Construction Science

How did a simple design error cause one of the great disasters of the 1980s - the collapse of the walkways at the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel? What made the graceful and innovative Tacoma Narrows Bridge twist apart in a mild wind in 1940? How did an oversized waterlily inspire the magnificent Crystal Palace, the crowning achievement of Victorian architecture and engineering? These are some of the failures and successes that Henry Petroski, author of the acclaimed The Pencil, examines in this engaging, wonderfully literate book.

Stax Stonecutter has lived a peaceful - if unremarkable - life in his small town in the Overworld. The son of great adventurers and wise builders, Stax prefers an easier life. He loves to tend to his gardens and play with his cats all day, rather than venturing out to explore the surrounding lands. It’s quiet on his estate, even lonely sometimes, but it suits Stax well enough.

With this updated edition of his earlier book, A Place of My Own, listeners can revisit the inspired, intelligent, and often hilarious story of Pollan’s realization of a room of his own—a small, wooden hut, his “shelter for daydreams” — built with his admittedly unhandy hands. Inspired by both Thoreau and Mr. Blandings, A Place of My Own not only works to convey the history and meaning of all human building, it also marks the connections between our bodies, our minds, and the natural world.

Starting with Rebecca Smith’s own family history – foresters in Cumbria, miners in Derbyshire, millworkers in Nottinghamshire, builders of reservoirs and the Manchester Ship Canal – Rural is an exploration of our green and pleasant land, and the people whose labour has shaped it. Beautifully observed, these are the stories of professions and communities that often go overlooked. Smith shows the precarity for those whose lives are entangled in the natural landscape. And she traces how these rural working-class worlds have changed.

Estimating the cost of a project is critical to your business success. Done correctly, your company is profitable. Done wrong, you lose money. Michael Stone, a successful construction business consultant and trainer, shares his years of experience estimating residential projects in this manual. Estimating isn't difficult when you have a system. The purpose of this book is to help you create that system. It's an approach that helps you estimate without having to think about the process. An orderly approach makes estimating easier and more accurate.

Are you fed up running your construction company? Sick of not being paid what you are worth? Stressed out with poor cashflow and low profits? Would you like to have a proven strategy to give you more time, freedom and money? Building Your Future is a practical business guide designed specifically for business owners in the construction and service industry who want to grow a highly successful and profitable business while reclaiming more time and freedom.

If you want to start making more money as a painter and decorator, improving your sales and marketing is the key. If you don’t take your sales and marketing seriously, you are leaving thousands of dollars per year on the table. Creating advertisements, crafting proposals, and selling your services at the highest level is the fastest way to increase your profits. This book will guide you through everything you need to know about sales and marketing for your decorating business.

This monumental book tells the enthralling story of one of the greatest accomplishments in our nation's history, the building of what was then the longest suspension bridge in the world. The Brooklyn Bridge rose out of the expansive era following the Civil War, when Americans believed all things were possible.

Now updated with groundbreaking research, this award-winning classic examines the construction of sexual identity in biology, society, and history.

Coming back to their own dimension, Milton Frederick and his AI guide, ALANNA, discovered that things were not quite how they left it. After the Station Core and his crew of Proctans acquired a derelict space station, fixed it up to include a makeshift dungeon, and then stopped the Heliothropes from invading and conquering an entirely new dimension, they managed to survive and return to Milton’s home dimension victorious.

In the spring of 1931, in a rugged desert canyon on the Arizona-Nevada border, an army of workmen began one of the most difficult and daring building projects ever undertaken: the construction of Hoover Dam. Through the worst years of the Great Depression as many as five thousand laborers toiled twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to erect the huge structure that would harness the Colorado River and transform the American West.

The European continent was devastated in the wake of World War II, and the conflict left the Soviet Union and the United States as uncontested superpowers. This ushered in over 45 years of the Cold War, and a political alignment of Western democracies against the Communist Soviet bloc that produced conflicts pitting allies on each sides fighting, even as the American and Soviet militaries never engaged each other.

After advising hundreds of contractors for fifteen years, author Chad Prinkey knows it comes down to having the right systems and culture in place across your business. In his book Well Built, Prinkey lays out the roadmap for contractors to make meaningful upgrades in how they operate, strategize, manage teams, win new business, and deliver for customers. You'll learn the step-by-step process contractors can use to join the top 2% and gain durable competitive advantages that increase profits for the long haul.

We are living in a new urban age and its most tangible expression is the "supertall": megastructures that are dramatically bigger, higher, and more ambitious than any in history. In Supertall, TED Resident Stefan Al—himself an experienced architect who has worked on some of the largest buildings in the world—reveals the advancements in engineering, design, and data science that have led to this worldwide boom.

Asian American Sexual Politics explores the topics of beauty, self-esteem, and sexual attraction among Asian Americans. The book draws on sixty in-depth interviews to show how constructions of Asian American gender and sexuality tend to reinforce the social and political dominance for whites, particularly white males, even in the supposed “post-racial” United States.

Salvage divers work underwater in a blinding darkness. In their cumbersome diving gear, these men have barely enough room to move around, while at the same time fighting the cold temperatures and fast currents. It is a dirty, unromantic, and highly dangerous way of earning a living.

The PropTech Guide is the leading book to the property technology revolution including the disruption, innovation, and lucrative opportunities. Created by a technology evangelist and a prominent thought leader in PropTech and the associated construction and asset management space, this revolutionary guide showcases 222 innovative firms in PropTech in a single, informative volume.

In The Silver Women, Joan Flores-Villalobos argues that Black West Indian women made the Panama Canal construction possible by providing the indispensable everyday labor of social reproduction. West Indian women built a provisioning economy that fed, housed, and cared for the segregated Black West Indian labor force, in effect subsidizing the construction effort and the racial calculus that separated pay in silver for Black workers and gold for white Americans.

Este libro es para constructores, para quienes hacen viviendas y otras edificaciones para la comunidad. Sean maestros de obras, albañiles, carpinteros, plomeros o algún otro artesano; autoridades de pequeños municipios, que deciden cómo se van a desarrollar las comunidades y sus alrededores; o personas que quieren proyectar o construir su propia casa o indicar al contratista o maestro albañil cómo quieren tener su casa.

Dans son combat contre le handicap physique, Alexandre Jollien a trouvé une alliée de choix : la philosophie. Guidé par Epicure, Erasme, Spinoza ou encore Etty Hillesum, il a surmonté les obstacles jour après jour - et, parvenu au seuil d'une vie plus paisible, il apprend avec eux à savourer aussi les instants de joie.