Home Builder Developer - Interior Renovation and Design

Above, a rendering of the art installation, which uses artifacts from the World Trade Center. It will eventually serve as a sort of gateway to the newly remodeled Fire Station 92.

image credit: Contributed Art

In June, the City of Mercer Island received artifacts from the World Trade Center that will eventually be installed in front of the newly remodeled Fire Station 92. The artifacts -- a part of the floor and ceiling sections of one tower garage and a pillar bisecting the two -- will be cut to size and installed as a gateway to the station. The Mercer Island Fire Department hopes the piece will encourage dialogue about September 11, 2001 and the events that followed.

The Reporter talked with artist John Sisko, who is working alongside architect Jim Brown, to finalize the piece. This interview has been edited for length and coherence.

Q: You attended the dedication ceremony for the 9/11 beams back in June. What was that like?

A. It was really exciting because it was just about one year from when wed first secured the piece. There had been a lot of bureaucracy...We had to do all sorts of things, insurance forms and contracts.

I was just happy to see the picture of the truck in Pennsylvania [after the artifacts left New York], loaded up and ready to go. We had a patient driver, Tommy, and we started to make arrangements [for the artifacts] to stop at fire houses all over the country. It became this big event. We were in little newspaper articles all over the country. I met the truck in Coeur Dalene, Idaho. Then we crossed the border into Washington and we wanted to accompany it across the state.

[In Spokane] we had three state patrol lead us through the town, blocking intersections. By the time we got to Mercer Island, we had 15 vehicles [behind us], it was crazy. That was a work of art in itself.

Q: How is the piece coming along?

A: Its coming along very well actually. The fire department is [helping us] bring the pieces down to [size]. Were working on getting construction permitting. Its just like youd do for any building actually.

Read more:
The art of remembrance

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How soil pushes (and how to build a wall that pushes back)

When you contemplate the retaining wall you're about to build, you may imagine how firm and solid it'll appear from the front, or how great the new garden will look above it. But unless you give serious thought to what goes on behind and below the wall, it may not look good for long. A poorly built wall can lean, separate, even toppleand it's out there in plain sight where all your neighbors can point and snicker. You don't want that!

Lots of people think a retaining wall needs to hold back all 6 gazillion tons of soil in the yard behind it. It doesn't. It only needs to retain a wedge of soil, or elongated wedge of soil, similar to that shown in Fig. A. In simple terms (our apologies to all you soil engineers out there): Undisturbed soilsoil that has lain untouched and naturally compacted for thousands of yearshas a maximum slope beyond which it won't hang together on its own. This slope is called the failure plane. If left alone, the soil behind the failure plane will stay put on its own. But the soil in front of the failure planethe natural soil or the fill you're going to addwants to slide down the failure plane.

Gravity, along with the slope, directs most of the weight and pressure of the fill toward the lower part of the retaining wall. Since soil weighs a beefy 100-plus lbs. per cu. ft., you need some pretty heavy materiallarge retaining wall blocks, boulders, timbers or poured concreteto counteract the pressure. Just as important, it needs to be installed the right way. Here are three key principles in building any solid retaining wall:

A retaining wall only needs to hold back a wedge of soil, not everything behind the wall.

A retaining wall needs to retain all the material that fills the space between itself and the failure planethe steepest angle at which existing soil can hold itself together before caving in.

Water can weaken retaining walls by washing out the base material that supports the wall (Fig. E). But far more frequently, it causes problems by building up behind the wall, saturating the soil and applying incredible pressure. That's when walls start leaning, bulging and toppling. Well built walls are constructed and graded to prevent water from getting behind the wall and to provide a speedy exit route for water that inevitably weasels its way in.

Take a look at the well-drained wall in Fig. D. The sod and topsoil are almost even with the top block, so surface water flows over the top rather than puddling behind. Just below that is 8 to 12 in. of packed impervious soil to help prevent water from seeping behind the wall. The gravel below that soil gives water that does enter a fast route to the drain tile. And the perforated drain tile collects the water and directs it away from the base of the wall, escorting it out through its open ends. There's nothing to prevent water from seeping out between the faces of the blocks, either; that helps with the drainage too. The wall even has porous filter fabric to prevent soil from clogging up the gravel. What you're looking at is a well-drained wall that will last a long time.

Now look at the poorly drained wall in Fig. E. There's a dip in the lawn that collects water near the top of the wall. There's no impervious soil, so the water heads south, slowly waterlogging and increasing the weight of the soil packed behind the wall. The homeowner put plastic against the back of the wall to prevent soil from oozing out between the cracksbut it's also holding water in. Yikes! There's no drain tile at the bottomthe trapped water can soak, soften and erode the base material. Not only that, an excavated trench that extends below the base lets water soak into the base material and weaken it. You've got a retaining wall that has to hold back tons and tons of water and saturated soiland when that water freezes and expands in the winter, matters get even worse.

A well built wall starts with a solid base.

Here is the original post:
How to Build Retaining Walls Stronger: The Family Handyman

1 hour 6 minutes ago by Jacqueline Quynh - KPAX News

Every spring we watch the rivers around Missoula rise - and for some of us homeowners we're watching how close water is getting to our backyards.

Sometimes the only thing stopping a rush of mud and water is a wall... So what if that retaining wall fails?

Nate Williams rents an apartment next to Rattlesnake Creek.

"It's a very clean water stream," said Nate Williams, who lives near the creek.

He likes the location for it's access to fly fishing, but the creek can also get very fast, and very high during the spring -- making it at times a threat.

"I have seen the river come up within 8 inches of the support beam," said Williams.

In some places the only thing to stop the water is a retaining wall. And in one area, underneath the bridge on East Front Street in Missoula, the retaining wall is badly deteriorating.

"Trees have grown up and broken loose the concrete," said Williams.

"You can tell how old this bridge is because this plaque here tells us it was built in 1932 but not the case for the retaining walls and structures below it."

Original post:
Crumbling retaininer walls worry Missoula residents

Aug. 28--Travelers at the world's busiest airport are likely to see new parking garages and renovated terminals over the next decade, and possibly a sixth runway and more concourses after that, according to a master plan proposed by Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport officials Wednesday.

The plan is the airport's blueprint for growth through 2031 and includes a raft of major projects aimed at keeping Hartsfield-Jackson big enough and modern enough to maintain its role as a massive economic driver for metro Atlanta and the Southeast.

Master plans are not binding and some elements, such as another runway or more concourses, depend on how passenger growth plays out in coming years. But most big-ticket items in Hartsfield-Jackson's last master plan -- a fifth runway, separate international terminal and new rental car complex -- got built.

The billions of dollars needed to fund the new master plan would come from the airport itself: passenger facility charges, airline lease and landing fee payments, revenue from concessions and parking, as well as federal grants. The revenue streams are often used to back bonds or other construction financing.

Some projects would affect businesses and homeowners around the airport and will likely generate discussion and debate in coming months and years.

The full plan would involve relocating numerous facilities, including Delta's cargo operation, hotels and other businesses in College Park near the southwest corner of the airport, some park-ride parking spaces, and ground transportation waiting areas.

Airport officials discussed their draft master plan at an Atlanta city council transportation committee meeting Wednesday, adding that they will continue work on it in coming months. That will include more detailed analysis and a public meeting to be held Sept. 18.

"This is still a work in progress," said Hartsfield-Jackson planning director Tom Nissalke.

The city of Atlanta owns Hartsfield-Jackson, but the airport funds its own operations and there are federal restrictions from using airport revenue for non-airport uses.

One of the more urgent projects is to tear down and expand the domestic terminal's parking garages. The airport plans to replace both the North and South four-story parking decks with garages twice as large, with eight or nine levels.

Read the original:
World's Busiest Airport Eyes New Parking Decks, 6th Runway

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