The science wing of a Seattle elementary school is the fourth project to be certified under the Living Building Challenge and the first under version 2.0 of the Challenge.

Only 12 years after its completion, the New York building that Tod Williams Billie Tsien designed for the American Folk Art Museum is slated to be torn down, according to a story in the New York Times. In 2011, the institution sold the building to the neighboring Museum of Modern Art to abate life-threatening financial troubles, including $32 million in debt taken on to finance its construction. MoMA plans to demolish the building to make way for an expansion of its own facilities that includes an 82-story tower by Jean Nouvel.

After nearly six years of development, the 1,070-ft-tall Transbay Transit Tower in San Francisco was brought one step closer to reality on March 27, when project developers held a ceremonial groundbreaking upon closing the $192-million land purchase.

Every few years since 2002, the Solar Decathlon has been staged on the National Mall in Washington, DC, biennially since 2005. Yet the U.S. Department of Energy competition was meant to have impacts well beyond a brief showcase in the nation’s capital. The decathlon ignites whole academic networks, as various college and university teams prepare their entries. And their research moves markets and consumer demand, so that photovoltaics and sustainable building in general becomes more assimilated.

The Colorado Dept. of Transportation says that nearly 200 miles of highway and more than 24 bridges will be under construction in the northeastern section of Colorado, with costs totaling more than $130 million. That includes projects in Boulder, Cheyenne, Elbert, Kit Carson, Larimer, Lincoln, Logan, Morgan, Phillips, Sedgwick, Washington, Weld and Yuma counties.

CEMEX Inc., which owns and operates a Portland cement-manufacturing facility in Lyons, Colo., has agreed to operate advanced pollution controls on its kiln and pay a $1-million civil penalty to resolve alleged violations of the Clean Air Act.

The new Saint Joseph replacement hospital is located adjacent to the current hospital campus east of downtown Denver. Denver’s Mortenson Construction marked completion of the concrete and steel-frame construction of the Exempla Saint Joseph replacement hospital with a topping-out ceremony at the jobsite in Denver on April 18

MWH, the wet infrastructure sector leader and provider of strategic consulting, environmental, engineering and construction services, today announced it has opened an office in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The office will serve as a hub for construction and engineering professionals and an administrative staff who will support MWH efforts in Africa.

Public-private partnerships are alive and thriving in Colorado because of leadership from the Colorado Dept. of Transportation, the Regional Transportation District and the City and County of Denver. P3 projects benefit from Colorado’s Integrated Project Delivery statute, which was enacted in 2007 and permits all state agencies, municipalities and special districts to deliver capital projects through any combination of design, demolition, construction, operation, maintenance and finance.a

Thirty-eight percent of highway contractors had motor vehicles crash into their construction work zones during the past year, according to the results of a new highway work-zone study conducted by the Associated General Contractors of America. Association officials added that the study found work-zone crashes are more likely to kill vehicle operators and passengers than construction workers.

Cost of Living Adjustment or COLA is an automatic adjustment applied to Social Security retirement payments when the consumer price index increases at a rate of at least 3%, the first quarter of one year to the first quarter of the next year.

The largest monthly price decrease among construction inputs occurred in the producer price index for diesel fuel.  Prices for construction materials were flat in March, as plunging diesel fuel and metals prices offset increases in items used in new housing and nonresidential building renovations, according to a recent analysis of new federal figures released by the Associated General Contractors of America.

Arbour Commons plans to offer 394 studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom apartment homes.  Loveland, Colo.-based developer McWhinney plans to begin construction later this month on its fifth multifamily project, Arbour Commons, in Westminster. The official groundbreaking will take place in May.

Coverage is the scope of protection provided under an insurance policy. In property insurance, coverage lists perils insured against, properties covered, locations covered, individuals insured, and the limits of indemnification. In life insurance, living and death benefits are listed.

Given the long-term operate-and-maintain component typically included in P3s, everyone involved in project development must focus on its full life cycle.  Public-private partnerships (P3s) have burst onto the scene in the U.S. as a solution to help meet the overwhelming need for public infrastructure and the underwhelming public resources to pay for it.

Comprehensive Insurance: Auto insurance coverage providing protection in the event of physical damage (other than collision) or theft of the insured car. As an example, fire damage or a cracked windshield would be covered under the comprehensive section.

Just over two weeks after a landslide sent 165 million tons of earth down into the world’s largest open-pit copper mines located west of Salt Lake City, covering portions of the floor up to 300 ft deep, mine officials will be allowed a closer look at the damage. The Mine Safety and Health Administration recently cleared geologists and engineers from Rio Tinto’s Kennecott Utah Copper to enter the massive slide area in the Bingham Canyon mine.

Coinsurance:

In Property Insurance: Coinsurance in property insurance requires the policyholder to carry insurance equal to a specified percentage of the value of property to receive full payment on a loss.

For Health Insurance: Coinsurance for Health Insurance is a percentage of each claim above the deductible paid by the policyholder. For a 20% health insurance coinsurance clause, the policyholder pays for the deductible plus 20% of his covered losses. After paying 80% of losses up to a specified ceiling, the insurer starts paying 100% of losses.

A Denver-based company finds alternate uses for unusual materials destined for the landfill. You ever wonder what happened to all that vinyl from the gigantic political billboard near your highway exit after the election was over?

Lots of these ungainly materials are automatically carted off to local landfills, but a Denver-based business repurposed materials is finding a second life for them. They define the castoffs they purchase and resell as “byproducts and waste that have value ‘as is’ to a second, unrelated industry,” and they are the only company in the United States whose entire product line is “preowned.”

A Group Health clinic in Puyallup, Washington, has become the first building in the world to achieve LEED for Healthcare (LEED–HC) certification. The CollinsWoerman-designed outpatient medical center provides a relatively nontoxic indoor environment while also using equipment and exterior products that avoid polluting outdoor air and groundwater. The project attempts to reduce patient and staff stress through better design

The Girl Scouts of America (GSA) and New York-based design studios Vault49 and Sanborn Media Factory have collaborated for an online architectural and design journey with real life options that would highlight environmental impact, gauged through the game’s “eco-meter.”

The Army Corps of Engineers  announced it has again awarded a contract to PCCP Constructors Joint Venture to build three permanent canal closure and pump station structures to block hurricane storm surges at the Lake Pontchartrain mouths of the 17th Street, Orleans Avenue and London Avenue drainage canals in New Orleans.

Casualty Insurance:  Casualty insurance is a type of insurance that is primarily concerned with losses caused by injuries to persons and legal liability imposed upon the insured for such injury or for damage to property of others. It also includes such diverse forms as plate glass, insurance against crime, such as robbery, burglary and forgery, boiler and machinery insurance and Aviation insurance. Many casualty companies also write surety business.

The Federal Highway Administration has pledged $2 million in immediate aid that can be used to continue investigating the cause of a landslide on a stretch of U.S. 89 last month near Page, Ariz.

The Arizona Dept. of Transportation requested the quick release of emergency relief funds from the FHWA after submitting an initial estimate of $35 million to complete repairs to the damaged stretch of highway.

The two aging properties will be linked by a new promenade as part of more than $500 million of new construction for MGM Resorts in Las Vegas. MGM Resorts International is spending $100 million for an open-air entertainment promenade linking two of its Las Vegas Strip properties: New York-New York and Monte Carlo.