Enough’s Enough
Indoor plumbing is one of the great advances of modern civilization, which people think of as a convenience but has
Journal
Our work with old buildings has us studying a lot of different topics in addition to structural engineering – for example, architecture, history, and historic preservation – and we like sharing stories about what we’ve found.
Surprise!
At a beach house on the south shore of Long Island… Pretty normal asphalt shingles, in a photo taken from
Half Of The Operation
From Lewis Hine’s “Photographs of the Empire State Building under construction” collection, “Three workers securing a rivet”: Actually, it’s two
One Photo, Many Words
From the New York Public Library collection of Wurts Brothers photos, October 3, 1924, ” 140 West 137th Street (7th
High Tech Or Low
The article “BIM-Driven Layout Robot Saves Time, Money” caught my eye. It describes a cute little robot that, given a
So Much Stuff
I don’t have much to add to this article on the open-to-visitors storehouse of the Victoria & Albert Museum: The
The Forest
From a rooftop in Brooklyn Heights, Midtown as seen past the cables of the Brooklyn Bridge:
Deep Thinking
A flash of inspiration struck at SAHC while I was listening to one of the keynote lecturers, leading to me
Practicality and Decoration
From Lausanne, two slightly different takes on the intersection of physical use and ornament. (For people with very long memories,
A Gem
While walking around Lausanne, I found this: That’s a low retaining wall and parapet, separating a small plaza on the
An Existing Building Code
A big deal happened recently, with so little fanfare that many might have missed it. The proposed New York City
SAHC 2025
To follow up on yesterday’s dramatic foreshadowing, I was in Lausanne last week for the 14th International Conference on Structural
Three Views
I’m returned from Lausanne – more on that tomorrow – and I strolled around the city a small amount. Some
An Advantage To Travel
When I’m somewhere I’ve never been before, I often walk without much of a plan as to where I’m going,
Outside In
While the construction of artificial environments is not purely a human phenomenon, we’re the only creatures who use other-than-naturally-occurring materials,
Still There
From the Wurts Brothers, circa 1930, “43 Water Street (looking north)”: In case it’s not excruciatingly obvious, 43 Water Street
A Cat’s Cradle
Lewis Hine at the Empire State Building in 1931, “Hoisting a large beam”: Putting aside the minor quibble that the
Ell Oh Ell
Pretty much everything I write about in this blog is in some way linked to the built environment, but not
Part Of The Job
An extreme example of the not-uncommon engineering problem of moving a building: Dutch Engineers Move Massive Historic Swedish Church Three
It Looked Familiar: Incredible Obscure
A crashed helicopter on top of something on the edge of the river, waiting for Daredevil to perform a rescue: