The idea for our theme issue, "Imagining Construction's Future," was born in July 2012 when Intel futurist Brian David Johnson gave a keynote at ENR FutureTech.
Maurice Patrick Jamison V sat on the steps of his house. It had been a long legal battle, but now it was his and he was determined to make it his home.
It was a cold morning in late January; there was no snow, but the frost had been induced again for the novelty and amusement of the city’s residents—not that he was feeling entertained or amused.
Harry Lumen stood with his finger hovering over the button, waiting for the order.
He remembered when all of this began, when all he was, was a supervisor in the R&D division of Potestas Energy.
Scooter and I found three boots. We found them under a broken slab of fallen ceiling in what should have been the main galley. Whatever had become of the rest of the Wave One colonists, no one knew.
Major Allyn Kilmacher, Galactic Republic space engineer, activated the Intracranial Communications Port (ICP) behind his ear. A sudden, fleeting wave of vertigo.
Tonight, on October 1, 2038, we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the millennial omnibus infrastructure bill that showed that all three major political parties could come together to address this nation's economic and security future.
Eddie Rodriguez stepped out of the car and onto the rough gravel parking lot of a huge construction site sprouting from the black dirt of the Iowa prairie. "Wow, this is no PowerPoint show," he said to himself.
Meryl entered the work zone with an unusual sense of trepidation. Perhaps it was her nerves at the idea of finally topping out the building today or just the reality that a 248-floor structure seemed wholly unnatural.
Rain streamed past the slim oval window as a storm brewed over Shanghai. Snippets of news coverage labeled it the worst ever to hit the city.
“I’m Frank, your project manager. Welcome to our design center,” Frank Gomez said as he shook Ali Haddad’s hand warmly. A charismatic man in his 40s, Frank was a founder of the engineering firm in charge of the design, construction and operation of Amadeus Towers, the future home of Sapientia Financial.
"Sorry to wake you."
Sam groggily opened his eyes. "What is it, No. 1?"
He smelled the rank odors of oil and aging garbage as he laid facedown in the dark. His ear was pressed against the floor, and he no longer heard the constant hum of the tunnels exhaust systems, which meant he was no longer in Level F3.
We were rising now, slowly, through the Central Lift Building. The WinSteel walls of the elevator gave a bizarre voyeur's view of the guts of the structure. Layers of steel beams sandwiched themselves between wood-paneled lobbies and art-deco hallways.
So here I am waiting to get started on a senior center I’m building. Eight stories, 300 units, right in the middle of lower Manhattan, it would give the people what they wanted—safe, walkable neighborhoods, a cool-looking façade and techno-supported microapartments meeting their every need.
I remember my great-grandfather, a retired ironworker from local 40, telling me it all started happening about 120 years ago, back in the summer of 2013, when he was in his early 20s. He said the world leaders had been discussing global warming for a number of years, maybe as early as the 1970s.
Slick as Vaseline, we grabbed its feet and flipped it off.
Roger wore his tool belt like a gunslinger, about as low around his hips as it could go without sliding down his legs into the dirt.
George’s workroom walls flashed.
“Hey, see here—listen to the voice of experience. You can be running this place in five years. Why on earth would you trade that for a chance to build a bridge across Lake Michigan? Like the Chinese say, the nail that sticks up gets pounded down.”
When the dust settled from the chaos of the fall of the United States, the four Contingents were born: Western, Eastern, Mountain, and Great Lakes. The basic premise were agreements struck between the Contingents, depending on the usefulness and benefit of the agreement for each Contingent.
The ground began to shake. We knew it must have been a big one. Our building’s design would withstand the quake’s tremors with ease, and our regenerative control systems were going to make us fully operational within a few minutes.
"That's a drafting board, Will. It was largely used by architects to develop drawings of a building before construction," explained George, Will's grandfather, as they toured the Museum of Architecture and Engineering.
The group I had joined was supposed to be considering an exciting topic: the future of construction. Wow—where to start? So many potential breakthroughs: design, materials, methods, techniques. And then there are the new building sites: the oceans, outer space—limitless possibilities in the Digital Age.
It seemed cloudy, but it couldn’t be. The cloud layer was at 3,000 meters today, and he was sure he hadn’t fallen that far.
As Huan arrived at work he was confident that it was going to be a good day. He had been working with this client for some time and he was glad that the project was finally breaking ground.
President Rodriguez stood at her podium in the East Room of the White House. To her left, my friend and mentor, Julian Lewis, stood awaiting his reception of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. His seventy-year-old face showed the creases of countless days and nights of hard work and dedication, and his composure revealed his equanimity even in the face of such an honor.
The night work lights and laser coordinate grid were just shutting down as Denise Scott arrived at the Four Suns Towers jobsite for what was planned to be a very important day. She’d been on site constantly as the collaborating architect since the project’s inception sixteen months prior.