In our lives, we seldomly look back and say, “that was a very cool project.” This is one of those projects because aof the challenges we faced from the start. Poor access, intricate finish, difficulty in formwork, concrete chemistry, and protection of the existing exterior façade were all challenges of the Uber Mission Towers Project.
Ayla Golf Academy and Clubhouse
For the Ayla Golf Academy and Clubhouse in Aqaba, Jordan, Oppenheim Architecture took inspiration from the surrounding landscape and Bedouin tradition to deliver a distinctive building that evokes the aelemental beauty of the desert and mountains. The design amakes innovative use of shotcrete to create a continuous
Duck Island Wastewater Treatment Plant- Screw Pump Rehabilitation
The Duck Island Clean Water Facility, located in Lowell, MA, is a 32 million gal./day (120 megaliter/day) activated sludge treatment plant. The facility accepts wastewater from several Massachusetts cities and towns, including the City of Lowell and the towns of Chelmsford, Dracut, Tewksbury, and Tyngsborough. The service area includes approximately 220,000 people. The facility has been in the news for the past decade due to its need for massive repairs
Falls Village Penstock #1 Structural Shotcrete Rehabilitation Project
In early November of 2018, Knowles Industrial Services Corporation (KISC) was issued a contract by First Light Power Resources, Inc. (FLP) to perform a structural shotcrete liner within a steel-riveted penstock at the Falls Village Hydro Electric Plant in Canaan, CT. FLP’s request for bids permitted contractors to provide a design-build approach for a structurally self-sustaining system to be built within the penstock interior. The existing 9 ft (2.7 m) diameter, 360 ft (110 m) long penstock was buried in its entire length on a steep bank and crossed underneath a live highway. Penstock replacement by excavation proved to be too costly, as much of the existing penstock beneath the roadway was encased in reinforced concrete requiring significant demolition and interruption to traffic in this area.
Maryland Purple Line Plymouth Tunnel
The Plymouth Tunnel is a 1020 ft (311 m) sequential excavation method (SEM) tunnel located in Silver Spring, MD, that makes up a portion of the Maryland Transit Authority’s (MTA) Purple Line light rail connecting the existing metro lines around Washington, DC. The Purple Line Transit Constructors (Flour/Lane/Traylor Joint Venture— PLTC) is the Lead Contractor with the Traylor personnel self-performing the excavation and lining work for the Plymouth Tunnel.
Purlear Creek
In North Carolina, we are quite fond of our local swimming holes. Ask any Tar Heel, and they will assuredly regale you with tales of their childhood spent swinging wildly from ropes and jumping from or sliding down boulders. The swimming hole always held magic for us when we were small, with water that glowed with microscopic fool’s gold, and tiny fish that would nibble at our feet. It was a place where we could run, jump, and splash, all while nature was busily oiling the wheels of our young imaginations. It’s a scene that one North Carolinian couple wished to recreate for their grandchildren, right in their backyard.
Shotcrete in the Urban Jungle
In today’s complex urban jobsite, easy sites to build on are diminishing, while available sites are becoming harder to reach. In addition, the remaining sites often require creative solutions to develop. The project 1395 22nd St. is a complex of five apartment buildings built into one of the many hillsides in San Francisco, CA, and is surrounded by existing buildings and adjacent properties. Several of the tallest buildings for the project have one level below grade, one level at grade, and ten stories above grade. As part of the foundation system of the project, horizontal and vertical grade beams were installed along the hillside for the first five stories of the buildings and then anchored into the hillside with prestressed tiebacks. The excavated slope was up to a 1.5:1 slope, making for very difficult access to each of the
The Making of Swamp Thing
It was early November and I was on top of a mountain, at the halfway point of a project that would take 18 months to complete. This is the moment I got a call to help build a swamp, indoors, for a movie set on the coast. We get all sorts of odd requests, but this was a different kind of strange. Without further ado, I said, “Sure, sounds great, when do you need it?” The studio replied, “By Thanksgiving,” as filming was starting the following week. This sort of answer required a little more digging
The Pretoria Canopy
A 26 m (85 ft) long, highly unusual concrete portico over the entrance of a government building (The Pretoria Canopy), located in Silverton, Pretoria, South Africa, transforms a fairly ordinary
Tiber Creek Sewer Rehabilitation
As part of the DC Clean Rivers Project ? Division 1 Main Pumping Station Diversions, the Tiber Creek trunk sewer was designated to receive a new structural liner in a 122 ft (37 m) section near the intersection of New Jersey Ave. and Tingey St. in southeast Washington, DC.