5 must reads for the AEC industry today: April 17, 2020

1. Meet the ‘AEC outsiders’ who are helping to push the industry into the new decade (BD+C)
"As part of BD+C’s 2019 Giants 300 Technology and Innovation Study, 130 of the nation’s largest AEC firms were polled on a variety of topics, including whether or not the firm had a non-AEC hire in the past 24 months. Nearly two-thirds (63.8%) reported that they had hired an “AEC outsider” in this time period."

2. This will be the largest Living Building in the world
"Designed to last 500 years, the building has a projected Energy Use Index (EUI) of 18.6 kBtu/SF/YR; a typical Portland office building built to code has a EUI of 40.8 kBtu/SF/YR. A 133 kW PV solar array will occupy 8,300 sf on the building's roof and another 195.4 kW PV array will occupy 10,300 sf on the roof of a partner organization."

3. Boston mayor considers 'slow ramp-up' for construction (Boston Business Journal) 
"Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh intends to speak with construction leaders in the next few days to discuss potentially restarting construction within the city, which Walsh halted in March in response to the coronavirus pandemic."

4. Building officials turn to video inspections to mitigate COVID-19 risk (Construction Dive)
"Building inspectors from Ohio, Nevada and Florida found common benefits to performing inspections using inexpensive tools like Facetime, Skype, Google Duo and Microsoft Teams. These include being able to perform inspections earlier in the day since they don't have to physically start their day in the office and then spend time driving to the project. The consensus was that as long as the inspection would be visually-based under normal circumstances, an inspection via video is acceptable."

5. Construction project on hold? Don't forget to maintain stored equipment (Karpinski Engineering) 
"One of the downstream effects of the COVID-19 pandemic is that many owners are placing their construction projects on hold. As they do so, they need to make sure that they are properly storing any equipment that has been delivered — or even installed — that will not be operational while the project is on hold," writes Karpinski Engineering's Lee Hodkey.

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