13 great solutions for commercial construction

If necessity is the mother of invention, then opportunity is the father. And thankfully, there are still some people who view problems less as obstacles and more as opportunities.

Take a problem like the lack of lodging for outdoor events, for example. Such open-air events, like music festivals, which are typically held in large, open fields, end up looking like a 1960s commune as tents, teepees, and other makeshift living arrangements pepper the venue. And if it rains, well, everyone there better be prepared to get wet and muddy. Unless, of course, the festival planners had the foresight to provide Snoozebox’s portable hotel rooms, designed with mobility and ephemerality in mind.

These portable hotel rooms are just one of novel ideas featured in our annual Great Solutions report. Others include pop-up farms designed to provide communities with a sustainable food supply, a new anti-bacterial paint perfect for hospitals, schools, and nursing homes, and digitally fabricated concrete formwork that pushes the bounds of what can be cost-effectively constructed in concrete.

Go to our Great Solutions landing page to read about these 13 innovations (also, see the table of contents below).

Great Solutions Table of Contents

Snoozebox portable hotel

Bacteria-killing paint, IdeaPaint PULL magnet paint

Farm from a box

Automated vehicle medical supply delivery

InSite Monitor App

Physical therapy healing garden

Porcelanosa’s retractable ceiling

Double-angle precast concrete anchor

WWII watchtower turned guesthouse

Emergency department behavioral health unit

Digitally fabricated concrete formwork

Dual-purpose fire sprinkler systems

BubbleDeck voided biaxial slab

Or view all the Great Solutions on one page.