Minnesota College Goes for LEED® Platinum with Concrete

St. Olaf College has a recognized program in mathematics and the natural sciences. Now the building that will house and unify these academic programs is receiving recognition as well. The St. Olaf Science Complex is a $65 million, 180,000 sf, 4-story facility that includes research space, classrooms, teaching labs, and a science library. The vision that drove the new building initiative was creating areas for interdisciplinary teaching and research, while maintaining environmental integrity.

Committed to economical and ecological sustainability in its strategic plan, the college is putting its own Sustaining St. Olaf design guidelines into practice in the new Science Complex. Seeking to attain LEED Platinum certification, the facility incorporates the green building concepts not only in the building itself, but into the science curriculum that will go far beyond the ribbon cutting. More.

PCA Launches Sustainable Leadership Awards

The Portland Cement Association (PCA) and its member companies are committed to sustainable development and environmental stewardship. The cement industry recognizes that adopting the values of sustainable development benefits local, national and global climate and environmental considerations.

At a press conference held at on Tuesday, January 22, at the World of Concrete, PCA president and CEO Brian McCarthy announced an initiative to recognize public officials who take the lead in "green" building. The annual Sustainable Leadership Awards will honor government leaders who advance sustainable development in their communities through the use of concrete and cement-based products. More.

ACI 318 is a must-have standard for all concrete design, construction, inspection, repair, and research professionals. In addition to the latest code requirements for concrete building design and construction and corresponding commentary, it includes several improvements and changes from the 2005 edition. Now available at PCA Bookstore.

Prescriptive Design of Exterior Concrete Walls for One- and Two-Family Dwellings, the first ANSI-approved standard by the Portland Cement Association, is now available. The new standard, also known as PCA 100-07, facilitates the use of cast-in-place concrete wall systems built with either removable or stay-in-place forms, such as insulating concrete forms (ICFs). It applies to the construction of detached one- and two-family dwellings and townhouses. More.

The new standard is available in the PCA bookstore (EB560).

PCA Recognizes Young Creative Minds

In conjunction with National Engineers Week, on January 26, 2008, Chicago engineering societies hosted a student design competition for area schools. The contest, known as the “Future City Competition”, required middle grade students with the assistance of an engineer mentor, to design a future city. More.

JE Dunn Picks Concrete for New Headquarters
The headquarters building will house 520 employees. The $40.5 million, 5-story office building will include an adjacent $18.3 million parking structure to serve 780 vehicles. The building will be the first LEED Gold certified corporate headquarters project in Kansas City. More.

Amid Downturn, Las Vegas Still on a Roll
A roster of mega-projects keeps tower cranes on the skyline of the Las Vegas Strip. More.

Seattle Condo Project Seeks Wide Open Spaces
Rollin Street is a market-rate condominium building scheduled for completion in early 2009. The 11-story, 400,000-square-foot mixed-use project has 208 residential units and 20,000 square feet of ground floor retail space. More.

Res/Rec Center to Shine Silver with Precast
The availability of locally produced precast concrete materials was key for the approval of a new dormitory at North Central College in Naperville, Ill. More.

Half Price Sale on Popular PCA Design Resources

Concrete Floor Systems—Guide to Estimating and Economizing (SP041)
This publication highlights four popular reinforced, cast-in-place concrete floor systems: flat plate, flat slab, one-way joist, and two-way joist. Preliminary estimates of material quantities (concrete, reinforcing steel, and formwork) for various span and loading conditions are presented to help with projects planning.

Long-Span Concrete Floor Systems (SP339)
This bestseller covers two increasingly popular long-span concrete floor systems; banded-beam and wide-module joist. Preliminary estimates of material quantities (concrete, reinforcing steel, and formwork) for various span and loading conditions are presented to help with projects planning.

Special Prices for PCA Notes on ACI 318 Code

Prepared with engineers and architects in mind, the PCA Notes is a valuable aid to educators, undergraduate and graduate students, contractors, materials and product manufacturers, building code authorities, and inspectors.

PCA Notes on ACI 318-05 Building Code Requirements for Structural Concrete with Design Applications (EB705)—$50 (Regularly $95)

PCA Notes on ACI 318-02 Building Code Requirements for Structural Concrete with Design Applications (EB702)—$25 (Regularly $60)

ACI/PCA Simplified Design of Concrete Buildings of Moderate Size and Heights

Increase your design efficiency and reduce the time it takes to design small to moderate size buildings by applying the design procedures that you will learn at this seminar.
The purpose of the seminar is to provide civil, architectural, and structural engineers with ways to simplify design procedures, thus reducing time required to analyze, proportion, and detail small to moderate size projects, while still complying with the ACI 318-05 Building Code Requirements for Structural Concrete. The seminar is sponsored jointly by the Portland Cement Association and ACI. More.

Developed by PCA, this recently released DVD contains five distance learning modules that are narrated presentations covering analysis and design of reinforced concrete. Topics covered include; reinforced concrete fundamentals, beams and one-way slabs, two-way slabs, columns, walls and foundations.

The DVD links to a PCA Web-based quiz for each learning module. Upon successful completion of each quiz you receive a Portland Cement Association Certificate of Completion and will be awarded up to 13 Professional Development Hours (equivalent to 1.3 Continuing Education Units in most states). More information or to purchase.

Annual Building Professors' Seminar
August 4-6, Skokie, Ill.

In an effort to keep the concrete industry in touch with university professors of civil, structural, and architectural engineering, the Concrete Reinforcing Steel Institute (CRSI), the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association (NRMCA), the Portland Cement Association (PCA), the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute (PCI), and the Post-Tensioning Institute (PTI) co-sponsor an annual Building Professors' Seminar. Since 1991, the seminar has been held every summer at PCA's Skokie, Illinois, headquarters.
Financially sponsored by regional cement and concrete promotion groups, professors from around the U.S. and Canada travel to Skokie to attend this three-day seminar. More.

pcaMats Upgrade Increases Productivity

The well established pcaMats program has recently been upgraded to version 6.50 which supports ACI 318-05 and CSA A23.3-04 concrete design standards. To increase productivity of pcaMats users, enhancements have been implemented in many areas of the graphical user interface such as visualization of the model and graphical results, reporting of text results as well as accessibility of common commands via keyboard shortcuts and pop-up menus.

More information about pcaMats v6.50 including revised pricing and to download fully functional evaluation version of the program.

More about software products available from StructurePoint.

• UI 9th Annual Structural Engineering Conference
  March 27, University of Illinois, Urbana Ill.

• ACI Spring Convention
  March 30 – April 3, Los Angeles, Calif.

• 2008 Structures Congress
  April 24-26, Vancouver, Canada

• Concrete Bridge Conference
  May 4-6, St. Louis, Mo.

• AIA Convention 2008
  May 15-16, Boston, Mass.