Schinnerer's RM Blog - asce tag

New Frontier for Sustainability Ratings: Infrastructure Projects

Tue, 17 May 2011 14:00:00 GMT

The American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC), the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), and the American Public Works Association (APWA) have joined forces to form a new Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure (ISI). ISI is intended to be a non-profit entity with broad-based membership of owners, practitioners, and related stakeholders who will promote sustainability in infrastructure development and redevelopment. ISI intends to create a rating system that will verify engineering projects as sustainable by examining the economic, environmental, and social impacts of the projects.

More information about the ISI can be found at www.sustainableinfrastructure.org/ and

www.asce.org/Sustainability/ISI-Rating-System/.

BIM: There’s an App for That

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 16:43:00 GMT

For only $5.99, design professionals can have building information modeling in the palms of their hands, literally (as reported in the June issue (page 36) of Civil Engineering, the monthly magazine published by ASCE). Ian Keough, an associated and technical designer in the New York City office of Buro Happold, recently finished his development of an application called goBIM. While the app doesn’t allow for intensive design of a full-fledged BIM system, users can view BIM models on their iPhones. Keough claims that the motivation behind developing this app, something he did on his own outside of his normal job with Buro Happold, was to allow design professionals to view their rich BIM models anywhere, instead of paper drawings and specs.

Keough is planning on expanding the app’s capabilities with the second generation, where he hopes users can access larger amounts of meta data tied to the model as well as view the model in 4-D. Users could “swipe” through the model to see the various phases of the project, instilling a sense of time to the model.

More information can be obtained at www.go-bim.com.

First LEED and Now SEED

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 13:26:00 GMT

Evaluation tools for the built environment address many aspects of design and construction. From the LEED evaluation of sustainability to the defense assessment being developed by the Building Security Council of the American Society of Civil Engineers, programs provide measures of “success.” Add to these evaluation tools a new effort to evaluate the aspects of a socially, economically, and environmentally-healthy community.