Gordon Wright, whose career at BD+C spanned 32 years, passed away on February 15, at the age of 76. Wright joined the magazine as an Associate Editor in 1973, and would later serve as its long-time Senior Editor, reporting on a wide range of projects and winning dozens of editorial awards, including the prestigious Jesse H. Neal.
He retired from BD+C in 2005 as Executive Editor, having written more than one million words during his illustrious career.
In 2008, Wright was honored with the Construction Writers Association’s Silver Hard Hat Award for lifetime achievement. The association also named its annual photography award after Wright.
He was known for his love of architecture, engineering, and construction, and his passion for writing, photography, traveling, biking, and surfing.
Read his obituary: http://www.tributes.com/obituary/show/Gordon-Wright-103301299
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
Nurturing the Community
The best seat in the house at the new Seahawks Stadium in Seattle isn't on the 50-yard line. It's in the southeast corner, at the very top of the upper bowl. "From there you have a corner-to-corner view of the field and an inspiring grasp of the surrounding city," says Kelly Kerns, project leader with architect/engineer Ellerbe Becket, Kansas City, Mo.
| Aug 11, 2010
Two Rivers Marketing: Industrial connection
It was supposed to be the perfect new office. In July 2003, Two Rivers Marketing Group of Des Moines, Iowa, began working with Shiffler Associates Architects on a 14,000-sf building to house their rapidly growing marketing firm. Over the next six months they put together an innovative program that drew on unprecedented amounts of employee feedback.
| Aug 11, 2010
AIA Course: Historic Masonry — Restoration and Renovation
Historic restoration and preservation efforts are accelerating throughout the U.S., thanks in part to available tax credits, awards programs, and green building trends. While these projects entail many different building components and systems, façade restoration—as the public face of these older structures—is a key focus. Earn 1.0 AIA learning unit by taking this free course from Building Design+Construction.
| Aug 11, 2010
AIA Course: Enclosure strategies for better buildings
Sustainability and energy efficiency depend not only on the overall design but also on the building's enclosure system. Whether it's via better air-infiltration control, thermal insulation, and moisture control, or more advanced strategies such as active façades with automated shading and venting or novel enclosure types such as double walls, Building Teams are delivering more efficient, better performing, and healthier building enclosures.
| Aug 11, 2010
Glass Wall Systems Open Up Closed Spaces
Sectioning off large open spaces without making everything feel closed off was the challenge faced by two very different projects—one an upscale food market in Napa Valley, the other a corporate office in Southern California. Movable glass wall systems proved to be the solution in both projects.
| Aug 11, 2010
High School in a Hurry
One of the more compelling arguments for charter schools is their theoretical ability to streamline decision making. Eliminate all those layers of bureaucratic fat that clog the arteries of most public school systems, the argument goes, and decisions can be made to flow much more smoothly, even when it comes to designing and building a major school project.
| Aug 11, 2010
Right-Sizing Healthcare
Over the past 30 years or so, the healthcare industry has quietly super-sized its healthcare facilities. Since 1980, ORs have bulked up in size by 53%, acute-care patient rooms by 77%. The slow creep went unlabeled until recently, when consultant H. Scot Latimer applied the super-sizing moniker to hospitals, inpatient rooms, operating rooms, and other treatment and administrative spaces.
| Aug 11, 2010
Silver Award: Pere Marquette Depot Bay City, Mich.
For 38 years, the Pere Marquette Depot sat boarded up, broken down, and fire damaged. The Prairie-style building, with its distinctive orange iron-brick walls, was once the elegant Bay City, Mich., train station. The facility, which opened in 1904, served the Flint and Pere Marquette Railroad Company when the area was the epicenter of lumber processing for the shipbuilding and kit homebuilding ...
| Aug 11, 2010
Special Recognition: Durrant Group Headquarters, Dubuque, Iowa
Architecture firm Durrant Group used the redesign of its $3.7 million headquarters building as a way to showcase the firm's creativity, design talent, and technical expertise as well as to create a laboratory for experimentation and education. The Dubuque, Iowa, firm's stated desire was to set a high sustainability standard for both itself and its clients by recycling a 22,890-sf downtown buil...
| Aug 11, 2010
Hilton President Hotel
Once an elegant and fashionably trendy locale, the Presidential Hotel played host to the 1928 Republican National Convention where Herbert Hoover was nominated for President, and acted as a hot spot for Kansas City Jazz in the '30s and '40s. The hotel was eventually abandoned in 1984, at which point it became a haven for vagabonds and pigeons, collecting animal waste and incurring significant s...
