A recent article from David Roberts on Vox resurfaces the benefits of using mass timber (aka, “cross- laminated timber” (CLT)). Over the last century, the design and construction industry has leaned away from wood, especially for non-residential construction, and moved toward more manufactured materials, such as steel, concrete, and iron, in the name of safety. … Continue reading
We’re Big The design and construction industry in the US is big, totaling over 6% of the US GDP and around 12% of global GDP. In 2018 alone, $1.29 trillion was spent on construction, and more than 700,000 firms employed over 7 million people. And we are the largest consumer of raw materials of any … Continue reading
Schinnerer’s Annual Large Firm Conference Highlights Keeping our policyholders informed about emerging risks is a priority for Schinnerer. In case you missed the announcement last month, we hosted our third annual Large Firm Conference in Denver to cover trends and best practices in the design and construction industry. Among the topics discussed were project delivery, … Continue reading
“Democracy is messy, and it’s hard” said Robert Kennedy, Jr. about the political landscape. Current trends in the built environment may doubly merit that observation. In a democracy where everyone has a vote and a say on a wide variety of issues, decision-making can get complicated. In a very similar way, technology is democratizing how … Continue reading
Blockchain technology continues to spark imaginations in every sector of the economy, including design and construction. About a year ago, I wrote an initial thought experiment into the possibilities. Later, I began to explore more deeply the applications of blockchain technology. And now, while cryptomarkets continue to self-correct the over-speculation of 2017 [Tech talk: crypto … Continue reading
While the conventional wisdom around blockchain is that it’s a technology only affecting financial markets, design and construction stakeholders ought to pay attention to new developments, too. If you don’t, you risk falling behind on an important trend that potentially presents a competitive challenge for your firm, but also missing the opportunity the technology presents … Continue reading
Introduced recently in the U.S. Senate was a bipartisan bill: the Energy Storage Tax Incentive and Deployment Act of 2017. What this legislation would do is expand the definition of “energy property” in the tax code to include “equipment which receives, stores, and delivers energy using batteries, compressed air, pumped hydropower, hydrogen storage (including hydrolysis), … Continue reading
The devastation caused by hurricanes in 2017 to U.S. coastal cities and territories can only be described at this early stage of recovery as historic. The numbers and actual economic impacts in the coming months will no doubt illuminate more deeply the gravity of the situation, and will likely spark a renewed enthusiasm in the … Continue reading
The answer to this question is “it depends.” What was proposed by Trump’s Administration last week in the form of a “Framework” is broadly laid out. The details will be forthcoming in the legislation that will be drafted by committees, but some of the relevant highlights for design professionals are as follows. One of the stated … Continue reading
The pendulum of public policy in the US has swung, and, to many, it has swung in a way that is unsettling different, and confusing. Historically, we could imagine with some reasonableness what a new Administration would yield for the American people. But the 2016 political process has propelled us toward a future that’s extremely … Continue reading
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