Enter today! BD+C's 75 Top Building Products for 2024

BD+C editors are now accepting submissions for the annual 75 Top Building Products awards. The winners will be featured in the November/December 2024 issue of Building Design+Construction.

Resiliency

Controversy erupts in Florida over how homes are being rebuilt after Hurricane Ian

The Federal Emergency Management Agency recently sent a letter to officials in Lee County, Florida alleging that hundreds of homes were rebuilt in violation of the agency’s rules following Hurricane Ian. The letter provoked a sharp backlash as homeowners struggle to rebuild following the devastating 2022 storm that destroyed a large swath of the county.

Mass Timber

British Columbia changing building code to allow mass timber structures of up to 18 stories

The Canadian Province of British Columbia is updating its building code to expand the use of mass timber in building construction. The code will allow for encapsulated mass-timber construction (EMTC) buildings as tall as 18 stories for residential and office buildings, an increase from the previous 12-story limit.

Standards

Design guide offers details on rain loads and ponding on roofs

The American Institute of Steel Construction and the Steel Joist Institute recently released a comprehensive roof design guide addressing rain loads and ponding. Design Guide 40, Rain Loads and Ponding provides guidance for designing roof systems to avoid or resist water accumulation and any resulting instability.

Contractors

Bringing the concepts of architects, engineers, and clients to life often requires problem-solving and compromise, and always requires hard work on the contractor’s part. Keeping construction within the allotted budget and up to the rest of the building team’s standards requires a combination of extensive technical and product knowledge.

Rainscreen system installed at the west building envelope expansion of the University of Arizona’s Meinel Optical Sciences Center in Tucson, with its folded glass wall and copper-paneled, breathable cladding over precast concrete.

Dec 10, 2011

Energy performance starts at the building envelope

Rainscreen system installed at the west building expansion of the University of Arizona’s Meinel Optical Sciences Center in Tucson, with its folded glass wall and copper-paneled, breathable cladding over precast concrete.

Dec 10, 2011

Turning Balconies Outside In

Operable glass balcony glazing systems provide solution to increase usable space in residential and commercial structures.

Dec 10, 2011

BIM tools to make your project easier to manage

Two innovations—program manager Gafcon’s SharePoint360 project management platform and a new BIM “wall creator” add-on developed by ClarkDietrich Building Systems for use with the Revit BIM platform and construction consultant—show how fabricators and owner’s reps are stepping in to fill the gaps between construction and design that can typically be exposed by working with a 3D model.