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Local foam can be used in road building
Jacksonville Business Journal - by Dave Strupp Staff Writer
JACKSONVILLE -- A Jacksonville-based foam manufacturer has gotten permission from the Florida Department of Transportation to supply large blocks of polystyrene foam used in road construction.
Royal Foam Inc. is one of four manufacturers in the state to produce expanded polystyrene foam, or Geofoam as it's known. Geofoam is a lightweight, rigid foam plastic that is a useful alternative to filler soil in road construction because it can be more efficient and is about 100 times lighter than most filler soil.
Royal Foam, located on the Northside, manufactures Geofoam in large blocks, 24 feet in length and weighing between 288 and 576 pounds, said Neil Hanekom, Geofoam specialist for Royal Foam.
Solid base
The foam blocks are used to provide a solid base and to decrease the chances of improper road settlement for roadways being built over soft-soil deposit areas, which are quite prevalent in Florida, said David Horhota, the state geotechnical materials engineer for the Florida Department of Transportation's State Materials Office.
"This is good to be used for long-term performance as a lightweight fill," he said. "When you build these embankments for roadways over soft-soil deposits, one way to mitigate settlements in the road is to use lightweight foam."
Geofoam has been used frequently in road projects in Utah and Wisconsin and also for the runway at the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport.
Engineers in Utah used Geofoam to rapidly renovate Interstate 15 in time for Salt Lake City to host the 2002 Winter Olympics. The $1.6 billion, 17-mile road project needed to be done in four years, which is about half the time typically needed.
The engineers used about 120,000 cubic meters for the project's roadways and embankments, making it the largest use of Geofoam for a single project.
Florida's soft-soil conditions make Geofoam a likely candidate as an alternative for filler, but Geofoam has its disadvantages, Horhota said.
There have been concerns regarding Geofoam's weight in watery conditions, as well as its resistance to gasoline in the event of spills.
"There has been a lot of work done on the side of manufacturers to produce a Geofoam product that is resistant to disintegration from gas," Horhota said.
Petroleum byproduct
Another concern is that the price of Geofoam is vulnerable to fuel prices because the resin used to make the foam is a petroleum byproduct, Horhota said.
Locally, construction companies have shown interest in using Geofoam on projects like the Atlantic and Kernan boulevards overpass and also to use in place of pilings for the port expansion. Neither of the projects' engineers have agreed to use Geofoam yet, but Hanekom said there is interest in the product.
Royal Foam has been manufacturing the foam blocks for 10 years for use in architectural design projects, but within the past year, have been marketing the product for road construction, Hanekom said.
"The Florida Department of Transportation has really been our big supporter so far," he said.
The foam has also been used to prevent landslides, and for siding, insulation and floating docks.
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ติวเข้มรับเหมาคู่สัญญารัฐ ยื่นคำร้องตามมติ ครม.ก่อนเดดไลน์
A rare type of arch bridge is rising in Columbus, Ohio, as a vital part of the city’s revitalization effort. The generic name of the new Main Street Bridge belies the fact that its single rib-tied arch design, tilting 10° from the roadway, is the first ever in the U.S.
In July, general contractor Kokosing Construction Co., Fredericktown, Ohio, placed the fifth and final 63-ft-long arch segment of the 660-ft-long crossing over the Scioto River in a 140,000-lb pick, says Kokosing area manager Tom Graf. The other four steel arch segments were spliced together and placed in 500,000-lb picks.
The city wanted a distinctive bridge, and the mayor liked the work of Harvard professor Spiro Pollalis, who had worked with Santiago Calatrava, says Richard Ortman, city project manager. Although Ohio Dept. of Transportation is managing construction, “the city felt this was important enough that we became the lead agency during the design,” Ortman says.
The city asked stakeholders in 2001 to choose Pollalis’ basic concept of a “basket handle” arch design or a replica of the old bridge, an Art Deco open-spandrel concrete deck arch closed in 2000. They chose Pollalis’ concrete-filled arch with a 10° tilt. “Everything is asymmetrical,” says James Siebert, senior vice president with project manager DLZ Ohio Inc., Columbus. The design calls for the road deck to have cantilevered floorbeams that support the pedestrian walkway and for the bottoms of the arches to be tied with cable stays.
DLZ, working with Pollalis and HNTB Corp., Kansas City, as lead designer, asked contractors to give feedback on likely costs associated with the design. Ultimately, the team undertook a value-engineering process to shave $10 million off the costs, says Steve Hague, HNTB associate vice president.
The biggest aesthetic change caused by the redesign is in the piers. The originally designed slender V-shaped concrete piers would have required structural bearings at the bases. They are now crescent-shaped piers with bearings located under the deck, avoiding the river’s high fluctuations. Graf calls them “snow plow” piers. Each required 920 cu yd of concrete and are 39 ft wide, 55 ft long and 16 ft high.
The redesign shortens the arch component from 480 ft to 400 ft and enlarges its cross-section from 7 ft x 5 ft to about 8 ft x 5.7 ft, says Greg DeMond, HNTB senior bridge architect. Widening the arch eliminated the need for a self-compacting concrete core that would act in composite with the steel to accommodate bending forces on the asymmetric structure, he says.
The 18-ft-wide pedestrian deck, once a post-tensioned, cast-in-place box, will now be built with precast concrete panels, reducing the number of post-tensioning tendons needed and eliminating need for falsework, says DeMond. It curves away from the vehicular deck as far as 22 ft at midspan and up to 4 ft above it. The three-lane vehicular deck, also originally designed as cast-in-place concrete, is now a 650,000-lb steel box girder.
Kokosing began its $44-million contract in September 2006, and was one of the contractors invited to review the original design, says Kokosing area manager Tom Graf. The redesign is still “quite different from a traditional bridge” but proved much more buildable than the original, he says.
Still, heavy rains and unexpected site conditions have posed challenges and $1.9 million in change orders, says Ortman. Kokosing received a $600,000 change order related to demolishing the old bridge after it discovered that sheet piles were 5 ft higher than had been expected around the old piers, which hampered its ability to demolish them using explosives, notes Ortman.
PDM Bridge, Eau Claire, Wis., fabricated the steel for the vehicular box, and sent them in 18 shipments in 18-ft-wide trailers, says Graf. They were spliced and placed in pairs in up to 650,000-lb picks. But when PDM was ready to send the steel for the last center arch segment, Midwest flooding forced a change in delivery. “The roads in southern Wisconsin couldn’t take the load permits, so we had to ferry them across the Great Lakes,” says Graf.
The arch segments arrived lying on their sides and were rotated 90° on site, says Graf. Kokosing relied heavily on 3-D modeling and construction engineering by Janssen and Spaans Engineering Inc., Indianapolis. “We were living by their models,” Graf says. “When you rotate everything 10° out of plumb, nothing is standard. I don’t know how we would have done it 20 years ago.”
Completion has been pushed back from June 2009 to June 2010, after which Kokosing would face $2,000 per day in liquidated damages. But it seems the hard part is over. Kokosing has connected the floorbeams to the arch structure with nine struts and has hung the 17 pairs of arch cables. “Late fall and next year we’re in the concrete business,” Graf says. “We’ll pour the deck and edge beams, the pedestrian walkway and overlays.”
New I-35W bridge has 'smart bridge' technology By STEVE KARNOWSKI ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER MINNEAPOLIS -- A stream of data will be flowing from hundreds of sensors in the new Interstate 35W bridge Thursday morning when commuters drive across it for the first time since the old bridge collapsed into the Mississippi River 13 months ago. The purpose of the "smart bridge" technology isn't to warn of another impending disaster, it's to detect small problems before they become big ones, said Alan Phipps, design manager for the project with Figg Engineering Group Inc. of Tallahassee, Fla. "What these sensors are for, it's like going to your doctor for your health checkup," Phipps said. "It's to ensure you're maintained in top shape so you never get close to having a serious problem." The new bridge is due to open at 5 a.m., when crews remove the barricades that have stood since the old bridge collapsed Aug. 1, 2007, killing 13 people and injuring 145. State troopers will then lead a slow procession of motorists across the new bridge in both directions to reopen a major artery that carried 140,000 trips a day. The $234 million bridge was completed on budget and more than three months ahead of the Dec. 24 deadline. That means the contractors - led by the team of Flatiron Construction Corp. of Longmont, Colo., and Manson Construction Co. of Seattle - should get a bonus close to the contract maximum of $27 million, though the actual amount hasn't been determined. There are also more visible differences between the new bridge and old. The new bridge is concrete instead of steel, and built with redundant systems so that if one part fails it won't collapse. The old bridge, finished in 1967, was called "fracture critical," which meant that a failure of any number of structural elements would bring down the entire bridge. Within the concrete of the new bridge are embedded 323 sensors that will generate an extensive record of how it handles the stresses and strains of traffic and Minnesota's harsh climate. The data will help engineers maintain the bridge and advance the art of bridge design, Phipps said. They carry technical names that include: -"Strain gauges" and "accelerometers" to measure how the bridge handles the loads and vibrations that the heavy traffic will put on it. -"Linear potentiometers" at the expansion joints and bearings to measure how the bridge expands and contracts as Minnesota alternates between its frigid winters and steamy summers. Phipps likened them to "electronic rulers." -"Chloride penetration sensors" in the bridge deck that will watch for corrosion. They will monitor how deeply deicing salt penetrates into the deck over time by measuring how much corrosion the salt causes in "sacrificial" steel bars implanted at various depths, so that engineers can better determine when the deck needs replacing. A system of sensors and cameras will feed data on traffic flow - including speeds, accidents, stalls and other disruptions - to a traffic management center. Other sensors will automatically activate the bridge's anti-icing system when weather and temperature conditions are ripe for the formation of ice. And security sensors are meant to detect intruders who might try to get into unauthorized areas such as the access doors to the bridge's hollow concrete box girders. During construction, sensors were also placed in the fresh concrete to monitor the curing process to help determine when it was strong enough to proceed to the next steps. Phipps said knowing that allowed the work to proceed faster. Phipps said these sorts of monitoring technologies have been used on limited scale elsewhere, mostly on existing bridges. He predicted that more and more bridge owners will want them as a way to more effectively maintain the health of their structures. The data will feed into a bank of computers in a control room near the bridge, Phipps said. From there, engineers at the Minnesota Department of Transportation and researchers at the University of Minnesota can download it for analysis. Catherine French, a civil engineering professor at the University of Minnesota, has worked with the developers of the system and will be among the researchers analyzing the data over the long term. She said the large number of sensors on the bridge, and the fact that they were installed from the start, make this project stand out. "It is kind of on the cutting edge," she said. French said the main value will be the insights the system provides for building future bridges. Engineers will be able to compare the bridge's actual behavior to the models they've developed and refine those models accordingly, she said. To calibrate the sensors, crews drove eight 25-ton MnDOT sand trucks onto the bridge Sunday night, concentrating as many as 200 tons in various locations so the instruments could measure how the structure responded, Phipps said. Engineers were pleased to see that even the gauges deep in the foundation elements were able to detect the loads, he said. Because the four hollow box girders that support the traffic lanes are big enough to walk through, it will be simple enough to upgrade the monitoring systems in the coming decades by mounting new sensors inside. That's important, since the bridge is designed to last more than 100 years. "I'd be disappointed if a hundred years from now it's still the same technology," Phipps said. The National Transportation Safety Board has scheduled a public hearing in November to discuss its investigation into what caused the old bridge to collapse. In January, NTSB Chairman Mark Rosenker pointed to a design error in the gusset plates that helped connect the bridge's steel beams as a "critical factor." The NTSB has also focused on the weight of construction materials that were on the bridge for a resurfacing project.
I-35W bridge was doomed from the start
Jim Gehrz, Star Tribune
The reflections of workmen are cast in standing waters at the site of the I-35W bridge collapse during investigation, evaluation and recovery efforts in August 2007.
Investigators will say the blame lies with designers who erred in calculating the size of key gusset plates, sources say.
By TONY KENNEDY and PAUL McENROE, Star Tribune staff writers
Last update: October 26, 2008 - 4:38 PM
As a building professional, I often work with engineers and know the issues they deal with every day. One accomplished fellow I worked with … read more hated flying. When I asked him why, he admitted that as an engineer, he understood the complex chain of things that had to go absolutely right in order for the plane to get to its destination intact, and the many things that could easily fail along the way. This was a very educated man that knew a lot more about the airplanes he was getting into than probably any other passenger. The odds are in your favor when you fly, but there is always the chance a mistake was made... just as when you take the bridge across the river. Expecting absolute perfection is unrealistic. That is why there is a 100% safety factor in engineering design. There are probably dozens of bridges in Minnesota with entirely human design or construction flaws. The safety factor is why we dont see them fall.\
Original designers of the Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis likely neglected to calculate the size of key gusset plates that eventually failed, a human mistake that culminated 40 years later when 13 people died after the span collapsed, federal safety investigators have found.
They also have determined that corrosion of certain gusset plates, extreme heat and shifting piers did not contribute to the bridge's collapse on Aug. 1, 2007, according to sources with direct knowledge of the probe. In three weeks, investigators will present their findings to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which will publicly review the draft report in a hearing Nov. 13 at the board's Washington headquarters. After that, the board will use the draft as the basis for its final report on the probable cause of the collapse and recommendations for preventing future disasters.
Had key steel gusset plates been designed properly -- they were one-half inch thick instead of an inch -- the bridge would have been able to withstand tons of concrete and steel added in two renovation projects as well as the 287-ton construction load on the bridge the day it collapsed, sources said.
In January, NTSB Chairman Mark Rosenker was criticized by U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., and others for placing too much early emphasis on gusset plate failure as the potential cause. But the investigators' findings appear to validate Rosenker's early stance.
The safety investigators found records showing that the bridge designers knew how to calculate the thickness of gusset plates, but probably did not perform that task for the bridge's center portion, where the initial failure occurred. Investigators leave open the possibility that the design firm, Sverdrup & Parcel, carried out the calculations but erred. That assessment is based on a review of the original work papers of the St. Louis-based firm, which was later acquired by Jacobs Engineering of San Francisco.
Minnesota bridges rated: An interactive map of bridges that are "structurally deficient," "functionally obsolete" or have gusset plates like those on the I-35W bridge.
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Graphic: Crucial, undetected design flaw
ANARA TOWER: Dubai’s Titanic Turbine-Shaped Superstructure
November 3, 2008
by
Mike Chino
It seems that hardly a week passes before Dubai’s prospective skyline is updated with plans for yet another soaring skyscraper or incredible development. The latest world-class superstructure to grace the modern megopolis is Anara Tower, an ambitious project crowned with an eye-catching propeller-shaped peak. Designed by Atkins Designs Studio and Developed by Tameer Holding Investment, the 2,150 foot tall skyscraper will be aiming for LEED silver certification when construction begins next year.
Shaped like super-massive wind turbine, Anara Tower is a mixed-use high-rise that will features residences, offices, retail spaces, a hotel, and a world-class art gallery. The 125 story structure will incorporate sky gardens every 27 floors and will boast a luxury restaurant situated within the glossy glass capsule in the center of the tower’s peak. Atkins Design Studio is aiming to maximize the skyscraper’s efficiency by incorporating water and energy efficiency strategies and potentially installing renewable sources of energy.
The Anara Tower website states: “Inspired by the vertical shape and representation of the Minaret, the antecedent of lighthouses and skyscrapers of today, the central aim behind the creation of Anara Tower is to produce a form that would be instantly recognizable on the local, regional, and architectural stage”
Construction is currently slated to begin at the end of 2009.
+ Anara Tower
+ Atkins Design Studio
+ Tameer Holding Investment
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October 31, 2008 Laptops replace drawings, clipboards on the construction job site IAN HARVEY correspondent There’s a new tool showing up at the job site, but don’t expect it to out dig, out muscle or out last any of the standard issue cranes, jack hammers or nailers. It’s a computer, more likely a laptop and or a tablet PC, which has a touch-sensitive screen for input much like the venerable pen and clipboard it’s replacing. While such technology has been around architects and engineering offices for decades, generating CAD plans and doing a myriad of other tasks, it’s only now starting to show up at the dirty end of the construction industry – the job site. Until fairly recently, computers were still expensive and deemed too fragile for the rough and tumble world of the job where dust, dirt, grime, solvents and hard objects could reduce it to a pile of useless junk before the foundations were poured. Partly it’s because the technology supporting laptops, such as high speed wireless connectivity on the job site, wasn’t as available or as cost effective as it is today. The combination of high speed connectivity, tougher machines, special software for the construction industry, and a wave of tech-savvy site administrators and coordinators is changing the way processes have been traditionally managed. “I can be walking around a site with my tablet PC and one of the guys will come up and say, ‘Hey, the dimension for this isn’t on the drawing’ and I can pull up the drawing, highlight it, email it and get a response back while I’m still talking to him,” says Anthony Broccolini of Broccolini Construction. Broccolini uses two main software platforms, Autodesk Buzzsaw, from one of the two dominant CAD system makers which is designed to integrate at the construction level, and the other from Vela Systems, makers of software which manages processes that were previously captured on forms by pencil. Broccolini has been trying to integrate more computer-based systems into their business for the last year. “Especially things like a deficiency report. You walk around, you capture the deficiencies and then you email it or print it on site and hand it back to the guys and they can start working on it. Before you’d write it down, take it back to the office and have someone type it up and it would take five days before you could turn it around.” But teaching old dogs new IT tricks isn’t the easiest thing in an industry as entrenched as the construction sector. “In construction, any time you show the guys some computers it causes them to pause, particularly in the field guys, on the site,” says Josh Kanner of Vela System. That’s changing now, he says. Instead of explaining how the technology can save time and money, he can point to real world examples where the software and laptops are streamlining processes, replacing those ever-present tubes of drawings and clipboards. The key is not just tablet PCs, he says, but the back end of the system which ensures all documents relating to a job are updated at the same time so that no one is working on an older revision. Hardware makers are responding to interest as more manufacturers enter the field to provide rugged computer equipment and mobile field administration software to harsh and dangerous environments. In an era where the trend is toward smaller, lighter, energy efficient machines, the rugged laptops and handhelds – with their heavy weight and oversize frames – seem like dinosaurs compared to mainstream laptops. The key standard is the U.S. military spec MIL-STD 810F. Generally it’s cited as a standard which ensures the laptop will stand up to physical shocks and resist environmental damage. It’s that ability to take a kicking and keep ticking which makes them ideal for companies like Terasen Gas, which assigns Toughbooks to some 260 field employees, most of whom are involving in troubleshooting gas lines. Terasen employees download work orders and upload completions, which cuts out paperwork and give central managers a handle in real time as to where their resources are, which further boosts productivity. “A lot of the younger people coming up now are tech savvy and they’ll end up working with the old guys who are the site administrators and they’ll adapt to the technology,” says Broccolini.
Pumping Up A Record-Setting Project
By Kelly Hayes -- Associated Construction Publications, 11/1/2008
In early April 2008, a Putzmeister BSA 14000 SHP-D pump reached yet another world record on the Burj Dubai in the United Arab Emirates with an extraordinary concrete conveying height of 1,988 feet (606 meters). Unimix, the concrete supplier and pumping service for the project, first set its own record with its BSA 14000 SHP-D in May 2007 for reaching a conveying height of 1,483 feet (452 meters) for level 126 of the Burj Dubai, and then in November 2007 it broke a world record by conveying concrete to a height of 1,971 feet (601 meters) for Burj Dubai.
The total number of floors at completion for Burj Dubai will not be revealed until the entire project is complete in 2008, but it is already the world's tallest building.
Site Specs:<h2 class="entry-title"><a class="entry-title-link" href="../provence/227006" target="_blank">Le Pont du Gard มรดกโลก 2,000 ปี</a></h2>
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Viaduct options: Down to 2
Up or down, each could top $3 billion
By LARRY LANGE
P-I REPORTER
And then there were two.
Maybe.
Officials from the state, county and city transportation agencies said Thursday they'll study two options for replacing Seattle's earthquake-damaged Alaskan Way Viaduct: one an elevated highway, the other a surface option using two downtown streets to handle traffic displaced once the viaduct is torn down.
But advocates of a tunnel -- the most expensive alternative -- showed no signs of letting up on their effort to get highway lanes built underground near the city's waterfront. And money continues to be an issue, given limited state budgets facing further pressure from the global economic slowdown.
Both the elevated and surface plans put forth Thursday ultimately would cost more than $3 billion.
Gov. Chris Gregoire, who must help choose a replacement, raised the cost issue. The state thus far has allocated $2.4 billion for a viaduct replacement with the option of adding another $400 million.
Given the higher price tags for the two options, the governor asked:
"Who's going to pay? We have $2.8 billion, period."
The two options being studied further are:
The cost estimate is $2.3 billion. When construction costs, traffic mitigation and related projects are added, the cost would be $3.5 billion. The cost includes dealing with traffic during construction, plus the cost of initial work including a new intersection near the sports stadiums.
The cost is estimated at $2.2 billion. With construction and traffic mitigation and related projects, the cost would be $3.3 billion.
Gregoire, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels and County Executive Ron Sims have agreed to pick the final replacement -- likely by the end of the month, attempting to end years of community battles over replacing the viaduct that state officials say could collapse in a major earthquake.
Gregoire, in town to be briefed on the agency's work, told interested parties later the viaduct is "a literal threat to the safety of the people who are on there."
She already has pledged to tear down the 1950s-vintage structure by 2012 even though the replacement hasn't been chosen. About 110,000 vehicles a day use the viaduct, which is one of the main north-south routes through Seattle.
Officials of the city, county and state transportation departments said the new "hybrid" elevated option was the lowest-cost highway bypass that could handle large amounts of traffic, including more buses. It assumes increased Metro bus service on new "Rapid Ride" service and moving the waterfront streetcar to First Avenue, a potentially controversial item. It also includes changes in how Interstate 5 is managed, supposedly to help handle the shift of traffic off the old structure.
The new surface-transit design would connect the lanes to the Battery Street Tunnel at an intersection with a signal. Streets north of the tunnel would be reconnected with signal-controlled intersections on Aurora Avenue. New transit lanes would be added on Madison, Stewart, Olive and Howell Streets, among others, and Third Avenue would be limited to buses all day. The proposal would make Mercer Street two-way between I-5 and Elliott Avenue. Transportation officials said the design promises less cost than highway bypass alternatives and removing the viaduct opens up new waterfront views and reduces noise, the engineers said.
The three departments don't plan further study of an elevated highway structure including a park on top and office and retail space, the option backed by state House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle. Staffers said there were concerns about access to and evacuations of the park. Downtown business interests had questioned the proposal separately, though Chopp has expended considerable time developing it.
"I expect Speaker Chopp is not done," said state Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond.
The three departments expect to continue analyzing the two alternatives and recommend one to Gregoire, Nickels and Sims so they can decide. Nickels, questioned later about the two choices, declined to say where he's leaning, though he's repeatedly said he doesn't want another elevated highway on the waterfront. The city has threatened in the past to reject permits for a replacement option it didn't like.
Seattle and King County officials said some parts of the projects might be eliminated to scale them back. Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis said other cash sources might be found. Nickels said those issues will be part of the decision the three make.
Sen. Chris Marr, D-Spokane and vice-chairman of the state Senate Transportation Committee, said local funding might be explored, possibly using an optional car-tab fee.
Despite criticism by tunnel advocates, the departments didn't propose further study of a tunnel that would be bored underground between the stadiums and Aurora Avenue at lower Queen Anne. But they agreed, after heavy lobbying by tunnel backers, to re-examine the cost estimates. Experts consulted by the Seattle-based Cascadia Institute in particular, had disputed the initial cost estimates of up to $4.5 billion as too high.
Tayloe Washburn, a Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce representative, picked up the argument in a session following the briefing to the governor, Nickels and Sims. Washburn said the tunnel, along with a surface-traffic option, could provide a third alternative that would handle traffic while removing the old structure from the waterfront.
In the long run, "you pay for what you get," he said.
Others were skeptical that a "surface" option would handle the heavy viaduct traffic once it's gone. "The three departments listened to the debate but decided to stick to the original plan -- analyzing the two new options and checking their bored-tunnel cost estimates.
COMMENT ON VIADUCT PROPOSALS
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“นิวยอร์ก” นครระฟ้า ระทึกตา ระลึกใจ
แต่ที่น่าเหลือเชื่อสำหรับฉัน คือ คำกล่าวของเหล่านักวิเคราะห์ที่ต่างดาหน้าออกมาบอกว่า “นิวยอร์ก”เมืองใหญ่ที่สุดของสหรัฐอเมริกา เมืองที่เป็นศูนย์กลางการเงินหมายเลขหนึ่งของโลก จะตกต่ำและศูนย์เสียอำนาจทางการเงินที่เคยมี
นิวยอร์กในสายตาของคนอื่นๆ ฉันไม่อาจรับรู้ได้ว่านอกจากความเป็นเมืองใหญ่ และภาพของเครื่องบินพาณิชย์พุ่งเข้าชน “ตึกเวิร์ดเทรดเซนเตอร์” (World Trade Center) อันเป็นสัญลักษณ์ทางเศรษฐกิจของประเทศสหรัฐอเมริกา ในวันที่ 11 กันยายน ปี ค.ศ.2001 แล้วยังจะมีสิ่งใดน่าสนใจอีกบ้าง
มีสวนสาธารณะอันใหญ่โต มีพิพิธภัณฑ์ประดับผลงานศิลปะชิ้นเอก และของสะสมจากทั่วมุมโลก แถมยังเป็นเมืองที่มีชื่อเล่นที่น่ากิน “Big Apple”และ เมืองแอปเปิ้ลยักษ์ใบนี้ ก็ขึ้นชื่อเป็นมหานครแห่งการแสวงหา เป็นโลกใหม่ที่หอมหวานสำหรับผู้อพยพที่เข้ามาตั้งถิ่นฐานในสหรัฐอเมริกา
อ้อ...นครนิวยอร์ก ที่ฉันกำลังเอ่ยถึงนี้ หมายถึง “นิวยอร์กซีตี้” ที่เป็นเมืองหนึ่งในรัฐนิวยอร์ก อยู่ทางฝั่งตะวันออกของสหรัฐฯ โดยประกอบด้วย 5 เขต คือ แมนฮัตตัน (Manhattan), บร็องซ์ ( Bronx), ควีนส์ ( Queens), บรู๊คลิน ( Brooklyn) และสเตตันไอส์แลนด์ ( Staten Island) มีเพียงแมนฮัตตันและสเตตันไอส์แลนด์เท่านั้นที่มีลักษณะเป็นเกาะ โดยเกาะแมนฮัตตันจะถูกล้อมรอบด้วยแม่น้ำ อีสต์ริเวอร์ ( East River) ทางฝั่งตะวันออกและแม่น้ำฮัตสัน ( Hudson River) ทางฝั่งตะวันตก
สำหรับสถานที่ท่องเที่ยวที่น่าสนใจในนิวยอร์ก ก็มีมากมายเสียจนกล่าวไม่หวาดไม่ไหว เช่น “อนุสาวรีย์เทพีเสรีภาพ” (Statue of Liberty) ที่นักท่องเที่ยวส่วนใหญ่จะนิยมข้ามเรือจาก South Ferry ที่แบตเตอรีปาร์ก โดยจะจอดแวะเกาะลิเบอร์ตี (Liberty Island) เพื่อมาชมอนุสาวรีย์เทพีเสรีภาพ ของขวัญที่ชาวฝรั่งเศสมอบให้แก่ชาวอเมริกันในปี ค.ศ. 1886 เพื่อรำลึกถึงความเป็นพันธมิตรในสงครามประกาศอิสรภาพ
ชาวอเมริกัน 80,000 คน บริจาคเงิน 102,000 เหรียญเป็นค่าก่อสร้างฐานอนุสาวรีย์ ทำพิธีเปิดเมื่อ 28 ตุลาคม 1886 นับตั้งแต่นั้นมาเทพีเสรีภาพก็กลายเป็นสัญลักษณ์ของอเมริกา หรือ โลกใหม่แห่งเสรีภาพของผู้อพยพเข้ามาตั้งถิ่นฐานทุกคน และกลายเป็นหนึ่งในทิวทัศน์อันเป็นสัญลักษณ์ของนิวยอร์ก
และหากใครเลือกล่องเรือชมรอบเกาะแมนฮัตตัน สิ่งหนึ่งที่จะสามารถมองเห็นได้คือสะพานแขวนแห่งแรกๆของโลกอย่าง “สะพานบรู๊คลิน”(Brooklyn Bridge) สะพานแขวนแห่งแรกๆของโลกที่ยังคงโดดเด่น และสะดุดตาที่สุด สร้างขึ้นตั้งแต่ปี 1867 - 1883 ทอดตัวยาข้ามแม่น้ำอีสต์ฮัตสัน เป็นอีกหนึ่งเส้นทางที่พาเราออกจากเกาะแมนฮัตตัน ไปสู่แผ่นดินใหญ่อีกย่าน
จากนั้นต้องแวะมาดูแสงสีอันตระการตาของ “ละครบรอดเวย์” (Broadway) มีคนเคยกล่าวไว้ว่า ถ้ามานิวยอร์กแล้วไม่ได้ชมละครบรอดเวย์สักเรื่อง ก็เหมือนมาไม่ถึงนิวยอร์ก
บนถนนบรอดเวย์นี้ยังเป็นย่าน “Time Square” ที่ยามค่ำคืนบริเวณนี้สว่างไสวด้วยไฟนับหมื่นดวงจากบรรดาป้ายโฆษณา จนมีผู้ขนานนามถนนบรอดเวย์ในช่วงนี้ว่า “The Great White Way” นอกจากบรรดาโรงละครบรอดเวย์ทั้งหลายแล้ว ยังมีโรงแรม ร้านค้า และร้านอาหารมากมาย
เดอะเม็ตยังมีโปรแกรมดีๆในแต่ละช่วงเวลาเช่น ไกด์ทัวร์สำหรับผู้ชมในระดับพื้นฐานเพื่อสร้างความเข้าใจในงานศิลปะ มีเลกเชอร์และ “Gallery Talk” ในหัวข้อต่างๆสำหรับผู้มีพื้นฐานความรู้บ้างแล้ว มีคอนเสิร์ต ภาพยนตร์ และรายการสำหรับเด็ก
จากที่นี่จะสามารถมองเห็นทิวทัศน์ของ “เซ็นทรัลปาร์ก” (Central Park )ได้ด้วย ซึ่งที่นี่ผู้มาเยือนนิวยอร์กแทบทุกคนจะต้องคิดถึงเพราะความกว้างใหญ่ไพศาล ของมัน แต่รู้หรือไม่ว่าในบรรดาสวนสาธารณะทั้งสิบแห่งที่ใหญ่ที่สุดในนิวยอร์กนั้น เซ็นทรัลปาร์กอยู่ที่อันดับห้าเท่านั้น ที่นี่ใช้เวลาก่อสร้างกว่า 15 ปี มีทั้ง สวนสัตว์ สนามเด็กเล่น สถานที่เล่นกีฬา และอนุสาวรีย์มากมาย ที่นี่จึงเป็นที่ซึ่งใครก็ตามที่อยากจะหามุมสงบเข้ามานั่ง
ดังที่เราจะเห็นได้ว่า ทางตอนล่างของแมนฮัตตันเป็นบริเวณที่ผู้ตั้งรกรากต่างเชื้อชาติจับกลุ่มอยู่ กันเป็นชุมชน มีชื่อย่านตามถิ่นฐานเดิมว่า ลิตเติล อิตาลี (Little ltaly) หรือไชน่าทาวน์ (Chinatown) เป็นต้น
มหานครแห่งนี้จึงเต็มเปี่ยมไปด้วยเสน่ห์และมนต์ขลัง ที่ใครๆก็ล้วนอยากมาเยือน แล้วคุณล่ะ...คิดจะมาเยือนนิวยอร์กบ้างหรือยัง
Dubai Outdoes Itself With a Universe of Islands
by Mike Chino
15 December 2008
If we ever harbored the sentiment that Dubai’s dubious construction blitz would slow in times of economic unrest, the astronomical scale of the UAE’s latest project will surely dispel these qualms. Dubai’s largest developer, Nakheel, recently revealed plans for an entire archipelago of universe-themed islands at a $20 million dollar opening party for the Atlantis Resort. The cosmic string of strands will feature a sun, stars, and planets, and will be situated inshore of the already constructed World Islands.
As if Dubai needed to further justify its status as an out-of-this-world tourist destination, the emirate has decided to step things up by constructing a universe-themed chain of islands. The Universe will comprise 3,000 hectares of land and will take 15 to 20 years to build. Curiously, the astronomical project was launched as part of Nakheel’s recently debuted Blue Communities initiative. The program promises cleaner water, less pollution, and claims that developments like the universe are designed to help maintain and protect the world’s coastlines.
Dubai has already drawn a considerable amount of ire for its supermassive “green” projects that boast a questionable degree of sustainable credibility. Although man-made seawalls can certainly play an important role in preserving coastal ecology, it’s hard for us to justify a swirling archipelago of amoeba-shaped islands as the most efficient way to protect the world’s coastlines. Additionally, the techniques used in the construction of the World Islands have raised concerns over beach erosion, damage to coral reefs, and biodiversity.
+ Nakheel
Via World Architecture News
Jumeira Gardens: A Super-City Within Dubai
by Mike Chino
13 October 2008
As the inexorable juggernaut of Dubai’s construction boom wears on amid a turbulent economic era, the city recently unveiled an incredible new development that is intended to cement its status as “a global city of the future”. Master-planned by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture and developed by Meraas, Jumeira Gardens is a modern megopolis that will feature no fewer than three soaring superstructures designed by AS + GG: 1 Dubai, Park Gate, and 1 Park Avenue. Although the super-massive project will consume approximately $95 billion, it’s encouraging to see that the entire community has been designed with sustainability in mind.
Conceived as “an integrated city within a city”, Jumeira Gardens is designed to be a mixed-use development that incorporates low, medium, and high-density zones for business, residences, retail, leisure, and recreation. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill master-planned the East Park Zone, while Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill master-planned the Atrium City area. Although plans are still being finalized, Meraas Development has confirmed that “‘Green’ buildings and construction, resource conservation and overall sustainability will inform every aspect of this new district, with tools such as intelligent infrastructure technology and cutting-edge eco design serving to reduce the district’s collective ecological footprint.”
Chicago-based Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture are credited with designing scores of other structures that incorporate sustainable strategies. The centerpiece of Jumeira Gardens will be 1 Dubai, A tri-partite skyscraper that will rise to 3281 feet, making it the third structure tower in the UAE. Its soaring towers will be connected by a series of glass suspension sky-bridges.
Park Gate comprises six mid-rise towers that are arranged in facing pairs. A hanging garden canopy stretches between each set of structures, providing shade and cooling the neighborhood by as much as 10 degrees centigrade.
The smooth curves of 1 Park Avenue evoke Dubai’s historic relationship with the Arabian Gulf. The 1,800 foot tower will incorporate solar panels, wind turbines, and a variety of other sustainable strategies in its design.
Excavation for Jumeira Gardens has already begun, and the development is expected to take 12 years to complete.
+ Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
+ Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture
+ Meraas Development
Via World Architecture News
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China is investing billions in commercial and commuter rail lines like this one in Jiaozhou, in Shandong province.
GUANGZHOU, China — In an effort to hold back the domestic effects of the global downturn, China is starting to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on new highways, railroads and other infrastructure projects.
A typically crowded cabin on a train from Beijing to Chengdu. With little debt, China has the money to invest heavily in a much-needed repair and expansion of its infrastructure.
The stimulus plan, one of the world’s largest, promises to carry the modernity of China’s coasts deep into the hinterlands, buying the kind of great leap forward it took the United States decades — and a world war — to build, and priming China for a new level of global competition.
As President Obama and Congress draft an $825 billion stimulus plan for the United States, China is already two months into its effort. And while Democrats have put aside calls for big transportation projects, with the House bill allocating less than 5 percent of spending for the construction of highways, rail lines and mass transit programs, China is furiously pouring concrete and laying rails.
A $17.6 billion passenger rail line across the deserts of northwest China, a $22 billion web of freight rail lines in Shanxi province in north-central China and a $24 billion high-speed passenger rail line from Beijing to Guangzhou here in southeastern China are among the biggest projects. But extra spending is being planned in practically every town, city and county across the country.
And, unlike the United States, China has the cash to pay for it, with few debts and a tiny deficit.
China will spend $88 billion constructing intercity rail lines, the highest priority in the plan. It spent $44 billion last year and just $12 billion as recently as 2004, said John Scales, the transport coordinator for China at the World Bank.
“I don’t think anything compares except maybe the growth of the U.S. rail network at the start of the 20th century,” Mr. Scales said.
Fear, not competition, is motivating the building boom. Chinese leaders are increasingly worried about the slowdown of their economy and the growing risk of protests by disgruntled workers. New numbers released Thursday by the government suggested they had cause for concern.
Gross domestic product grew just 6.8 percent between the fourth quarter of 2008 and a year earlier. Growth for all of 2008 was 9 percent, down from 13 percent in 2007, and every indication is that expansion has continued to slow.
Policy makers “are already in a mode of panic,” said Qu Hongbin, the chief China economist at HSBC, even before the new numbers were released. “They’re going to spend like there’s no tomorrow.”
When inflation started to become a problem in China in the spring of 2004, Beijing began a four-year effort to prevent the economy from overheating. It barred local and provincial governments from proceeding with plans for many roads, airports, subway systems and other infrastructure.
Now Beijing is urging local and provincial governments to go ahead with their projects because they are, in Washington’s current parlance, “shovel ready.”
The combined national, provincial and local spending for economic stimulus promises to change the face of China, giving the country a world-class infrastructure for moving goods and people quickly, cheaply and reliably across great distances.
“The increased expenditure on infrastructure will certainly contribute to China’s productivity growth and improve its long-term competitiveness, allowing it to pull away from its Asian neighbors who are much more constrained — by higher levels of budget deficits and public debt — in their ability to unleash a fiscal stimulus,” said Eswar Prasad, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Feng Fei, the director general of industrial economics at the policy research unit of China’s cabinet, the State Council, said that steep increases in railroad investments would create lasting benefits. The goal is to slow China’s dependence on personal cars and imported oil, to reduce air pollution and to relieve the annual shortage of seats on trains during Chinese New Year, when millions of people visit their families, he said.
China has already built as many miles of high-speed passenger rail lines in the last four years as Europe has in two decades. A new bullet train from Beijing to Tianjin, opened last summer, travels at up to 217 miles an hour; the top speed of Amtrak’s Acela Express trains in the Northeastern United States is 150 m.p.h., and it is only briefly attained.
The government has nearly finished the construction of a high-speed rail route from Beijing to Shanghai at a cost of $23.5 billion — almost equal to the price of the entire Three Gorges hydroelectric dam project on the Yangtze River. The authorities recently disclosed that they had 110,000 workers laboring to finish the route as quickly as possible.
Aside from transportation, most of the rest of China’s national stimulus program will be spent on airports, highways and environmental projects, particularly water treatment plants, Mr. Feng said.
So extensive are the plans being drawn up by government agencies in Beijing and elsewhere that they have collided with the government’s longstanding policy of maintaining self-sufficiency in food production.