Gordon Wright, whose career at BD+C spanned 32 years, passed away on February 15, at the age of 76. Wright joined the magazine as an Associate Editor in 1973, and would later serve as its long-time Senior Editor, reporting on a wide range of projects and winning dozens of editorial awards, including the prestigious Jesse H. Neal.
He retired from BD+C in 2005 as Executive Editor, having written more than one million words during his illustrious career.
In 2008, Wright was honored with the Construction Writers Association’s Silver Hard Hat Award for lifetime achievement. The association also named its annual photography award after Wright.
He was known for his love of architecture, engineering, and construction, and his passion for writing, photography, traveling, biking, and surfing.
Read his obituary: http://www.tributes.com/obituary/show/Gordon-Wright-103301299
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
Bronze Award: Trenton Daylight/Twilight High School Trenton, N.J.
The story of the Trenton Daylight/Twilight High School is one of renewal and rebirth—both of the classic buildings that symbolize the city's past and the youth that represent its future. The $39 million, 101,000-sf urban infill project locates the high school—which serves recent dropouts and students who are at risk of dropping out—within three existing vacant buildings.
| Aug 11, 2010
New school designs don't go by the book
America needs more schools. Forty-five percent of the nation's elementary, middle, and high schools were built between 1950 and 1969, according market research firm ZweigWhite, Natick, Mass. Yet even as the stock of K-12 schools ages and declines, school enrollments continue to climb. The National Center for Education Statistics predicts that enrollment in public K-12 schools will keep rising...
| Aug 11, 2010
Bronze Award: Lincoln High School Tacoma, Wash.
Lincoln High School in Tacoma, Wash., was built in 1913 and spent nearly a century morphing into a patchwork of outdated and confusing additions. A few years ago, the Tacoma School District picked Lincoln High School, dubbed “Old Main,” to be the first high school in the district to be part of its newly launched Small Learning Communities program.
| Aug 11, 2010
Great Solutions: Technology
19. Hybrid Geothermal Technology The team at Stantec saved $800,000 in construction costs by embedding geothermal piping into the structural piles at the WestJet office complex in Calgary, Alb., rather than drilling boreholes adjacent to the building site, which is the standard approach. Regular geothermal installation would have required about 200 boreholes, each about four-inches in diameter ...
| Aug 11, 2010
Cronkite Communication School Speaks to Phoenix Redevelopment
The city of Phoenix has sprawling suburbs, but its outward expansion caused the downtown core to stagnate—a problem not uncommon to other major metropolitan areas. Reviving the city became a hotbed issue for Mayor Phil Gordon, who envisioned a vibrant downtown that offered opportunities for living, working, learning, and playing.
| Aug 11, 2010
Bronze Award: Hawthorne Elementary School, Elmhurst, Ill.
At 121 years, Hawthorne School is the oldest elementary school building in the Elmhurst, Ill., school district and a source of pride for the community. Unfortunately, decades of modifications and short-sighted planning had rendered it dysfunctional in terms of modern educational delivery. At the same time, increasing enrollment was leading to overcrowding, with the result that the library, for ...
| Aug 11, 2010
Platinum Award: Reviving Oakland's Uptown Showstopper
The story of the Fox Oakland Theater is like that of so many movie palaces of the early 20th century. Built in 1928 based on a Middle Eastern-influenced design by architect Charles Peter Weeks and engineer William Peyton Day, the 3,400-seat cinema flourished until the mid-1960s, when the trend toward smaller multiplex theaters took its toll on the Fox Oakland.
