Teamwork in Progress!

Matt

At CopelandBEC we’re big proponents of leveraging technology to improve our work, including improving flexibility and work-life balance for our team. Often that means we we’re connecting online via services like Slack Huddles or Google Meet conferences. Our team is empowered to work at whatever time and place is most effective to accomplish our goals.

Sometimes that still means meeting in person. Our sunlit industrial loft-style office in central Mass. is perfect for the kind of collaboration and connection that is best achieved face to face.

Members of the CopelandBEC team deep into a plaza waterproofing design charrette.

As you can see we’re not dogmatic about analog vs. digital media… as with most things the answer is “both/and” not “either/or”—we use whatever works best (and that can vary from person to person).

Read more about our approach to our work.

Edge Metal is Essential

Edge Metal is Essential

Matt

Designing commercial low-slope roofing to resist the forces imposed by wind is critical to the roof’s longevity. This is especially true in regions frequently impacted by high wind weather events.

The building code lays out the requirements for roof wind design. The short-and-simple version is this:

  1. The designer identifies the loads expected to be imposed by the wind (e.g. pounds per square foot).
  2. The manufacturer tests assemblies made of its products to determine their capacity to resist applied loads.
  3. The contractor installs an assembly of products that has been tested (by the manufacturer) and demonstrated to be strong enough to resist the imposed loads.
Read more →

AI in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction Industry

Matt

While AI development has been going on for decades, it’s burst into the mainstream over the last several months. Between ChatGPT, DALL-E 2, Bing and others, consumer-facing AI tools are becoming increasingly more common—and more powerful.

I’ve been following these developments closely, especially as they relate to the firm’s goals to solve building envelope problems efficiently and effectively for our clients. If you want to read more about AI and technology applications in architecture, engineering, and construction—and keep up to date on this fast-changing field—check out my newsletter The AEC Matrix.

CopelandBEC Presents at Capital District Engineer’s Week

CopelandBEC Presents at Capital District Engineer’s Week

Matt

Last week I had the privilege of presenting at the 43rd annual Capital District Engineer’s Week. I talked about building science first principles that anyone can use to help solve their own building envelope problems, and shared a bunch of freely-available resources.

National Engineers Week was created in 1951 by the National Society of Professional Engineers and coincided with President’s Day. This is no coincidence, since George Washington, the 1st President of the United States was a land surveyor and engineer.

Much of what I discussed is shared right here on our site at copelandbec.com/self-help.

Better Buildings Newsletter

Matt

In case you missed it, I’ve started writing a weekly newsletter about how to make buildings work better. This week’s edition shares some of the free resources from our Building Envelope Self-Help page, and I’ve been sharing a lot of original content as well. Recent topics have included:

  • how designers can take more responsibility for communicating design intent
  • the impact that standard of care has on innovation

Check it out over on LinkedIn!