field activity

Normal sleep continues to elude me, but we soldier on, don't we? I decided on my first session of the final day to support John Hughes (no, not that John Hughes ), whose brogue has become a welcome and familiar presence throughout the week. His presentation centered on the concept of concurrency, or how two or more events can influence delays and additional costs for construction projects in arbitration. I certainly hope not to need his expertise, but I'm also glad to know who to call if it comes to that! Other presentations in the session covered BIM's suitability to achieving client and contractor visions, heightened duties in IPD projects, and two separate presentations on contract and contractor issues in Turkey. After coffee, I went to a session on BIM and information management. The actual topics varied a bit, but I was particularly interested in the data-mining methodology for construction administration that Vincent Kuo presented. I think there's a lot of pote...

Today finished on a strong note about building performance and metrics. It started with a keynote from Skanska - Finland's CEO, Tuomas Sarkilahti . The key notes (sorry) I took away were that their strategic planning process starts with defining their organizational values, that ethics is a muscle that must be exercised, and that process compliance results in stronger margins. Later in the day, I'd hear a dissenting opinion on that last point. The second keynote speaker was Peter Barrett from the University of Salford. He presented a wide-ranging research effort in UK primary schools to create practical strategies that are informed by student outcomes. Their report is available here:  Clever Classrooms . I was pleased to hear him say our industry would respond best to client-driven change as that aligns with the paper I presented. The morning session I attended was the AEC CEO Forum. The first speaker was Shyam Sunder, the lead World Trade Center investigator from NIST. I...

Following a little rest yesterday afternoon, I ambled down to the river that Tampere was founded upon for the city reception at the Vapriikki museum center. The rapids that connect the   Näsijärvi  and  Pyhäjärvi  lakes provided power for several generations of factories. Now, that channel and the factory buildings provide a very charming waterfront setting. I managed to find a fellow Plainsman at the reception, Richard Burt , the head of Auburn's Building Science school. Vapriikki Exhibit on the Finnish Civil War The morning session I sat in on was for CIB TG 79 . That commission's focus is building regulations and control in the face of climate change. It might seem a bit dry, but the papers that were presented covered demand response, the risk of current standards making overheating homes more common, the struggles with energy performance reporting in Spain, the ability of building codes to address climate change and the hidden transaction costs of green bui...