There’s a lot of talk about smart building design and smart building technology. It promises benefits for owners and occupants, energy savings and more. It also poses an interesting set of challenges for the structural engineering team. Smart... (Read More)
The smart building, intelligent architecture, the Internet of Things — these buzzwords are common in the architecture, design, civil engineering and construction industries today. But they’re more than impressive words to throw around at... (Read More)
Structural engineering projects are complex, with stringent requirements for quality and safety for the people who will be using the structures. That’s why a contract for a project requiring structural engineering services has to be not only... (Read More)
How many times have we all heard somebody say “zero-scape”? Sounds interesting…except it’s “xeriscape”, not “zero” scape—which would mean “no” landscaping.
Xeriscape, which was coined by Nancy Leavitt in the 1980’s, is a... (Read More)
Structural engineering can help solve a problem that’s getting a lot of attention today: waste. Plastic in the waterways, the “trash island” in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, landfills getting full — society in general is becoming more... (Read More)
When you visit a construction site in 2019, don’t be surprised to see the civil engineering professionals wearing a range of technologies on their wrists, arms, even built into their glasses. You’ll see more construction supervisors and workers... (Read More)
“May you live in interesting times” is an old curse. And these are certainly interesting times in the construction industry. Construction administration is facing rapid changes on a number of fronts, from labor to legal to technological.
Here... (Read More)
Landscape architecture pays. National studies, in fact, show that the return on investment in a development’s outdoor amenity space can be as high as 150 percent. This does not include the impact of energy costs and other lifespan savings that... (Read More)
Building information management, or BIM, improves productivity for architects, engineers, builders and building owners. It’s a win-win-win-win.
At McNeil Engineering, we don’t see BIM as software so much as a process, an approach to every... (Read More)
Every successful construction project depends on clear, frequent and continual communication among everyone involved: architects, engineers and clients. Construction administration can be seen as the communications hub in the project.
Every... (Read More)