FRIDAY5 – January 26, 2018

Economists from four of the leading construction industry associations share their outlook for the general construction industry in this article from ForConsutrctionPros.com.  For 2018, this proved a tougher task given economic uncertainties and the growing labor shortage.  According to Associated Builders and Contractors Inc. (ABC), momentum for the volume of building construction seen in 2017 is expected to stretch into 2018.  Read the full article here.
 

A team of researchers from MIT’s Senseable City Lab developed an algorithm to rate the world’s greenest cities.  Beyond just quantifying parks and green spaces, the method takes images from Google Street View and processes them through an algorithm that estimates the percentage of each image that corresponds to trees and other types of vegetation.  This article lists the top ten greenest cities according to the Senseable City Lab study with four of the cities on the list located in North America.
 

“Metal’s versatility is one of the many reasons it is a popular building material.  In fact, it’s such a versatile product, it looks good next to many other building products, including wood, brick, limestone, EIFS, concrete and much more.”

In this article from Metal Architecture, architects share their insights on design and how they mix materials to highlight the character of a building to tell its unique story.  Read more to understand how they choose materials by also taking into account the site’s location and natural landscape.