approximately 1,400 cubic meters of engineered wood and stores around 1,000 metric tons of CO₂—the equivalent of nearly a decade of emissions from a typical apartment building.

More than 1,500 components were prefabricated off-site—including cross-laminated timber (CLT) floors, glulam beams and modular timber-framed walls—and then assembled on-site in just five months. The structure sits on a concrete base and core for seismic stability, but everything above is a showcase of wood engineering.

Next comes Silva Tower, scheduled to finish in late 2025. At 56 meters and 16 stories, Silva is Bordeaux’s second mass timber high-rise. More than 60% of the structure is made from wood, combining French pine CLT floors with spruce glulam beams sourced across Europe. According to developer Kaufman & Broad, Silva represents a “low-carbon trajectory”—and at this scale, that’s not just marketing spin.

Paris Is Building Bold—and Tall

Paris has joined the timber party with projects that balance density, detail and design ambition.

Take Wood Up, a 50-meter, 14-story tower in the city’s 13ᵗʰ arrondissement. Completed in 2024, it uses French beech from Normandy—shipped in by barge—along with Douglas fir columns and a glulam frame. The structural system relies on a three-story concrete podium and dual timber column rings: beech inside for strength, Douglas fir outside for stiffness.

Then there’s Le Berlier, another 50-meter residential project by Moreau Kusunoki. The design pairs clean, modern lines with a charred timber façade, blending texture and warmth. It’s composed of two volumes—one 15 stories, the other eight—forming a dense but elegant massing that aligns with the city’s push for sustainable, high-density timber housing.

Meanwhile, in the suburb of Villiers-sur-Marne, Stefano Boeri Architetti is planning Forêt Blanche, a 54-meter Vertical Forest wrapped in 2,000 trees, shrubs and plants. Equal parts high-rise and habitat, the tower’s green façade covers the surface area of a hectare of forest, marking a bold merger of biophilic design and climate-conscious urban planning.

The Policy Backdrop: France Isn’t Just Hoping—It’s Mandating

France’s shift to timber isn’t just a design choice—it’s legally backed.

The RE2020 regulation, rolled out in 2022, imposes some of the world’s strictest limits on lifecycle emissions for new buildings. Material choices are central. If you’re using concrete or steel, you’d better have a good reason, because mass timber has become the low-carbon benchmark.

The same year, a new sustainability law took it further: all state-funded public buildings must use at least 50% wood or other bio-based materials by weight. There’s no fine print. No room for loopholes. The target is mandatory, and the market is responding.

Starting May 2025, updated fire safety codes formally allowed mass timber in high-rise and public-use buildings, a major regulatory unlock. And while fire fears still linger, they’re largely outdated: mass timber chars on the outside, forming a protective barrier, and when paired with hybrid design and sprinkler systems, performs on par with concrete in fire scenarios.

Timber’s Cost Premium? Narrowing by the Year

Mass timber still costs more than concrete, but the gap is shrinking.

In dense urban regions like Paris, timber housing tends to carry a modest cost premium, typically in the single-digit to low-double-digit range per square meter. But in regions like Poitou-Charentes, or when measured over the building’s full lifecycle, that premium shrinks significantly—and in some cases, reaches cost parity.

In 2023, the French Ministry of Agriculture’s Agreste report highlighted that mass-timber construction increasingly competes with traditional methods, particularly outside dense urban centers.

It found that while timber builds in Paris-area markets can carry modest premiums, in rural regions—such as Poitou-Charentes—cost differences narrow significantly. When considering prefabrication efficiencies and whole-life value, these timber structures are often price-competitive with concrete-built equivalents

Scaling Up: France’s Timber Industry Grows—But Faces Headwinds

The numbers are rising: France’s prefab wood construction market is worth €1.5 billion, growing at around 3% annually. CLT and glulam are leading the charge, with domestic and international suppliers investing in new plants.

In 2024, Schilliger Holz AG opened a fully automated CLT plant in Vogelsheim with 50,000 cubic meters of annual production capacity—a step toward strengthening domestic supply.

Still, the industry faces supply-side bottlenecks. Softwood harvesting has plateaued. Domestic hardwoods remain underutilized. And climate change is complicating forest management, forcing salvage logging and putting pressure on biodiversity.

Building the Future: Education, Workforce and Skill Development

France is also investing in talent. The University of Lorraine offers a master’s degree in Wood Construction Architecture through ENSTIB, in partnership with the National School of Architecture of Nancy.

The country is also helping launch the first pan-European campus focused on forestry, timber construction and architectural trades.

It’s a long game—but the foundations are already in place.

The Road Ahead: From Niche to Norm

France’s push to build skyscrapers from wood isn’t a fleeting trend or eco-friendly window dressing but a full-scale rethink of how cities grow—and the bet is starting to pay off. Sure, challenges remain: supply chains, policy hurdles, cost pressures. But the momentum is real.

As carbon limits tighten and prefab workflows accelerate, timber isn’t the alternative anymore. It’s the benchmark.

The only question now is how fast the rest of the world catches up.

See how Bluebeam helps teams build smarter with timber.

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How US Builders Are Preparing for the 2026 World Cup and 2028 Olympics

Project Management & Efficiency
Frank Kalman

As the 2026 World Cup and 2028 Olympics approach, US builders are racing to retrofit stadiums, expand transit and deliver under intense global pressure

The United States’ construction industry is on the hook for delivering not one but two global spectacles: the 2026 FIFA World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

We’re talking high-stakes retrofits, billion-dollar transit overhauls and a clock that won’t stop ticking. The world’s watching—and the pressure’s mounting.

A National Sprint with Global Pressure

The 2026 World Cup will hit 16 cities across North America, 11 of them in the US. Think Dallas, Philadelphia, Atlanta and Seattle, among others. Two years later, the Olympics return to LA for round three.

Combined, the events are projected to add more than $28 billion to the domestic economy and support more than 250,000 jobs, according to the most optimistic and recent estimates by the Boston Consulting Group and LA28 organizers.

Still, these events aren’t just about dollars but about delivering infrastructure that holds up under the weight of the world stage.

This won’t be easy, especially for LA’s Olympic preparations. A devastating series of wildfires struck large pockets of LA County in January 2025, destroying more than 18,000 structures and forcing more than 200,000 residents to evacuate. This resulted in extended emergency response and diverted city crews away from Olympic preparations.

Stadiums Get a Second Life

The build must go on, however. And this time around, we’re not building shiny new stadiums. We’re fixing up what we’ve got—and making it work harder.

MetLife Stadium in New Jersey is getting a major retrofit to fit FIFA’s field rules. Skanska is ripping out more than 1,700 seats to rework the layout with modular steel seating.
AT&T Stadium in Texas is dropping $350 million on upgrades: AV, accessibility and fan experience.
NRG Stadium in Houston is adding lighting, locker rooms and a widened field for seven World Cup matches.

Over in LA, SoFi Stadium in Inglewood will co-host the opening ceremonies of the 2028 Olympics alongside the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, marking the first dual-venue debut in Olympic history. Rather than building a new $1 billion Olympic Village, LA28 plans to repurpose existing UCLA dormitories, using nearby student housing and dining facilities to reduce cost and environmental impact.

Then there’s the Intuit Dome, a $2 billion, all-electric arena built for the Clippers and prepped for Olympic basketball. It’s targeting LEED Platinum certification, runs on solar and stores enough energy to power a game off-grid.

Infrastructure Is Where the Real Work Happens

Everyone loves a good stadium shot, but the real grind is in the infrastructure.

L.A. Metro’s “28 by 28” plan is the backbone—28 major projects done by the Olympics. That includes a $3.3 billion Purple Line extension to UCLA and a $13.8 billion Sepulveda Transit Corridor, one of the region’s most ambitious rail projects.

LAX, meanwhile, is adding a people mover and a new transit hub to cut down on car traffic. A “car-free” Olympics was the dream. Now, Mayor Karen Bass says: just take the train.

Beyond L.A., cities like Kansas City and Seattle are revamping roads, rails and terminals. Kansas City opened a new $1.5 billion airport terminal in early 2023 as part of a long-term modernization strategy—timed to support the World Cup but planned well before it was awarded hosting rights.

Tech Is the Backbone

With timelines this tight, tech isn’t optional—it’s survival:

BIM and digital twins are being used to model venues, simulate crowd flows and test emergency plans before a shovel hits dirt. According to Autodesk and Turner Construction, these tools are streamlining design validation and reducing rework on site.
Bluebeam, Procore and Autodesk BIM 360 are powering documentation, markup workflows and project tracking across stadium and transit jobs.
Turner and AECOM Hunt are using AR headsets and prefab systems to cut labor hours and improve build precision.
Public dashboards let stakeholders monitor progress, track RFIs and flag delays in real time.

Greener Builds, Fewer Footprints

FIFA mandates natural grass, so US stadiums are testing modular turf systems that won’t destroy NFL fields. LA28, meanwhile, is committed to carbon neutrality, prioritizing adaptive reuse and temporary construction wherever possible.

The Intuit Dome leads the charge. Solar panels. Battery storage. Fully electric. It’s a prototype for what modern arenas could be.

Still, some critics say this reuse-first approach lacks legacy. Olympic events like canoe slalom are being hosted at Riversport Rapids in Oklahoma City—more than 1,300 miles away—raising questions about what physical footprint LA will leave behind.

Labor Crunch and Supply Chain Scramble

Labor is tight. Supply chains are still glitchy. So, cities are getting creative.

Union apprenticeships and local hiring mandates are ramping up.
Projects are leaning on prefab and off-site builds to reduce on-site labor needs.
Materials like steel, glass and electronics are being pre-ordered in bulk, with secondary suppliers on standby.

Budgets are walking a tightrope. As of mid-2025, LA28 had raised $5.1 billion of its $7.1 billion target. If the city falls short, LA covers the first $270 million in overruns and the state picks up the next $270 million—despite a projected $12 billion California budget deficit, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

What’s Next

We’re inside three years to the Olympics and under a year for the World Cup. Stadiums are being ripped apart and rebuilt. Trains are being tunneled. Budgets are bending. And the whole world is watching.

This is a stress test for American construction, one that could rival past US megaprojects like the Interstate Highway System or Hoover Dam.

If the industry pulls this off, it won’t just be about medals. It’ll be about modernized cities, tougher teams and a blueprint for how to build smarter—under pressure.

The clock’s running. Let’s get it done.

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Code to Concrete: How ICON’s Integrated Workflow Is Rewriting Residential Construction

Technology & Innovation
Erin Flynn Jay

ICON is proving that integrated workflows, smart software and on-site robotics aren’t just the future of construction but are already reshaping how high-performance homes get built

On a quiet jobsite in Texas, a robot is printing a house. No hammers, no framing crew, no scaffolding forest—just a gantry-style machine laying smooth, deliberate layers of concrete. In less than two weeks, the shell of a 2,000-square-foot home will stand ready for finishing.

This isn’t sci-fi. It’s ICON’s daily workflow.

The Texas-based construction technology company is turning heads—and turning building envelopes into programmable systems—using a blend of robotics, proprietary software and tightly integrated design-to-field processes. Its approach: reimagine construction as on-site manufacturing, not just digitized paperwork.

“Our construction technology system to 3D print a home is the most visible aspect of our innovation that people experience firsthand,” said Bungane Mehlomakulu, director of building science and building performance at ICON. “Today this is the gantry style Vulcan printer, and we are excited to get our multistory robotic construction system, Phoenix, into the field next year.”

On-Site Automation, Not Off-the-Shelf Solutions

ICON’s systems aren’t just faster but are designed to solve real-world labor and logistics bottlenecks that plague traditional construction. By combining printed materials with minimal on-site labor, the firm is proving a concept many in the industry have dismissed as too far out.

“We’ve seen significant operational improvements over the last two years and today can deliver a single –story, 2,000-square-foot home in 7 to 10 days with two operators,” Mehlomakulu said. “The next-generation Phoenix printer introduces a higher level of autonomy with only a single operator, further reducing demands on construction labor.”

And unlike prefab or panelized construction, ICON’s approach doesn’t require hauling massive modules to a jobsite. The printer is the factory.

Design to Delivery—Fully Integrated

Here’s where ICON separates itself from most construction robotics plays: the software.

Instead of building automation tools that live in silos, ICON created a connected pipeline from architectural design to field delivery. ICON Studio, the firm’s proprietary software platform, imports designs from tools like Revit, automatically maps out structural reinforcements and generates a bill of materials—all before a single layer of material is printed.

“This digital environment workflow can be executed at any point in the design process, enabling faster responses on cost management and schedules,” Mehlomakulu said. “Currently, this workflow and BOM is focused on materials needed to complete the print, including CarbonX, reinforcement and equipment. As the software matures it will incorporate quantity information for non-printed material for estimating needs.”

That level of automation doesn’t just reduce rework but gives builders a real-time pulse on budget, scheduling and supply chain needs earlier in the lifecycle. It’s the kind of visibility traditional builds struggle to achieve until far later (often too late).

“As a construction technology company, we’re investing in hardware and software development, regulatory testing and creating comprehensive details and procedures to deliver a vertically integrated product environment that enables our customers to deliver predictable, proven and durable buildings affordably and quickly,” Mehlomakulu said.

Resilience by Design—Not by Add-On

In most projects, performance upgrades—energy efficiency, storm resistance, fire protection—come in layers. Extra insulation here, weather barriers there. But ICON’s wall system bakes it all in from the start.

“By combining structural, thermal and moisture control functions into a unified element, the system reduces the number of different components, streamlines the construction sequence and minimizes coordination between multiple trades that typically drives up costs,” Mehlomakulu said.

ICON’s system isn’t just efficient—it’s battle-tested. According to Mehlomakulu, it’s been validated for wind resistance up to 250 mph and comes with a three-hour fire rating baked in. It also deters pests, mold and mildew by design—since its printed materials don’t support organic growth.

“MIT’s Concrete Institute found our system’s overall embodied carbon was lower than framed construction over a 75-year period,” Mehlomakulu said. “Energy efficiency comes from the wall’s thermal mass and continuous insulation, with thermal breaks preventing heat transfer between shells to meet or exceed U.S. energy codes.”

It’s a reminder that sustainability doesn’t have to mean sacrifice—when you design for it from day one.

Rethinking the Economics of High-Performance Building

We all know the tension: high-performance homes cost more upfront. But ICON’s approach flips that script by designing performance into the structural system—not layering it on after the fact.

“Homeowners tend to be price sensitive, even to sustainability features,” Mehlomakulu said. “This price sensitivity creates a complex optimization challenge for builders: how to deliver meaningful environmental performance within tight cost constraints.”

The answer: Less complexity, not more.

“This approach fundamentally shifts the economic equation of sustainability, enabling builders to deliver higher-performing homes at an equivalent or competitive price point.”

What It Means for the Industry

ICON isn’t just pushing the boundaries of automation or material science; it is offering a blueprint for integrated, digital-first delivery. From software to robots to finished walls, every part of the system is designed to work together, not be duct-taped into place onsite.

“Our improvements and advancements over the last few years is a successful proof point in an industry traditionally slow to adopt new technologies,” Mehlomakulu said. “We’re demonstrating that innovation in construction is both possible and commercially viable.”

That last point matters. For years, talk of 3D printing in construction has lived in the headlines—but rarely in the field. ICON’s work suggests we may be finally crossing that threshold.

“We’re setting new benchmarks for sustainability by achieving higher performance-to-cost ratios through integration rather than addition,” Mehlomakulu said. “Our automated in-print reinforcement represents one example of how we’re rethinking traditional approaches to provide better structural performance with less material and labor input.”

Final Take

There’s no shortage of buzzwords in construction tech. But ICON’s approach cuts through the noise by delivering real-world results in speed, cost, resilience and performance. The company isn’t just layering digital on top of analog but is rebuilding the workflow from the ground up.

That’s not a gimmick. That’s a gear shift. And the rest of the industry would do well to pay attention.

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No Plans? No Problem: How a Drywall Robot Is Reshaping Interior Construction

Technology & Innovation
Emily Beyda

Canvas’s AI-powered drywall robot is speeding up interior construction, easing labor strain and finishing walls with precision—no blueprints, scans or lengthy setup required

Drywall is one of those trades most people take for granted. It’s everywhere—offices, homes, hospitals, classrooms—and yet the process behind it is tough, repetitive and hard to staff. It hasn’t changed much in more than 100 years.

Until now.

Canvas, a Bay Area startup, has built a robot that can finish drywall with speed and consistency most crews can only dream about. It tapes, muds and sands with minimal setup. No plans. No scanning. Just show up and go. And with more than 7,000 robots expected to join the construction workforce by year’s end, it’s not an outlier but a sign of what’s coming.

“I believe that machines give us superpowers,” said Kevin Albert, co-founder and CEO of Canvas. “If you think about a car or an airplane or a backhoe, it allows people to do things that we otherwise couldn’t do just by ourselves or with our hands.”

Albert isn’t new to automation. Before starting Canvas, he helped build military robots at Boston Dynamics. But the lightbulb moment came when he remembered what it was like doing construction jobs during college—digging holes, demoing walls and waking up with his hands locked in the shape of a sledgehammer.

The Jobsite Gap No One Was Solving

The team at Canvas noticed something strange. Exterior work in construction had been transformed by heavy machinery. But interior work?

“If you go to the interior spaces, it’s all entirely hand tools,” Albert said.

That mismatch got him thinking. If a robot could be made mobile and precise enough, it could fill the gap without needing to change the entire workflow. The question was where to start.

Canvas chose drywall finishing for a few reasons. One, it’s a scheduling pain. Crews often lose money on the finish and make it back on framing. Two, it’s one of the hardest trades to hire for. Three, it doesn’t touch code.

“The finish is an aesthetic part of the job,” Albert explained. “It doesn’t touch code and it’s infinitely fixable. So, it’s kind of a perfect area to get started when you want to introduce new things into the industry.”

How the Robot Works on the Jobsite

The process is simple. Once seams are fire-taped, a worker brings the robot to the wall, plugs in dimensions and lets the machine handle the rest. Using onboard AI and vision, the robot maps the surface, finds the seams and applies a single pass engineered profile of compound.

“We don’t need any plans,” Albert said. “We don’t need any kind of pre-made maps or any scanning to the site.”

Once the compound dries, the machine’s sprayer head is swapped out for a vacuum-capped sander. It re-maps the wall, detects the seams again and sands them flush.

Compared to the standard three-day manual process for a level four finish, Canvas finishes walls in a fraction of the time. That pays off in tighter schedules, fewer overruns and better flow between trades.

“It helps with schedule control,” Albert said. “It helps with flexibility. It helps make sure there’s flow from the schedule so that you don’t have the risk of overruns.”

From Four Years to Four Months

One of Canvas’ biggest benefits isn’t speed. It’s training time.

A traditional apprentice takes about four years to learn consistent finish work. With Canvas, a crew can be fully trained and producing high-quality results in four months. Workers get up to speed in about a week, and Canvas provides ongoing support and training to keep quality consistent.

“You can get a team producing good quality in four months, as opposed to four years of muscle memory that you have to create with troweling,” Albert said.

It’s a big deal for contractors struggling to find experienced finishers. And it lowers risk, too. The robot handles high or awkward areas that often lead to injuries.

“If you’re sending the machine up to high spaces, that means you don’t always have to send people up,” he added.

Built With Labor, Not Against It

Canvas didn’t build the robot in a lab and toss it into the field. From the start, the team worked closely with the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT). Development and testing took place inside the union’s own training facility.

“Unions are looking for their workforce to be the most capable workforce in the world that can guarantee that buildings get done on time and have the best quality,” Albert said. “Therefore, they need the best tools in the industry. That just fit very well with what we’re trying to enable them to do.”

This partnership helped Canvas build trust early and ensure the tool met field needs. It also helped counter the usual fear that robots are coming to replace humans. Canvas is making the opposite case.

“The machine enables our customers to be able to produce good quality with the shrinking labor force,” Albert said, “and to actually do more work with the great workforce that they have.”

A Model for Where Construction Tech Is Headed

Canvas started with drywall, but the implications go further. Its approach—solve a real field problem, work with labor, build for jobsite reality—sets a tone that the industry needs more of.

This isn’t a moonshot. It’s a power tool with smarts. Something that helps the people who build do it safer, faster and better.

And it doesn’t need a blueprint to know where to go next.

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7 Buildings That Tell the Story of Dublin’s Architecture

Building, Design & Architecture
Diana Kightlinger

From cultural hubs to retrofit triumphs, these seven buildings show how Dublin’s architecture balances history, innovation and bold design thinking

When it comes to architecture in Dublin, it’s worth remembering that Ireland is a country of storytellers. The best of the built environment reflects that tradition, with a design language grounded in historical significance, cultural relevance and societal values.

From adaptive reuse in Temple Bar to high-density housing in the Docklands, the seven buildings featured here each add to the narrative of the city’s evolution—and offer inspiration for AEC professionals blending old with new, solving modern design challenges and rethinking sustainability inside and out.

Irish Film Institute (IFI)

*The Irish Film Institute theater foyer*
*Photo credit: Peter Cook*

Architects: O’Donnell + Tuomey, 1996
Meeting House Square, Temple Bar

The Irish Film Institute and the thriving culture cluster that surrounds it wouldn’t exist if not for political shifts and public protests that stopped a planned bus terminal. Instead, the area became the focus of the Temple Bar Framework Plan competition in 1991. Eight young Irish architecture practices formed the now-legendary Group 91, which won by celebrating the area’s historic cobblestone streets and stone buildings.

Sheila O’Donnell and John Tuomey drew on their shared passion for integrating contemporary architecture within historical contexts to transform a former 18th-century Quaker meeting house into the Irish Film Centre (now Institute). They incorporated cinemas, the Irish Film Archive, a bookshop and a cafe-bar—all accessed from a glass-roofed atrium.

O’Donnell and Tuomey also designed the nearby Photo Museum Ireland and National Photographic Archive. Around the corner, Michael Kelly and Shane O’Toole repurposed a Presbyterian meeting house into The Ark, Europe’s first cultural center for children.

Awards: O’Donnell and Tuomey, Royal Institute of British Architecture Gold Medal for lifetime contributions

Trinity College Campus

*The Long Room in the Trinity College Old Library*
*Photo credit: Trinity College Dublin*

Various architects, 1750s–present
College Green, Dublin

Trinity College is a microcosm of Dublin’s architectural styles. A short walk takes visitors from the 18^th century neoclassical Parliament Square buildings past the Brutalist Berkeley Library (1967) with its bold, concrete forms and on to the Museum Building (1857), a landmark Ruskinian Gothic masterpiece highlighted by colorful Irish stone and marble and exquisite carvings on exterior column capitals.

In the midst, the Old Library (1732) houses the ancient Book of Kells and 200,000 of the country’s most ancient texts in the stunning Long Room.

More recent additions like the Long Room Hub and Trinity Business School insert sustainable structures with glass facades and open design. The result is a compact campus that serves as a living archive of the city’s design history.

Electric Supply Board (ESB)

*The Electric Supply Board integrated into the Georgian Mile*
*Photo credit: Ros Kavanaugh*

Architects: Grafton Architects & O’Mahony Pike, 2021
27 Fitzwilliam Street Lower

A short stroll from Trinity College lies the Electric Supply Board (ESB) headquarters. Demolishing 16 18^th century townhomes to build the ESB complex in the 1970s disrupted the flow of the historic Georgian Mile—and restoring architectural continuity while replacing that edition with a contemporary office building was no easy feat.

“It takes its inspiration from the Georgian proportions, the windows, the rhythm,” said Sandra O’Connell, director of architecture and communications, Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland. “It’s very spatially complex.”

The building uses brownish-pink brick, vertical window slashes, iron railings and granite stoops to reflect the surrounding structures. A solid wall opens to diagonally aligned courtyards and higher buildings not seen from the street. The 45,000-square-meter structure achieved BREEAM Excellent certification, demonstrating a commitment to sustainability as well as aesthetics and tradition.

Awards: RIAI Award for Workplace and Fit-out, Architectural Association of Ireland Downes Medal, Irish Building and Design Award

Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications

Architect: Office of Public Works, 2024
Tom Johnson House, Haddington Road

Once slated for demolition, Tom Johnson House became a case study in sustainable retrofit. The original six-story building featured long corridors and office cells with little light or ventilation.

“Just a decade earlier, it would have been demolished for a fancy new office building,” O’Connell said. “But the government architects decided to completely retrofit, upgrade and reuse the existing building.”

The retrofit doubled staff capacity to 500 and introduced a naturally ventilated atrium with abundant daylight. The building was named a Public Sector Retrofit Pathfinder, and the team designed the space to use existing resources and lessen carbon footprint.

Minister Eamon Ryan applauded it a model for future efforts: “Tom Johnson House will act as a blueprint for how we transform existing buildings for future use.”

Awards: RIAI Public Choice Award, 2024, Ireland’s Climate Change Green Building Project of the Year

Alto Vetro

Architect: Shay Cleary, 2007
Grand Canal Quay, Grand Canal Dock

One of the slimmest residential towers in Europe, Alto Vetro (“High Glass”) makes a big impression on a small footprint—just 69 by 26 feet.

The 16-story tower includes 24 apartments, retail and a ground-floor cafe. Each floor is defined by slim stone bands and floor-to-ceiling glazing. The building blends strong vertical form with lightness and openness in contrast to the historic Docklands’ low rises.

The structure is considered a flagship for urban density done right, offering expansive vistas but slim enough not to overwhelm Grand Canal Dock views. The RIAI jury praised it as “pitch-perfect in its relation of form to site.”

Prize: RIAI Silver Medal for Housing, 2007-2008

Hanover Quay Development

*Hanover Quay on Sir John Rogerson’s Quay*
*Photo credit: O’Mahony Pike Architects*

Architect: O’Mahony Pike, 2007
Grand Canal Dock

This mixed-use project transformed a brownfield site into one of Dublin’s most vibrant communities. Offices, restaurants and 292 residential units line five streets near the Grand Canal basin.

The Dublin Docklands Development Authority’s (DDDA) aim was to integrate private and social housing with similar construction standards and equal access to daylight, shared gardens and waterfront views. The resulting structures provide options for different income levels and enhance a social infrastructure for all of Dublin.

Award: RIAI Silver Medal for Housing, 2007

Dublin Port Substation

Architects: Dunwoody & Dobson and Darmody Architecture, 2024
Alexandra Road, North Wall

Built around 1908, the redbrick substation once helped electrify the port. By 2016, the structure was deteriorating, but its historic value spared it from demolition.

The original footprint was preserved while a glass extension added kitchen, bathroom and cloakroom space. The building now hosts lectures, concerts and other public programs.

The substation also houses a preserved section of the 18th-century sea wall—once a physical divide between port and city. As part of Dublin Port’s Distributed Museum, it now anchors a broader narrative of maritime heritage.

Awards: RIAI Public Choice Awards Finalist, 2024

What Dublin Teaches About Building for the Future

These seven buildings aren’t just architectural highlights but examples of how cities can grow with grace. For architects, engineers and builders, Dublin offers a compelling case study of approaches to shaping the built environment that give form and expression to an evolving narrative.

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