This nearly 800-foot-tall tower’s pleated curtain wall is more than just an intriguing design gesture.

During the 2009 Structural Engineers Buildings Conference & Expo held in Chicago, I facilitated a roundtable to discuss the expanding leadership opportunities for structural engineers. Considering the challenges that practitioners face each day, but especially in this down economy, I wanted to discuss the obstacles that have opened new doors for forward-thinking structural engineering firm leaders.

Construction has started on a new $198 million college campus in downtown New Haven to help address the enrollment boom at Gateway Community College.

San Francisco’s ambitious $4billion Transbay Transit Center Project can now move forward following the closure of a $171 million Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) loan deal for the project.

Always famous yet never in the limelight, John Portman, 86, is an architect who made his stamp on the world through hotel atriums and Atlanta’s Peachtree Center.

Hundreds of contractors and local leaders crowded together at the corner of Third and Sycamore streets Tuesday to look on as the final steel beam was lifted into place for The Great American Tower at Queen City Square.

A modern interpretation of a traditional performance venue, the design of the new Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House in Dallas, emerged from the close cooperation on the part of engineers, architects and acoustical and theatrical experts that enabled them to overcome such noise and vibration challenges as the structure’s proximity to a major freeway and its location directly beneath the flight path of a Dallas airport.

Now that you’ve figured out building information modeling (BIM), here’s another three-letter acronym for you to master: IPD. Integrated project delivery (IPD) is a project delivery approach that uses business structures, practices, and processes to encourage the early contribution of knowledge and experience by key project stakeholders.

Sin City is pinning its biggest bet ever — $8.5 billion — on a 67-acre, six-tower complex of striking hotels, gourmet restaurants, swank shops and a single casino that starts opening Tuesday in the heart of the Las Vegas Strip.

Architects and the dean of the music department collaborate on a dream addition to the Cal Arts campus.

Colossal doesn’t begin to describe CityCenter, that $8.5 billion complex opening on Las Vegas Boulevard next week, which looks to shake up the Strip at a time when the last thing it needs is more competition.

The international membership organisation BuildingSMART officially launched its Middle East chapter last week with its Build Smart 2009 conference, entitled Better Construction Through Interoperability.