5 hidden benefits of mass timber design

At $94 a square foot and "virtually indestructible," some school districts in Utah are opting to build concrete dome schools in lieu of traditional structures. 

The industry associations, with more than 700,000 members generating almost $1 trillion in GDP, have issued a joint statement on resilience, pushing design and building solutions for disaster mitigation.

In implementing Northwestern University’s Engineering Life Sciences infill design, Flad Architects faced the challenge of ensuring adequate, balanced light given the adjacent, existing building wings. To allow for light penetration from the fifth floor to the ground floor, the design team desired a large, central atrium. One potential setback with drawing light through the atrium was meeting fire and life safety codes. 

When the Cincinnati Art Museum embarked on an $11 million renovation, the architects wanted the entrance and main stair to be as inviting as possible. Transparent, fire rated glazing from SAFTI FIRST was a key component of the design solution.

An exclusive survey reveals that Building Teams are doing their part to make the nation’s schools safer in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook tragedy.

To tell the truth, I didn’t want to write about the terrible events of December 14, 2012, when 20 children and six adults were gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. I figured other media would provide ample coverage, and anything we did would look cheap or inappropriate. But two things turned me around.