In the same week that dirty things hit the fan in Dubai, Las Vegas had reason to celebrate. CityCenter, the largest private construction project in U.S. history, opened the first of five buildings, the Vdara condo-hotel.

You might wonder why Dubai and Las Vegas are connected here and that’s because MGM Mirage the developer of CityCenter is partnered with Dubai World, the investment arm of the Dubai emirate city-state. Late last week DW declared that it will need six months moratorium on interest and payments against its $60 billion in debt, causing ripples throughout the international financial community. Casino stocks were also hit hard as Dubai’s close ties to MGM worried investors.

While debt-ridden Dubai fights for its life, MGM says CityCenter is essentially complete. As we all know in the construction community, nothing is complete until the Certificate of Occupancy is in hand (and even then it’s open for debate). However, the group has stated they structured the deal so that they would be protected from such events as default. I would hope they would have done this regardless of the partner.

This being the case, the first building has opened to much fan-fare as Las Vegas hopes to be able to compete with other cities for travelers looking for great architecture, amazingly designed open spaces, art, and great food.

DW became a joint partner on the project after construction had already commenced.

The project team includes:
General Contractor: Perini Building Company
Executive Construction Manager: Tishman Construction Corporation
Executive Architect: Gensler

A while back we wrote about Revision: Dallas and even did a podcast with John Greenan, Executive Director for the Central Dallas Community Corporation.

Yesterday Urban Re:Vision and the Central Dallas Community Development Corporation nannounced that “Forwarding Dallas” has been selected as the winning design from Re:Vision Dallas, an international design competition. The challenge, to transform a vacant inner-city block behind City Hall into a carbon-neutral community, drew hundreds of entries from top architecture firms and city planners in 14 countries worldwide. Forwarding Dallas is the product of a collaboration between Portuguese-based architectural firms Atelier Data and Moov, and will run “off the grid,” acting as a working model of sustainability for cities around the globe. Ground breaking is scheduled for early 2011.

Congratulations!

Sharpen your pencils, in fact you may want to sharpen two! Construction firms are doing whatever they can do get their estimates tight. With competition growing in the commercial and residential construction sectors as fewer and fewer projects are receiving financing, all eyes are on the sales and estimating side of the industry.

Focusing on the estimating side of the house, the folks over at Software Advice decided to put together their first “Construction Software State of the Industry Report” based on feedback from 6,000 construction software buyers and I have to say it’s worth a read.

Very quick to point out that reporting on the state of the industry isn’t interesting, they do claim to have found some interesting trends and are willing to share!

Here are their findings:
1. Estimating and takeoff solutions are in demand.
2. Software as a Service (SaaS) is where it’s at.
3. LEED credit tracking has created a new demand.
4. Stimulus funds are trickling down, slowly
5. Fewer accounting and job costing replacements

My only issue with the article was that it seems as thought software in the construction industry would be far more vast. In additional to tools for estimating, there are tools for designing, specification writing, CRM, project management, product selection, etc. Then there are the trades and the question does arise as to whether you can treat them all the same.

It seems as if Software Advice does in fact cater to the various trades, and can provide insight on a variety of types of software, but I was hoping for a better lay of the software landscape. This being their first such attempt at something like this, we can give them the benefit of the doubt, but it just left me wanting a bit more.

While they are probably eager to to hear your thoughts on the spending, I’m personally interested in whether stories like this are of interest to Konstructr readers.

As always, feel free to share this article via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Digg.

Konstructr has Google Wave invites. So here’s how we are distributing them to Konstructr readers.

Answer the following question: Based on what you know, or have read about Google Wave how would use the invite if you were given one? (Bonus points given to those that are able to tie their answer to the construction industry).

Post your answer in the comments! First eight folks to respond will be sent an invitation.

Looking forward to catching you below.

Mainstream advertising blog, AdFreak doesn’t cover a climate change ad everyday, but I’m not entirely sure they’ve chosen the best one to highlight. Mothers Against Climate Change isn’t exactly a high profile Fortune 500 company or the EPA, although the spot looks like the organization has raised some decent coin to produce this commercial.

Not a bad effort overall, but the tag line at the end leaves a lot to be desired. What do you think? Too over the top including children? What you’d expect from a ‘mother’s’ organization? Click the image to watch the commercial then leave your thoughts below in the comments.

In what we feel is some pretty exciting news, our professional network goes public today!

If you aren’t a member and you’ve been wondering what’s been going on behind closed doors, you no longer have to wonder. Browse around! Engaging with folks and starting conversations of your own, sharing photos and videos of projects will still require you to sign-up, but there is still no cost to do that.

So from the newest of members, Howard Wolff, SVP and Worldwide Director of Marketing at WATG and Timothy Hughes, Construction Trial and Business attorney to some of those who have been with us for a while, Rob Mathewson, founder of construction quality control system Geedra to David Allison, partner at real estate marketing firm Braun/Allison, you will find all sorts of experts in the world of construction.

What are the benefits you ask? Well let’s go through a few reasons you may want to join.

Professional profile: I hear it where ever I go. “I use Facebook, but that’s for personal stuff,” or “LinkedIn has too many other people that I don’t care about from other industries.” Your Konstructr profile is for your professional life in the construction industry and will hold everything you want.

Blog: Yes, you can blog directly from the network. You can post about things that you are thinking about, questions you have for others, and even blog about the construction industry or projects you are currently working on - it’s all built in.

Multimedia: Interested in posting photos or a video of your business and projects you are working? That’s easy too. Just upload whatever you like, from your computer, or import the video or photos from another website.

Lastly, everything these days is about search engine ranking. Will people be able to find you? More importantly, will be people you want to have find you, well, find you! Answer? Yes! We take care of all that for you.

So come, sign up and meet some passionate folks about the construction industry.

Thanks for reading.

Oh yeah - and you find me on the network too. Just click here.

The growth of the “green” building market is undeniable. To date, the US Green Building Council, the foremost authority on green and sustainable building in the world, has registered over 28,000 building projects around the globe. A vast majority of these registrations have been fostered by the efforts of the network of volunteer advocates throughout the country encouraging legislators and policy makers to incorporate responsible building guidelines as well as financial incentives for high performance building. The US GBC also employs highly capable and well-experienced legislative analysts and policy counselors that assist the volunteers in their local efforts.

As a risk professional that does not practice law, I have a different perspective on the regulatory marketplace pertaining to green and sustainable building. I have told my legal colleagues for years that my involvement in the conversation on the liabilities and risks of green building is motivated by my desire to prevent unneccessary litigation financed by the insurance community based on unenforceable contractural risk transfer clauses.

For example, if a local, state or federal incentive or mandate requires certification by an independent third party as a precondition for earning the award, than each tier in the construction and development process will attempt to contracturally transfer the risk of failure away from themselves. Traditional liability insurance and commercial surety has typically acted as the financial backstop for construction professionals and provides defense coverage, compensatory damages and financial assurance that their personal assets were not at risk upon entering into the agreement.

However, the risk community has yet to effectively and universally address these new exposures to those involved in the development of a project. In the situation where third party certification is a precondition for a financial award, than the risk of failure of attaining such certification will compel a developer to attempt to transfer that risk to their architect, general contractor or construction manager, who will then transfer it to the various subcontractors that have been hired to perform specific work on the project. All parties will carry commercial general liability insurance and Errors and Omissions Liability in the case of skilled professionals. Large private developments and public bids will also require the use of a surety bond guaranteeing to the owner that the contractor will perform the work as required.

In the unlikely event that a building fails to earn a desired level of certification and is either penalized by the governing authority or denied the original benefits of the incentive or mandate, the parties involved will look for someone else to blame. As noted in several recent situations such as the DC Green Building Act, Shaw Development vs. Southern Builders, or most recently, Pittsburgh, PA, green building policy is meant to encourage natural resource efficiency, environmental stewardship and occupant health & safety. Regulators must find ways to enforce their respective policies. Sadly, no one called me for my input on effective enforcement mechanisms that will serve to encourage long term sustainability AND are supported by the financial, legal and risk communities.

Pittsburgh’s recent city ordinance stipulates that any publicly financed private development must attain a “Silver” certification by the US Green Building Council within 3 years of completion. A failure to attain such a rating will result in a fine to the developer of 1% of the total construction costs. If the fine isn’t paid within 30 days, the city will revoke the certificate of occupancy. In this situation, the developer will attempt to transfer the risk of failing to meet desired levels of certification to the next entity in line after them. The risk transfer vehicles of liability insurance and surety performance bonds will not provide the financial security to the lower tiers, leaving them tremendously exposed for significant legal and compensatory expenses.

Unless the risk community steps up to indemnify parties for claims due to failure to earn an incentive or regulatory action from a policy mandate (currently excluded from liability insurance and surety), than the progress we have achieved to date will come to a grinding halt once the lawsuits come. Maybe that’s why there are so many LEED-AP attorneys?

Our story starts in the 1800s when a group of pioneers decided to migrate from Independence, Missouri to what is today the town of Independence, Oregon. For many cities in America the history lesson stops right there. But this isn’t the case for the town in Oregon and Mr. Steven Ribeiro is making certain of that. For 20 years he’s been conceptualizing this journey and for the last five he’s been hammering out the specifics. You may think of Mr. Ribeiro as the Thomas Edison of the land development world; heck, by the end of this story he may even turn out to be your “green” building superhero (so much for the lawyer), but regardless, Mr. Ribeiro is continuing the history lesson of Independence, Oregon. Destination? Independence Station.

Independence is fitting as Mr. Ribeiro and his Aldeia Development company want to be an example of energy independence. The project will be a full lifestyle, comprehensive example of a renewable energy DC powered micro-grid: the most effective method of achieving energy independence known today.

Ask him if he ever felt over-whelmed or thought it couldn’t happen and Ribeiro will be quick to say, “No. I’m tenacious by nature. Critics never make history. I will pursue my goals relentlessly.”

Getting the “Green” talk out of the way
We’ve had this debate over “green” on Konstructr and you all know how I feel about it, but Ribeiro & Company gets it. “Green” conveys a concept with the public simply to set the context of what we are doing. Ribeiro’s task is to then get specific with the actual verified proof of performance. Just like the word “fast” means something; watching a runner shatter a world record and hence having a time stamp is proof that something amazing just happened. Ribeiro is planning to go the distance; not only will he be green, but he’s planning on making it the greenest and he’s going to have the proof to show us.

And so this title - World’s Greenest Building - is very important. Like it did for me, it will always get attention and start a conversation in the direction of, “Really? Just how is that so?” For Mr. Rebeiro this is fantastic. He enjoys sharing the incomparable comprehensive nature of the project. The development company’s goal is to be a platform that complies with the year 2050 goal of the 2,000 Watt Society. This will represent an 87% reduction in the full lifestyle energy use for the average American. Is that “green” enough for ya?

Details
Let’s start with a quiz shall we? What project do you know of that excels at energy efficiency, energy storage, Smart Grid, DC power, renewable energy, waste water, rainwater re-use, community services outreach, transportation, telecommuting, onsite food production, green job training, energy efficiency monitoring, open source data sharing, green IT, renewable and reused building materials all under one roof?

The building will run primarily on PV. In Oregon, when they have clouds, the weather tends to be cool as well. This is when they are more likely to use waste vegetable oil for co-gen. You get both the propulsion and byproduct of heat from the engine. Currently they have found a few local restaurants as sources for oil donation. These restaurants will get publicity and PR for being part of the World’s Greenest Building. Aldeia currently has other oil sources pending including algae production on-site that will also do carbon capture, oxygen production, local animal feed supplements, and compost feedstock for on-site year-round crop production and tilapia farming in greenhouses utilizing waste heat from the co-gen plant.

Personally, I am curious about odors that residents or people working or visiting the building may experience. Aldeia claims that if any aroma is noticed it will be very pleasant for most and likely confused as that from a restaurant. Fish and chips anyone?

Recently Aldeia partnered with EcoDomo. This is in fact a great example of showcasing sustainable product entrepreneurs. Think of EcoDomo as the nau of tiles. Ribeiro met them at Greenbuild and showed them his project. They have a great story to tell and so an agreement was made to assist them in promotion of their unique tiles and be a highly visible part of the ecotourism program.

As many of you know LEED has switched up to v3.0 and Independence Station is looking at moving to LEED v3.0 from their current application filed under LEED v2.1. A primary purpose of Independence Station is to be a permanent showcase and beta test bed for the latest sustainable equipment, technologies, and methods. Aldiea wants to assure those questioning their dedication that they will always being on the cutting edge. In addition, they also plan to regularly re-certify under LEED-EB (there’s our proof!). To top it all off they are also doing many important things that the current LEED program gives no credit for including on-site food production, green job training, green IT, DC power, carbon capture, energy storage, community outreach, etc. It looks like this building may be able to jump out in front of LEED criteria set. What do you think? Can’t wait to read the comments…

Ribeiro took some time to even share with me what he’s done different from a design-build process. Integrated design sessions are very important early in the process along with design charrettes. A lot of the design ran simultaneously with the construction and actually threw the team some curve balls. A prime example of this is when Ribeiro decided to bring Coolerado into the project. Aldeia had to spend money on design changes to bring them in, but were able to literally eliminate some of the chillers to save capital costs and much operational expense. They went through the tough R&D process so future developers won’t have to. You see, Aldeia is planning on licensing out the plans to other developers. How many developers would envision energy savings resulting from the selection of polished concrete floors? He met with FGS Permashine and they opened Aldeia’s brains and hearts to their full message. The floors are highly reflective. This reduces the required density of our LED lighting fixtures thereby saving capitol costs. The Johnson Controls building controls can then throttle back the lighting as a result of the floor’s reflectivity that allows the natural daylight to penetrate further into the building. As Riberio says, “Synergy, man. Tunnel through the costs…”

So who’s the best fit for the building?
When they start the marketing effort they will be looking for locally owned start-up neighborhood services such as a barber shop, a Slow Food themed restaurant, a sustainably minded bank, etc. The project is still a year from completion so they have not turned the marketing machine on just yet.

A model for the future?
I didn’t say it, but people are and Ribeiro is ready. He plans to license the building plans to save other Developers money and time when future copies of Independence Station are built. The vision here: to build one in California, Arizona, Alaska, Idaho, and Florida making adjustments in the systems to the local climate and site conditions to prove that this can and should be done everywhere. Calling all developers!

Can the social web play a role?
Web 2.0, or the social web, is now an important part of the process. Mr. Ribeiro is looking to do everything possible to broadcast what he and his team have come up with: a breakthrough solution. The project has both a Facebook group and Twitter account. In fact, Ribeiro, who also happens to be on Twitter, was in the White House last week with 150 other sustainable business leaders from around the country. They are clearly looking for solutions that line up precisely with what we are doing here with Independence Station. Facebook and Twitter are ideal to get such teaser quips out to inform and hopefully foster deeper investigation. Many of the developers supplier partners are now on Facebook and Twitter. This is a sea change from less than a year ago. And if Mr. Ribeiro needs some help on this front, Konstructr has his back!

Concluding thoughts
Even with all this going on, Ribeiro is convinced the most complex part of constructing a building today is obtaining the financing. In the construction world success these days is all about getting funded. Currently Aldeia Development has a 400 home LEED-ND approved project in Boise, Idaho that will be a Zero-Net energy community. The homes in this community will eliminate energy bills and gasoline expenses from the typical family budget. They are currently looking for funding.

“Once you get the vision of the 2,000 Watt Society, it will be hard finding any building that can measure up,” says Ribeiro. “Someone, please ‘outgreen’ me. The effort spent will move all of us forward. I welcome it and want to assist. I get calls from folks saying I must be a greenwasher. If they have an open mind and an open heart, I usually can turn them into a fan of the project in a matter of minutes. Most critics have never done anything to change the world for the better. I can’t help those folks. If a legitimate point is made, I love to give credit to the source. I love learning.”

Oh, and remember that 2,000 Watt Society goals? Well, if the project is ever topped, and Ribeiro hopes it will be (and would help too!) he will offer up the World’s Greenest Building domain to the successor along with a to-be commissioned creation of the “Green Cup.”

As for now, these are the facts I know of and I wanted to share with you. If the project can become what it claims it can, then it will be impressive. We will keep an eye out for you, but let’s get to the comments! Can’t wait to participate.

When I first started contributing to Konstructr nine months ago (that long?), global warming was in the mainstream news, but wasn’t in mainstream advertising. But recently, I’ve noticed the topic of global warming finally being tackled by some of the top creatives around the world. The results are predictably fantastic.

In some ways, global warming is a dream client. It’s an original topic that already has massive recognition. Check out some of my recent favorites:

McCann Erickson Portugal for Quercus:

Artist Nele Azevedo for German World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF):

Ice sculptures in the shape of humans are placed on the steps of the music hall in Gendarmenmarkt public square in Berlin September 2, 2009. Hosted by the German World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), 1,000 ice sculptures were positioned on the steps in the German capital at noon, to highlight climate change in the arctic region. (From IBelieveinAdvertising.com)

Ogilvy & Mather, Beijing, China for Greenpeace

It’s interesting to see the message being spread in China vs. what we see in the United States. Can you imagine this ad running here in prime time during Grey’s Anatomy?

I think it’s difficult to marketing global warming without coming across as alarmist, which is off-putting to many, even believers in climate change. We don’t want to see ads that blatantly use scare tactics to convince people of climate change. We’re past that. These ads demonstrate a finesse, a delicate combination of idea, art and copy to originally and effectively convey a message that’s already been conveyed a thousand times.

There are a few articles out there discussing the Google Wave concept and it’s uses in the construction industry, but no one who’s actually used it and written about the experience. We figured we’d be the first! Now many of you in the industry may already be familiar with Google as they are the creators of a tool called SketchUp. If you were impressed by that, you will surely be interested in what I have to say.

The Internets were abuzz with talk of Google Wave these past 10 days. I happened to receive a “nomination” as Google hopes to get the Preview of the product into the hands of 100,000 folks to help test out and use the product (they are still a ways from getting to that number so if you’re waiting for yours it’s probably on its way). Having now played around the with the tool I wanted to share a little bit about what I’m seeing and how it could bring change to the construction industry. As a disclaimer, this is no means a full review. Wave is still very early in the product development cycle, so I’ve decided to focus on two areas:

Email clarity
Collaborative experiences

Email clarity
The number of emails, messages, and documents passed back and forth throughout a construction project would make anyone’s head spin. Wave looks to have a way of clarifying all the clutter. Initially you type your note and once complete, you start to add folks to the conversation, or wave.

So let’s say a land developer is having a conversation with his financier. He or she would start a “wave”. All the messages are passed back and forth until the developer realizes this information needs to be provided to the marketing team. Instead of deciding which emails and documents they need to forward (and potentially missing some of the information the marketing team may need), he or she just adds the marketing team members to the wave. Now the marketing team can see the entire wave. Here’s where the fun begins.

Our marketing folks that were invited to the wave can now do a number of things. They can replay the entire wave from the beginning and watch how the conversation occurred, they can also start to be involved in the conversation at any level. Let’s assume after the third back and forth between developer and financier, marketing team member 1 wanted to interject with a question. They could. In fact they can start conversations at the end or in the middle of any message. They can even highlight a sentence or phrase and respond to that section alone. While this may sound confusing, the reality is that anyone added to the conversation can now see the flow of the wave. No more wondering if there was an email or document they didn’t get, because they information wasn’t sent to them; they were added to the flow of information, or again the wave.

What does this mean? It means that Google Wave, or a concept like this, is now bridging the gap between modes of communication that are active (Instant Messaging) and those that are passive (Email). Today’s Wall Street Journal article (long) in fact discusses “The End of the Email Era”. The point is that we need to deal with communication as it is relevant to our time and Wave attempts to update how we communicate.

Collaborative experience
If there’s any trait that is inherent to a spectacular design-build team, it’s effective collaboration. Wave emphasizes that and makes it easier. It’s email meets blogging meets instant messaging meets document collaboration meets social networking meets the real-time web. Whether the users speak the same language or not (yes - Rosy helps with language transcription) wave will take care of translating for you as well.

Imagine the superintendent of a construction site being able to sit at his desk and see the communication of a change in design occur in real time, participate, and relay that message to his crew immediately; or a sub-contractor being able to chime in when they see a potential flaw in design based on a discussion between mechanical engineer and facilities director.

If you’ve used any online tools to conduct business or manage teams and you’ve found success with them, you will easily see the power of this new tool. Today’s tool-set is complicated. We have so many different tools to do the same thing and Wave brings them all together.

Final Thoughts
What I’m not saying here is that Google Wave is what you should use today, or that it will succeed and it’s the greatest product ever. But, if you are not aware of all the Web 2.0 (or social media) tools out there that could make your professional life easier, you may want to take a look at them, because sooner or later they will become part of the way communication just happens.

For those who have an invite, feel free to add me as a contact. My info is: vikduggal [at] googlewave [dot] com

Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments!