Saint Regis Tower
At 101 stories, the Saint Regis Tower in Chicago is the world’s tallest building by a woman architect, Jeanne Gang. Previous blogs have discussed the work of women architects—both contemporary […]
Insights
Engineers aid in urban search and rescue
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) established the National Urban Search & Rescue Response System in 1989. Engineers started serving on urban search and rescue teams the following year. Disasters […]
Science and magic
The British science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke developed three laws, the most famous of which is, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Isaac Asimov expressed a similar […]
Get to the point
Years ago, I worked on the development of high-performance concrete for an offshore oil platform in Alaska. We needed to conduct abrasion testing at below-freezing temperatures, so we wanted to […]
Material Change report aids in responsible sourcing
Responsible sourcing is the human-rights aspect of supply chains. The idea is that it’s not enough to follow ethical practices within your own business. You also need to ensure that […]
Passive radiative cooling saves energy
As we’ve discussed previously, keeping spaces cool in summer takes a lot more energy than heating them in winter. And some things—such as food and vaccines—must stay cold to remain […]
What I’d like to see more of in specifications
At Beton we review project specifications for various reasons. Sometimes it’s to develop concrete mixture proportions that will help a contractor meet the requirements. Sometimes it’s to come up with […]
A test for spotting fraudulent statistics
As countries report their death tolls due to COVID-19, some appear to be providing fraudulent statistics. Dmitry Kobak has examined them using the Poisson distribution. It’s a useful way to […]
Julia Morgan, architect and engineer
Before Julia Morgan became an architect, only men practiced architecture. First she studied civil engineering at the University of California at Berkeley, graduating in 1894—the only woman in her class. […]
Mostly good news about water quality
Can we improve the water quality of our lakes and rivers? It turns out that there are things we can do, and they’re working. Reviving dead zones in the Thames […]