Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was in Bridgetown, N.S., today as part of an East Coast tour and announced nearly $116 million in federal funding for projects related to transit and water in the province. Read more.
New York-based startup ByFusion is turning plastic waste into construction blocks known as RePlast. The company’s technology can use any form of plastic, including marine debris, in its process. Read more
Chinese company WinSun met with Saudi Arabia officials to discuss the possibility of using its 3-D printing technology to help the country reach its goal of constructing 1.5 million homes over the next five years, according to 3Dprint.com. Read more
When industry professionals reference construction technology, the first topics that might come up are likely drones, building information modeling (BIM), 3-D laser scanning technology,virtual reality, 3-D printing and advancements in high-performance versions of long-time material staples like concrete. However, how often do construction experts associate progress in technology to the worker in the field? Read more
“Infrastructure in the city has acted as a type of monoculture,” says Michael Maltzan, design principal at Michael Maltzan Architecture. “It’s really just done one thing: It was intended to get cars from one place to the other as quickly as possible.” In a new proposal, the architects show how freeways could be redesigned to help solve multiple problems at once. Read more
Imagine being able to walk to the centre of a room, hold up your smartphone, then turn around. Tango will present a three-dimensional map of the room. Pair that technology with the augmented reality app called Through the Wall and the user would be able to hold up his or her device and be able to see where pipes, electrical wires and ducts are positioned. Read more
A recent Dodge Data & Analytics study on how various large construction project stakeholders — with $50 million or more in annual value — use and perceive building information modeling (BIM) revealed that 50% of trade contractors, construction managers and general contractors use BIM on more than half of all projects, according to the Engineering News-Record. Read more
A group of Edmonton high school students is celebrating a new-found passion for construction, sparked by a two-week summer course. Read more
This great video was developed by the British Columbia Construction Association. Watch video
CCA President Michael Atkinson on the effect of these kinds of provisions: “It would drive perfectly reputable, great contractors away from doing business with public owners. There are other ways to deal with this and I think that’s what the industry would like to see — rather than public bodies that run into what they consider problems and concerns with bad apples, that they don’t immediately jump to this kind of approach. It’s like using a hammer instead of a screwdriver. I think that’s where sitting down and consulting with their industry partners might go a long way.” Read more