THE FULL IMPACT of the COVID-19 global pandemic on the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry will not be known for many years. Yet it is already clear that many construction projects are experiencing partial delays or full stoppages as the pandemic spreads across the globe. In North America, associations and companies have organized surveys and created tools to help the AEC industry better...
Every day in April, ASCE Plot Points is calling a different civil engineer from around the world to find out how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting their life, their community, their work and the civil engineering profession.
Thirty days. Thirty phone calls.
Community Call 17 reaches out to ASCE's 2018 president Kristina Swallow, now serving as the director of the Nevada Department of Transportation, to discuss...
The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked a new consideration of the word “essential.”
With much of the United States under shelter-in-place orders this month, different states have deemed different services and different professionals as being essential to the continued day-to-day life of society.
So where does civil engineering stand in that debate? Are civil engineers essential?
ASCE has spoken plainly that, yes, civil engineers should be considered essential...
A NONPROFIT COALITION of architects, engineers, doctors, and other experts has launched a method for turning freight shipping containers into intensive care units (ICUs) to treat patients with COVID-19.
Called CURAs (connected units for respiratory ailments), the pods are as easy to set up as medical tents but provide the added protection of negative air pressure, according to a March press release issued by Carlo...
FACED WITH THE PROSPECT that regulated entities might have trouble complying with certain regulatory requirements during the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released temporary guidance in late March stating how it intended to handle noncompliance during this time, noting that, among other things, it would not seek civil penalties for most routine violations.
Environmental groups immediately criticized the move, contending that it...
Every day in April, ASCE Plot Points is calling a different civil engineer from around the world to find out how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting their life, their community, their work and the civil engineering profession.
Thirty days. Thirty phone calls.
Community Call 16 goes to Region 10 Director Elias Boutros Sayah. Based in the United Arab Emirates, he was visiting the United States in...
Every day in April, ASCE Plot Points is calling a different civil engineer from around the world to find out how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting their life, their community, their work and the civil engineering profession.
Thirty days. Thirty phone calls.
Community Call 15 reaches out to Gabrielle Grompone, incoming chair of the ASCE Construction Institute’s Young Professionals Council and a project engineer at J....
AFTER COVID-19 took hold in Wuhan, China, leading to a lockdown of the city of 11 million on January 23, Chinese officials made headlines by announcing that the country had built two hospitals with a total of roughly 2,300 beds in less than two weeks.
The prospect of something similar playing out in the United States seemed far-fetched. But in March the epicenter of the...
AS COVID-19 SPREAD across the world and state and local governments closed down businesses to encourage social distancing, engineering firms faced two challenges: keeping their employees safe and continuing to work for their clients—many of whose projects were deemed essential.
The solution was simple: have everyone work from home.
But the execution was complex. Combining longstanding processes with new measures meant ensuring that everyone had the...
Brad Allenby, Ph.D., Aff.M.ASCE, Mikhail V. Chester, Ph.D., A.M.ASCE, and Thaddeus Miller, Ph.D., are engineers, professors and groundbreaking researchers at Arizona State University. In today's Member Voice article, they write about how the COVID-19 pandemic has already taught us important lessons about adapting and transforming our infrastructure systems.
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The rapid progression of COVID-19 is revealing challenges for infrastructure as the institutions that manage and deliver critical...
