Purdueenginerd

Fantastic. I'd imagine a whole foods near there would encourage more development, Elgin street between Smith and Brazos is the site of the old Social Security office if I'm correct. This should be a big boom for development and retail in that area.

Triton, I wonder if we've ever cycled by eachother in the past. I always see on Strava all the riders that I pass. I did about 45 miles this weekend. Perhaps you were out there as well.

http://swamplot.com/why-superblock-construction-is-moving-superslow/2015-05-04/ Swamplot with an article on this. THis doesnt smell right either. Construction Costs?! I dont buy it.

agreed, and I apologize for kind of introducing it as an example.

Deep Breath. /Sigh Nonenadalize clearly never took a Highschool physics. W=∫Fdx W = ΔE KE=1/2 mv^2 ΔKE=∫Fdx Where F=Impact force, W equals Work, E equals Energy in a system, KE is Kinetic Energy. Your homework, tonight is to estimate the mass of 10 floors. Moving, 12 feet due to gravity, and determine how much force is applied. When you do that: Find me a construction material on this planet that can resist that kind of energy and force.

Those demolition photos are a little sad.

Hope youre joking but I do get this question a lot. The answer is no, But it doesnt have to. It also changes the coefficient of thermal expansion for steel as a function of temperature. I wont get into the material science of steel transitioning from solid to liquid, and how thats not an instantaneous occurance . But if you truly want to read about how temperature affects steel members. Go to AISC (American Institute of Steel Construction): Steel Construction Manual and refer to the equation on 2-31. This equation will give you the coefficient of thermal expansion for steel from 100 to 1200 degrees F. From that, you can calculate, how much a member will 'grow' under a given temperature, which puts new stresses on the connections. PDF would be too large to provide here, and its about a 500 dollar design code. Then, go to AISC Design Guide 19: Fire Resistance of Structural Steel Framing Link (Pdf): http://portales.puj.edu.co/wjfajardo/ESTRUCTURAS%20MET%C3%81LICAS/AISC/AISC%20Design%20Guide%2019%20-%20Fire%20Resistance%20Of%20Structural%20Steel%20Framing.pdf Go to Table X.1 on Page 70 of the PDF and you'll see that steel starts to lose yield capacity at around 800 degrees.

They'd rename it, Century Tower!

Love that shot!

Not to start an argument, regarding WTC, thus I apologize to everyone else. But you are very incorrect. Please see attached images of WTC during construction for what is clearly the structural core. I would suggest reading the NIST reports in regard to the structural analysis and failure mechanisms of the WTC towers. They talk about the original calcs, original drawings, the load analysis, and likely and confirmed damaged support columns. http://www.nist.gov/el/disasterstudies/wtc/wtc_finalreports.cfm Edit: Fair warning, some of the PDFS on the link are over 60 mb. Its been a few years since I read through them all, but if youre into structural analysis and failure analysis its a good read.

Those cores/elevator shafts encompass a large portion of the shear and lateral resistance of the structure, making the structure stiffer and less likely to laterally move significantly during seismic or wind events. They can also allow for larger 'floor plates' uninterrupted by support column which can be beneficial for apartment or office units. One of the more famous examples of a skyscraper with a large core is the World Trade Center towers before 9/11. Edit: Some light reading http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/research/2011/110920BowmanSkyscrapers.html I used to work at this lab when I was an undergrad on the project listed above, very early in the research project (2007-2008).

Whats up with the 3rd photo-- Armageddon Filter for instagram??

first one reminds of an IKEA bookshelf.

Had Jury Duty on Monday. This is from the 20th floor of the Criminal Courthouse Obligatory Skyline Shot.

According to swamplot theres fencing going up around the site.

Very nice. For what its worth, that is a water cooled core drill rig. Often used for extracting concrete samples with diamond drill bits. . If you look it the wheel barrow closely, they already have a big ole' concrete core. Looks like 10'' or 12'' Diameter.

You can see the old RoW for the rail line that used to run through there (see the weird segment for the property lines). Cool stuff.

Ah yes, the deep south versacrane. I was about 200 feet from the one that went down in 2008 at Lyondell Houston Refinery. Scary day

The fire concern is real and youre right, that building totally got owned. There is a difference though between an incomplete building and a completed building with proper firebreaks, sprinkler system, etc.. In addition, SOME wooden structure can perform quite well in fires. A 2x4 will get owned in a fire for sure. But a 10x10 or 12x12 member will undergo charring on the exterior, which can protect the structural components for a time, giving you a surprisingly decent fire rating. In the codes for wood design there are equations that will give you a fire-rating on particular sized members and wood can be treated as well. It's a slow monday for me at the office. But for a wooden structure in Houston, Im guessing the biggest problems are less so the soil, and more so, the wind. Houston, per ASCE 7 (see picture: https://i.imgur.com/f2MJY71.png ),is going to have to, per code deal with 120mph-140 mph wind velocity, and the way the calculations break down, is the the taller you go the more wind pressure at higher elevations you get. Now, most of us are familiar with torque. Have bolt you can't get undone? add length to the handle, more torque. Torque is a function of force*distance. Theres another term for that, Moment, and a similar principle applies with buildings. Tall building, more force = more turning moment at the bottom. Based on the foundation design, the soils will normally handle that "Overturning moment", even in Houston. What would concern me (keep in mind I dont design 5 story apartment buildings) is the overturning moments on the framing. On the windward side of the building youre going to have a tension load applied (uplift), and on leeward side of the building you'll have a compressive load applied (downlift). In a heavier building, the 'control' check would be on the compressive side, because the building is heavy enough where "uplift" could never occur. Concrete is super awesome at compression, concrete structures: no problem! Wood structures, are way way lighter. The control check, might be on the tension side. Which gives headaches to the engineers. It's an iterative process though. Soils is less of an issue than a lot of people think of. You go deep enough, drive enough piles, or construct enough piers, you can do a lot with that, even in Galveston. Now your question is, I would opine the biggest geographical constraint for a wooden structure on the Texas Gulf Coast, is wind. Speaking in generalities that is. Thats why, when I see a very tall town house, or tall apartment like this in Houston, my eye twitches a little bit. (funny enough, I own and live in a 3 story house inside the loop). I also should state that I'm simplifying wind analysis big time, for what its worth, wind analysis in my opinion: suuuuucks doing by hand. I'm not familiar with the EuroCodes. So I looked it up, and the way wind analysis is calculated, appears to be different. On anecdotal look through the eurocodes, it would appear than the US codes are more conservative; which makes sense as North American is struck by higher wind weather events more often (in General). But to be honest, I dont know enough about Eurocodes to really give you a good answer on it. As for your outriggers, issue. That I did not know. And is quite fascinating. I know when I'm in the field, I like to see all the outriggers on clean, and well upkept laminate mats. What is interesting to me though, is the euro-plate steel being thinner, would technically lower the capacity of the crane in comparison to the American counterparts. Which might be how they get away with not putting the mats down? I'm speculating of course. I tried looking through the IBC (international building code: which is about as international as the world series) to see anything in regards to that but couldnt really.

This project is baddass. ConstructionPorn for sure. Well organized project site. Nice pictures nate. If I may ask, are those a few office windows staged ontop of the shed (PM office maybe) to the right?

As a follow up to swamp lot story, (off topic sorry mods). http://swamplot.com/knocked-knox-st-townhome-brought-down-a-few-floors-yanked-straight/2015-03-16/ Looks like they disassembled floor 2 and 3 and "straightened" the first floor out. This is dumb. If they rebuild that house, without replacing the first floor in its entirety, shame on those housing contractors. Every single nail attachment on the first floor has already been compromised by a lateral deflection of that structure. Not to mention any internal damage to the wood members that they may have overlooked. Lets just say, unless they rebuild that thing: Do not buy that house.

Excellent question. The answer is, higher than you think. In Vienna, Austria there are plans for a 25 stories wooden skyscraper (Link: http://www.popsci.com/next-futuristic-building-material-wood?src=SOC&dom=fb ) In the article they cite the following: Now, in Vienna, theyre doing it for carbon footprint reduction, which, in my opinion for skyscraper construction is small fish compared to the larger problems and industries of anthropogenic climate change, but I digress. If someone asked me to design a tall wooden structure for housing people in a hurricane prone region. I would look at them perplexed and say why!? and then tell them No! Rechlin, cites a great structure that I never knew about. (thanks for sharing that). As a basis of comparison if you'd like the nitty gritty details. A36 Steel for a steel I-beam (Or W-Shape) is going to have 36,000 lbs/in^2 yield capacity (the stress where the steel will start to bend and not revert to its original shape) A concrete column will have 5,000-12,000 lbs/in^2 of compressive strength before catastrophically exploding from overloading. And the steel rebar inside of it will have 60,000 lbs/in^2 yield capacity (in Tension) A Southern Pine No. 2 Dense wood timber: 1,250 lbs/in^2 in compression, and 750 lbs/in^2 in tension. (These values would be adjusted based on certain adjustment factors per the design code). So you can see, that building a high rise out of wood is making life, kind of a head ache for the structural engineer. There are some Glulam members (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glued_laminated_timber) that's strength is significantly better (than just normal timber), but you run into fire issues without proper protection.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_of_Houston Google image search spirit of houston statue. Kind of amusing statue, that never got built.

Construction companies aren't going to easily divulge that information to their competition for private ventures like this. Labor rates, Material costs, and productivity rates vary between companies, and the last thing you'd want is for your competitor to undercut you in an open bid. That beings said, while you may not be able to find specific cost estimates for skyscrapers going up now. You might be able to find some on older and perhaps more famous structures around the world.

Very impressed with the aluminum framing and construction.