“Recently, there has been a growing and overdue recognition in the architecture discipline that women are underrepresented, not just in terms of leadership positions held, but also in terms of receiving credit for the work they have done,” notes a research paper from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH).

The Chicago-based CTBUH is the self-described “arbiter of tall building height and the global authority that bestows titles such as ‘The World’s Tallest Building.’”

While there’s no shortage of soaring structures from centuries past, including the pyramids of Egypt and cathedrals of Europe, skyscrapers (or simply “tall buildings”) are a relatively new phenomenon. The CTBUH applies a strict definition to the term: a skyscraper or tall building is a structure in which at least half its height is “occupiable”. In other words, the majority of the interior space can be used for offices or residences, as opposed to a communications tower or the architectural wonders of the ancient world.

“The first skyscraper (acknowledged because of its use of a curtain wall construction on a steel frame) is generally accepted as the 1885 Home Insurance Building by architect William Le Baron Jenney in Chicago. Being the first skyscraper, it was also the first to claim the title of ‘World’s Tallest Building’ at 55 meters (180 feet),” states the CTBUH.

Prominent skyscrapers include the Chrysler Building in New York City (319 meters or 1,046 feet) and the Empire State Building (381 meters or 1,250 feet). Measured from height to tip, the world’s tallest skyscraper is currently the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, at 830 meters or 2,723 feet.

In 2017, the CTBUH published a research paper entitled, “Ten Significant Tall Buildings and the Significant Women Behind Them.” In addition to highlighting architectural achievements, the document pointed to the challenges faced by women within the skyscraper niche.

The oldest building on the CTBUH list, Lever House in New York City, offers a good example of the struggle for recognition. Opened in 1952 as the headquarters of UK soap company, Lever Brothers, Lever House was considered “one of the seminal tall buildings in the International / Modernist style” and won kudos for its then revolutionary “blue-green, heat-resistant glass curtain wall,” states the CTBUH. In 1982, Lever House was declared a New York City landmark. Scant praise, however, was directed at Natalie de Blois, Design Coordinator for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM).

“Natalie de Blois played a significant role in the design of Lever House, as well as several other Modernist buildings by SOM… but her role at the time was rarely mentioned,” notes the CTBUH research paper.

During the same decade, Phyllis Lambert, the Owner’s Representative for the Seagram Company, was instrumental in shaping the design of another eye-catching skyscraper. This was the Seagram Building, erected in New York City in 1958. Lambert’s father, Samuel Bronfman, was founder of the Seagram Company.

Lambert insisted that Seagram’s hire Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (head of the school of architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Lambert’s alma mater) and Phillip Johnson, to do the design. Bronfman had a different architectural firm in mind but acceded to his daughter’s choice. The end result was a magnificent, rectangular structure that was both inspirational and practical.

“Considered to be the high point of the International Style in tall buildings, the Seagram further refined the innovations of the Lever House, with its signature bronzed-steel mullions extending the length of the building, as a way of expressing the structure inside. It was the first tall building to use high-strength bolted connections, to combine a braced frame with a moment frame, and to use a composite steel and concrete lateral frame,” wrote the CTBUH.

Skip forward a few decades, and women still face huge challenges in the architectural field—but are finally being recognized for their work.

Zaha Hadid, for example, was a notable pioneer in a male-dominated profession. Born in 1950 in Baghdad, Iraq, Hadid studied architecture in London, England, taught at elite institutions such as Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and the University of Applied Arts Vienna, and founded an eponymous firm in 1979. In 2004, she became the first woman to win the Pritzker Architecture Prize (“considered the Nobel Prize in architecture” according to the London-based Zaha Hadid Architects website).

Among other accolades, Hadid was included on a Forbes list of the “World’s Most Powerful Women” and a TIME magazine compilation of the “100 Most Influential People in the World”. In 2012, Queen Elizabeth II made her a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in honour of her architectural accomplishments.

Hadid’s “experimentation with parametric modeling and curve optimization led to an immediately identifiable style that extended from small objects to massive buildings,” writes the CTBUH.

The Nanjing International Youth Cultural Centre in China was one of Hadid’s flagship projects. Originally designed for the 2014 Youth Olympic Games, this massive complex currently offers conference space, offices, an urban plaza, and two soaring hotel towers reaching 255 meters and 315 meters respectively.

The towers “extend the viewers’ sense of perspective. The towers’ trapezoidal floor plans maximize their river-facing frontages and double-decked elevations increase the efficiency of their core area planning by fifty percent,” reads the Zaha Hadid Architects website.

For a time, Tower 1 was “the tallest building to have been designed by a woman-owned architecture firm,” states the CTBUH.

Hadid’s achievement would be eclipsed by Jeanne Gang of Chicago. Born in 1964 in Belvidere, Illinois, Gang earned a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Illinois, studied in Europe for a time, then returned to the U.S. to graduate with distinction from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She worked in Europe before founding her own company, Studio Gang, in Chicago at age 33.

Studio Gang was the force behind the Aqua Tower, an 82-story, 876-foot residential / hotel building opened in Chicago in 2010.

“Strategically sculpting the shape of each floor slab offers comfortable outdoor terraces, where neighbours can casually and comfortably interact when desired, as well as views to Chicago landmarks… Aqua’s green roof is one of the largest in Chicago. Its features include a water-efficient irrigation system. A large-scale spiral staircase seamlessly connects the tower and public park below,” explains the Studio Gang website.

Fast Company magazine described the Aqua Tower as a huge achievement for a woman architect and a milestone for “architectural flamboyance at a reasonable price.”

Jeanne Gang went on to design an even taller structure, the sweeping St. Regis Chicago. Completed in 2020, this combined residential / hotel building features three levels, each a different height. The highest level reaches 362.9 meters or 1,191 feet in the air, making it the “tallest building designed by a woman,” according to July 22, 2021’s Wall Street Journal.

The aesthetics of the St. Regis were highly lauded: “The undulating profile of the trio of towers… takes on the tones of sky and water in a bewitching play of light and colour,” wrote Chicago Magazine.

Like Hadid, Gang has received multiple industry honours, including the 2017 Louis I. Kahn Memorial Award and the National Design Award for Architecture Design 2013 from Cooper Hewitt. The Architectural Review magazine named her the 2016 Architect of the Year and TIME magazine called her one of the world’s most influential people. St. Regis Chicago earned the CTBUH 2022 Best Tall Building, 300 – 399 meters, Audience and Category Winner award. Gang writes books about architecture and teaches at the Harvard Graduate School of Design as well.

Hadid passed away in 2016, but her firm continues to design tall buildings according to her vision. These include the gigantic Shenzhen Bay Super Headquarters Base Tower C-1 in Shenzhen, China. Construction of this massive structure began last year, with an estimated completion date of 2027. Once finished, the Base Tower will house 78 floors and rise 394 meters (1,293 feet) from the ground.

For all this, women architects still face gender discrimination. To this end, Gang participated in a flash mob protest of roughly 100 female architects at the Venice Biennale of Architecture (aka, The Biennale Architettura) in late May 2018. Part of a larger cultural event held every two years in Italy, this international architectural exhibition draws huge crowds.

The flash mob demonstration aimed to “denounce discrimination and prejudice within our field,” wrote Gang, in a July 3, 2018 article in Fast Company.

Protest organizers also released a manifesto which reads as follows:

“We as Voices of Women are building conversations and taking actions to raise awareness to combat pervasive prejudices and disrespectful behaviour that appears to be systemic in our culture and discipline. We are united in denouncing discrimination, harassment and aggressions against any member of our community. We will not tolerate it. We will not stand silent. Women are not a minority in the world, but women are still a minority in the architecture field and we want it to better reflect better the world in which we live.”

Certainly, women architects still have a way to go to achieve professional parity, even as their buildings get taller and taller.

The post Rising High<p class="company">Skyscrapers Designed By Women</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

AMG has taken down dozens of buildings for the DEP along with performing hundreds of interior demolition jobs for hospitals, the School Construction Authority, The Port Authority, GOSR, CUNY, DDC, MTA and DCAS, and is currently working on numerous projects. These include the Manhattan Psychiatric Center, a 25-story facility which will see the full removal of the façade and a full gut of the building; Baruch College, a full structural gut; and most recently, a full gut of a 53-story skyscraper for JP Morgan Chase / Northstar.

The company has also collaborated on a number of projects with the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York (DASNY), including the Medgar Evers College Youth Collective Building, City College, Brooklyn College, Queensborough College, John Jay, Kingsborough College, and Bronx Community College. Through persistence, perseverance and plenty of hard work, owner and President Capobianco has helped the business grow into a thriving and well-respected operation.

AMG, however, arose from some truly tragic life changes when Capobianco’s husband passed away suddenly.

“I used to be in high-end, Italian children’s clothing, right around the time the Lira was turning into the Euro, and it was just a bad time, so I was getting out of that business,” she says.

She and her husband—along with their children aged 23, 11 and 13—had sold their house in New York and made the move to a new home in Florida.

“Before our moving truck even came, he died in his sleep. We never even met the neighbors. I was looking to get into a new dredging business and here I am in Florida for three days and basically have to turn the truck around and move back home and rent a house.”

A turning point in every sense, Capobianco was faced with some big—and unexpected—decisions. On the advice of a friend, she applied for MWBE (minority and/or women-owned business) status, and after shadowing a competitor, the rest is history—or her story.

“We got an engineer. We signed with the union, I got a couple of guys who put our first bid in, and we won our first government job, which was Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn,” she says. “And we completed our first job successfully.”

Utilizing a portal system that shares job reviews seen by the School Construction Authority, the MTA, and others, AMG’s triple A rating after its first job led to being invited to the OPG (Opportunity Programs Group), a very select group of MWBE. Performing “slowly but surely,” AMG received funding, and started with a bonding agent who made sure the company paid its job bill first.

“Now it’s 2023 and we have $25 million in bonding,” Capobianco says. “DASNY and the MWBE program really brought us to where we are today. There are a lot of good contractors out there, but because the goals were so high, we got an opportunity that we would have never ever had once we performed well and proved ourselves.”

AMG became the go-to union demo company, she says, and the onslaught of Hurricane Sandy created another yet path.

“Every time there’s a tragedy, they need an abundance of people to clean up the mess,” says Capobianco. “We did a lot of work during Sandy, and slowly but surely we started doing a little bit more; the machinery side of our business started to generate more than the hand labor demolition side, and we were taking down full structures—more than 400 following Sandy.”

AMG signed with Locals 14, 15 and 138 as well as Laborers Unions 66, 79 and 731 for the operating engineers and took down a couple of buildings, instigated through a minority participation program via the MWBE/DBE.

“It’s a very tough business. The stories are endless,” says Capobianco. “MWBE became a precedent. The men and the non-MWBE world were very against this, being forced to use a [particular] group of people. It was a little bit of an issue for a lot of the people who’ve been in this business forever. It got to where they wouldn’t be able to get a contract unless they gave a utilization plan showing their MWBE/DBE participation.”

With its strong record, bonding, and union affiliations, AMG continued to thrive, reinvesting any profits right back into the business for the first 10 years. Today it boasts 200 employees, a full-time engineer, three estimators, a project coordinator, three project managers in-house, and an in-house CFO. Despite all the years of success and high-profile demolitions, Capobianco doesn’t forget her roots.

“If it wasn’t for the MWBE/DBE program, nobody would have given us the opportunity,” she says. “It’s not a freebie; you have to perform well and work hard, and then you’ll get another chance for opportunity, and that’s exactly what happened with us. We started bidding MTA work and landed a chance at another bid opportunity (ESI) which was developing subways, ripping out platforms and mezzanines, corroded stairs and compromised terracotta walls.”

The onset of COVID led AMG in another new direction when the company was asked to help with anything from moving coffins to demolishing floors and walls, making hospital bed space out of offices, helping with security in the ER, and more.

“Northstar put us to work seven days a week, 100 workers, 24 hours a day. We had operating engineers who would have forklifts to put coffins into a freezer, and we had guys that were just stripping floors, making offices into hospital beds,” Capobianco shares. “We did everything and anything. Daily the bodies were coming in, and there weren’t enough people, everybody was getting sick. So we would help with moving bodies to funeral cars into hospitals and down to the morgue.”

While she says “so much” of how a business grows depends on the economy, the government and “who’s in charge,” Capobianco has also had to depend on herself throughout all of it.

“You’re a woman alone. My husband had liver disease, so we weren’t able to get life insurance,” she says. “Here I am with three kids, no money, we’d just gotten to Florida, with no job. My kids were suffering. Do I want to go find some menial, miniscule job that will just pay the bills and we move into an apartment, or do I want to try to give them a nice lifestyle and let them go to good colleges and have cars and finish up what I started with my husband. There was struggle, grief and suffering there.

For Capobianco, the sacrifice meant working 18- to 20-hour days and a nonexistent social life while her parents helped with her kids.”

“What do you do when you have nothing?” she says. “You have nothing to lose, so you give it 1,000 percent and you see where it goes. I didn’t date. Two weeks after my husband died, they said, ‘Mommy, are you going to get another daddy for us? And I said, ‘absolutely not.’ You know, a lot of women do that. They say, ‘how am I going to afford these kids?’ so they get married quickly afterwards for security. I said, ‘Mommy’s going to open up a business and you won’t see me as much, but I’ll make sure I give you everything you need.’ The little one said to me, ‘Mom, why don’t we make a deal? When I go to college, you could start dating.’ And I said, ‘okay, that’s a deal.’”

Capobianco was determined to make it work—to learn the business, push for meetings, enter rat-infested buildings, find jobs, and pay the bills.

“I never slept,” she says of those early days. “And almost 10 years to the day, my daughter said to me, ‘mom, I’m finishing my third year of college, and you were supposed to start dating two years ago.’”

Capobianco took her daughter’s reminder to heart, albeit in a roundabout way. After buying some Jet Skis—her first “big” purchase—she was fueling them up at a marina when a stranger loaned her a life jacket upon her promise to return it at the end of the day. Capobianco forgot, but a few chance encounters later—including the stranger unknowingly walking into her business office—led to another decision.

“I called my daughter and said, ‘I think I want to date.’ And that was it,” she says. “I met Phil, who has kids of his own, and I introduced my kids to him and we were married soon after. It was pretty amazing. It’s the perfect ending.”

Their kids are all “best friends,” and Phil, who has recently retired, has joined Joni at AMG and has helped in so many ways to relieve the stress.

She’s had a lot of help along the way, she adds, including CFO Jaime Martinetion and Senior Project Manager Joe Amatulli. Jaime has been with Joni since day one and can finish her sentences. “Without Jaime I am not sure we would be here,” she says. She’s also joined by her daughter Natalie, a project coordinator who has been everything from a bookkeeper to project coordinator over the past 15 years, and son Anthony, who has blossomed into an amazing estimator and project manager.

“Jason Loeb has joined the AMG team as project manager of sizeable jobs,” Capobianco says. “Dawn Callahan and Ahmed Nasr are AMG’s estimating team. Benny Versaci of LJC has joined our team. Juan Vicuna and Jeronimo Mejia are our trusted General Foreman. Our office assistants Dayna Liuzzo and Angela Giaramita support our management team and provide a warm and friendly environment. My daughter Vienna has grown into a wonderful young woman; she has become a therapist and is planning her wedding for next year. My son Gregory owns his own business and just had a son, Leo Davide. Natalie has two children, Joseph and Olivia. My two step-sons, Anthony and Mark, are both expecting children of their own this spring. The Capobianco family is growing leaps and bounds and myself and Phil love our role as grandparents. We cannot wait for the two new babies to arrive and enjoy the fruits of our labor,” she shares.

And while the company is continuing to thrive and grow with new and exciting projects, Capobianco never dismisses the challenges. “Early on, I will say it was horrifying,” she admits. “When I first started, people were forced to use MWBE/DBE firms because they needed to meet MWBE participation or the job’s not getting done. I was being abusively cursed in the field. I wanted to turn around and cry, but you couldn’t do that in front of a man. So it took a long time to prove myself and to prove I knew what I was doing.”

Never one to rest on her past successes or take advantage of her MWBE/DBE status, Capobianco has made a point of providing excellence.

“We really give a service like nobody else; our labor force is a family and amazing group of talented people who truly care,” she says. “We never say no. I’ll figure it out. If I’ve got to do it myself, I’ll do it myself.”

Success also means the ability to choose to do business with companies Joni respects; she has made many friends in the industry and has learned from seasoned general contractors. People like Larry Sitbon, the owner of Citnalta Construction, have been instrumental in guidance in all aspects of this business. He is Joni’s “go-to call”. “We surround ourselves with honorable companies that share our beliefs and work practices and ethics,” she says.

“After four or five years, we really made a name in this business,” she says. “We wound up getting that reputation and the respect and now it’s hasn’t been a problem for many years. But it’s very difficult, because everybody at the beginning, including owners of properties would ask, ‘what do you know about demolition? Do you want to go on a date?’ ‘No, I don’t want a date, I want to get this job.’”

Over the years, she’s also had to contend with businesses speaking only to her male coworkers, even when she, the company president, was in the room.

“I think it’s changed a lot with the changes in our world today, and I think the momentum has changed a little bit,” she adds. “Men in this industry respect women a little bit more. It was a long road, and I can truly say at this point it’s because I have good people, and I have my husband by my side. And that’s the key: having the right people around you with the right personalities. We have a great team. I never forget where I came from and know that safety is the most important element. One mistake and this all can be gone; there are no shortcuts. We stay clear of stereotypical undesirables. We stay the straight course, pay all our bills and treat our people well.”

The post Smashing Stereotypes in the Demolition Industry<p class="company">AMG Demolition</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

So instead of considering it upon graduation, Lynam found employment with the Flynn Hill Elevator Corporation in Long Island, Mutual of America Life Insurance, and JPMorgan Chase for the next 14 years.

But as the 21^st century dawned, perceptions of what was possible in the construction industry were slowly undergoing a paradigm shift into a new reality, one where women’s and men’s careers would eventually no longer be defined by stereotypes.

According to Rebecca Winke’s 10 Women-Owned Businesses in the Construction Industry for Family Handyman, “About 13 percent of construction-related companies are owned by women, a 64 percent jump between 2014 and 2019, which reflects a significant jump in the industry.”

She goes on to note that in a traditionally male-dominated industry, the field is increasingly opening up to women owners and CEOs, and quotes figures from the National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC) that indicate women make up around 10 percent of the industry overall, with a significant increase in the number of woman-owned enterprises in the last decade.

But back in 2006 the notion of women owning such a business, as opposed to working for one, was still a novel idea, one that hadn’t quite taken off, as it appears to have done by 2014.

That, however, didn’t stop Erin Lynam and her business partner, Andrea Lynam, from taking the bold step of forming the Atlantic Concrete Reinforcing Company, which works with general contractors, private owners, and public agencies, specializing in concrete reinforcement for bridges, tunnels, and foundations throughout the greater Metropolitan New York area, Westchester County, and Long Island as a WBE Certified Subcontractor.

The company’s beginnings were relatively humble. In March of 2006, the staff consisted of just one supervisor and a few workers installing rebar on the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge. But in its first ten years of operation, according to the company website, it grew to include 100 employees spanning 30 major jobs and placing approximately 40,000 tons of rebar for projects throughout the New York Metropolitan area. Since then, it has continued to grow, earning respect from general contractors who bring repeat business to the company, knowing they can depend on the team to meet schedule deadlines.

That’s something the Lynams are justifiably proud of, alongside the fact that the business is WBE Certified with a number of agencies, including the Empire State Development Corp, NYC Small Business Services, the NYC School Construction Board, and the counties of Nassau and Suffolk.

Since the company’s inception, it has been a member of the General Contractors Association and a proud supporter of local construction unions, including Metal Lathers Local 46, NY Laborers Local 731, The Cement and Concrete Workers Local 18A & 20, and the Local 147 Sandhogs. The company readily acknowledges that “without the hardworking men and women of our unions, we would not have reached the level of success we have today.”

Atlantic Reinforcing Concrete is a full-service rebar company, specializing in bending and installing concrete reinforcing material. The company maintains an in-house threading facility that can service all of a client’s mechanical coupler needs; can act as supplier for general contractors, thereby streamlining the ordering process; and has its own fleet of trucks to deliver products directly to the job site.

When the steel companies cannot make the delivery on time, “our trucks can, so our customers can meet their deadlines,” says the company’s website. “We take pride in this, as we always strive to complete projects in a scheduled timeframe and within budget constraints.”

Each one of Atlantic Reinforcing Concrete’s major infrastructure projects is unique, incredibly complex, and critical, since literally hundreds of lives, at any given time, depend on them meeting and exceeding the highest safety standards. A few examples of the many projects on which the company has worked include the patient pavilion of the Good Samaritan Hospital, the station upgrades of the Flushing Street Main Station, and the TN-49 Bridge Deck Replacement.

The highly travelled Unionport Bridge, which sees between 50,000 and 60,000 vehicles crossing it daily, is a key element in the Bronx roadway system. It operates on a bascule (a moveable bridge) to allow commercial waterway traffic safe passage, while connecting local streets with major thoroughfares such as the Bruckner Expressway, the Cross Bronx Expressway, and the Hutchinson River Parkway.

By 2016, the bridge, built in 1953, had deteriorated and was deemed to be in dire need of a replacement. The complex $232 million replacement project was designed by EnTech Engineering to be built in 10 stages over a 48-month period and completed by mid-2021. The construction contract was awarded to Lane Construction and Schiavone Construction, who began work in 2017, according to bridgeweb.com.

Atlantic Reinforcing Concrete’s portion of the work included fabrication and installation of the concrete reinforcing materials for the 18 columns that support the bridge across the Bruckner Expressway. They were manufactured from epoxy-coated #14 vertical rebar that are 72 feet in length. They are held together with #7 epoxy-coated five-foot continuous spirals that are tied at four inches on center.

These critically important columns were fabricated in the company’s spacious home yard at Deer Park. They were then delivered to the work site by the company’s own fleet of trucks where, despite the site constraints due to some very tight spaces, they were successfully installed. This project is but one example of the company’s dedication to meeting diverse client needs. As the team describes on their website, “With hard work and a skilled work force we are able to consistently meet deadlines and fulfill the needs our customers.”

The post Reinforcing Tomorrow<p class="company">Atlantic Reinforcing Concrete Company</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

After graduating from Fordham University in 1983, Fogliano started working with her father full-time. She took the wheel in 1988 when her father retired, forming MacQuesten General Contracting, Inc. and keeping many of the same clients.

Fogliano did not rest on her laurels. By the early ‘90s, she was ready for the next challenge and began to develop properties her company had acquired, particularly in the Bronx. Her extensive experience gave her insight into the housing situation throughout the New York Metropolitan area, and she recognized a serious lack of affordable housing and set out to remedy the problem.

The Hughes Avenue Crescent housing development completed in 1996—and still in use today—was Fogliano’s first example of success in the affordable housing market. Built to house 63 families, the project was funded through the New York State Housing Trust Fund Corporation, the proceeds of tax credits, and conventional financing.

Fogliano continued her entrepreneurial endeavors in 2003, launching MacQuesten Construction Management, LLC and MacQuesten Development, LLC. The companies complement one another, focusing on the financing, design, and construction management of multi-family and commercial properties, including privately holding these properties. “MacQuesten Development is the driving force behind acquisition and financing,” Fogliano explains. “MacQuesten Construction Management is just as the name states—it manages the construction for the ownership entity of which I am the Principal.”

Since its founding, MacQuesten has grown steadily from four employees to fifteen, with an accounting department, paralegal services, and an Executive Vice President all in-house. The companies’ projects have soared from an initial 63 units to over 1,500 and, in value, from an $8.5 million project to one worth $100 million. Perhaps most notably, The MacQuesten Companies have set a new standard for women in a traditionally male-dominated industry. “We are the largest woman-owned development company in the State of New York,” Fogliano shares.

She says that the main strategy for growth was a “slow and steady” approach, as well as “not taking on more than we could handle—completing every project in spite of what, to others, may have been insurmountable obstacles.”

The company culture is still deeply impacted by the years that Fogliano spent at her father’s side. “My father instilled in me a very strong work ethic,” she says. “I’m happy to report that everyone on the MacQuesten team shares this as well; nobody on our staff watches the clock. When we need to meet a deadline, I can depend on every member of our team to respond at practically all hours.” The team also shares the belief that “no job or task is too small or too big to handle.” Their overall approach can be summed up by the company values: “Commitment to excellence on every level and in every area.”

Fogliano has maintained her strong commitment to affordable housing and the company has completed a string of notable firsts in the sector. The MacQuesten Companies successfully built Palmer Court Homes in 2001 as one of the first projects under the New York City Housing Development Corporation (HDC) which, at the time, had just been formed as the New Housing Opportunities Program (NHOPS).

The Tony Mendez Apartments mark another New York State first. Built on property formally owned by the City of New York, the project was funded under the State of New York Homes and Community Renewal’s (HCR) Homes for Working Families Program and Tax Exempt Bond Financing through HDC. After completing New York City’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP), the land went to Madison Court Associates, LP, an affiliate of MacQuesten Development.

Fogliano says her experience in the affordable housing sector has been “challenging but satisfying.” She goes on to explain that what began as a shrewd business plan has become much more. “At first I viewed it as an entry point to real estate development such as large commercial / retail / office buildings. But I quickly realized that the need for affordable housing was greater and did not succumb to fluctuating market conditions. Now we are seeing developers of those large office parks looking to enter into affordable housing. So this reinforces our vision. When we started, the term ‘affordable housing’ was looked down upon, but now affordable housing is a hot topic on a national level.”

The MacQuesten Companies have also actively embraced green construction. The group began incorporating sustainability and green elements into all stages of a project—design, development, and construction—back in 2006. The team partnered with R3 Energy Group mid-construction to complete the Highland Senior Residence Project, located in Yonkers, NY. The partnered companies applied to NYSERDA’s Multifamily Performance Program together and MacQuesten utilized multiple energy efficient elements—including a co-generator—to achieve energy-efficient building status. The hard work paid off and NYSERDA named Highland Senior Residence an Energy Star Building in 2011.

MacQuesten continued along its green path with the redesign of the Rev. Dr. Fletcher C. Crawford Apartments in 2010. The project included Energy Star rated windows, appliances, and co-generation. The MacQuesten Companies completed another green project, Heritage Homes in the City of New Rochelle, NY, in 2013. This project utilized a wide range of sustainable building materials, from recycled cement board exterior, Energy Star rated windows, and bamboo floors to Energy Star appliances, individual Energy Star domestic water heaters, and central air conditioning. The company showcased its green construction skills once again with 22 South West in Mount Vernon, an affordable luxury building featuring its own co-generator. Two more building projects, Mother Arnetta Crawford Apartments and The Modern, have been designed to achieve a LEED certification standard of Silver or higher.

The team has several exciting upcoming projects planned for this year. “Last year we closed on and are currently building a 108-unit affordable mixed-use property in Brooklyn,” Fogliano reports. “We also have a pipeline of projects in southern Westchester County.” This includes the St. Clair, a 76-unit multifamily 10-story building in the City of Yonkers’ downtown area, and Crescent Manor, a 74-unit Senior Housing development in the Village of Ossining. “This will be our first Passive House construction,” says Fogliano.

After twenty successful years in business, celebration is in order—but ever committed to the job, the team does not want to take attention away from the work at hand. When asked how they will mark the occasion, Fogliano replied that they are “too busy closing a new $75 million project in June” to take the time. “I suppose we will wait until our 25^th anniversary!”

Of course, there is plenty to be done between now and that next anniversary. “We have a lot in our pipeline,” Fogliano says. “In addition to the St. Clair and Crescent Manor we are working on the development of a 300-unit affordable housing / retail building in New Rochelle as well as a 160-unit affordable housing project in the City of Yonkers.”

When it comes to the long-term future of the Companies, the vision is to maintain the same path that has brought solid success thus far. “I think we are in a good place and will continue to take on projects that make sense to us,” Fogliano says. “We’ve accomplished a lot and will continue to do so.”

The post A Woman-Owned Success Story<p class="company">MacQuesten Development and MacQuesten Construction Management</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

Founded in 2018, Mobu’s woman- and minority-owned company boasts years of project, operations, construction, and development experience. The company creates structures that both lessen carbon footprints and lower overall out-of-pocket expenses while rebuilding communities through environmental advocacy, education, and the use of sustainable products and self-sustaining architecture.

It all started when Mobu CEO Jessica Lewis, working as a project manager, noticed her previous employers “didn’t care very much” about customers, focusing instead on the bottom line.

“I’m a social entrepreneur, and I basically wanted to work in an environment where I was helping people get ahead versus just taking their money,” she says of the impetus behind Mobu. “The goal behind this company was to solve social issues.”

Those social issues include providing not only more affordable but safer building alternatives. Along with being wind-, water- and fireproof, Mobu’s shipping containers are also healthier. “We’re a fully green construction company, so we use the container combined with green materials,” Lewis says. “As the consumer, you’ll have a healthier environment because you’re not exposed to the materials that make up that building product.”

Many materials used in brick buildings are open cell material, meaning inhabitants of that space are constantly exposed to building material, be it silica from drywall or various carpet fibers.

“It could be anything, even your HVAC system,” Lewis says. While central air may keep you comfortable, it also keeps warm bacteria built up from moisture. “Because of that you’re exposed to all these things, while in green construction, you’re not. That’s why we started our company, to give people some healthier options when it came to building.”

And Mobu has plenty more in the works, with plans to launch some significant projects, including partnering with the Georgia Department of Corrections to house the company’s first manufacturing plant in a women’s prison. The federal program allows companies who want to get into manufacturing to partner with prisons, using their facilities to hire the inmates while they’re there.

“And then they’ll continue to work for us when they’re released from prison so they have stable employment,” says Lewis. “Women, in particular, just aren’t exposed to construction, never mind green trades, and that’s why we chose that women’s prison versus a men’s prison.”

Aside from helping incarcerated women learn useful skills, Mobu also strives to assist those who were previously incarcerated, veterans, and immigrants by providing employment opportunities as they acclimate either to society or to United States standards.

“It’s a huge feat for them. It’s like they’re battling for their life just to enter the world, so to speak,” says Lewis. “From that perspective alone it’s enough for us to say, ‘let’s focus on this population,’ because it will be of great benefit to them.”

Lewis is also taking Mobu to the next level this year by migrating toward being a green tech company, along with moving more into the commercial space, launching a one-million-square foot, 1,064-unit mixed-use project in Temple, Texas.

Ramping up the company’s success and its projects has also come with its share of challenges, however, and Lewis has much to say about her experiences both as a woman in construction generally and also within Mobu itself. “A lot of men in this industry don’t want estrogen in the room,” she says. “We’ve developed systems and operations, and our management style is different.”

Unfortunately, being a woman has also meant missed opportunities within the business, she adds, particularly when presenting projects at planning and zoning meetings where she realized her lack of a male partner was costing her work. Lewis ultimately partnered with friend Ibrahim Smith about two years into the company, and he has proved a valuable addition to Mobu.

“He’s actually very well-versed in all kinds of construction, especially green construction,” Lewis says of Smith. “Anything you can think of, he can build. He was a treat, coming to the company, because, again, when you’re talking about being able to do certain things, he was the reason why our company was able to grow pretty rapidly.”

This includes Smith’s willingness and ability to learn, says Lewis. “While he didn’t know a lot about containers, he was open to understanding the nuances that made it different,” she adds. “I’m very happy to have him as a partner, highly grateful that he’s my partner and not sure what I would do without him. If I can be honest, I’m not sure if my business would have made it this long.”

Lewis also continues to look for ways to incorporate more women into the industry, which she strives to do by way of the company’s apprenticeship program.

“I don’t meet a lot of women electricians, and I haven’t met any women welders yet,” she says. “Our apprenticeship program is going to foster more women tradespeople. So between the manufacturing plant, and specifically recruiting women for our apprenticeship program, that’s going to be major.”

Next year, Mobu will also be more strategic about reaching out to technical schools, letting them know more about the program which gives graduates an LLC. “Once they graduate they become a part of our permanent team if they desire.”

As for advice, Lewis wants to share with women in particular why green trades are an excellent career path to pursue: To any woman looking to make what she calls a large impact with minimal effort, green trades is that career, and one that actually gives people opportunities they normally wouldn’t get in a traditional setting.

“Some of those issues I had, as far as being a woman trying to be in that space and wanting to progress when you’re in traditional construction, what you’ll find is that you’re not as welcomed,” she says. “The most important reason why you want to be in a green space and green trades, other than income level, is the camaraderie we have.”

While women in traditional construction settings are sometimes discouraged, green trades are excited to have you, she says. “If you’re looking for a career that pays more with fewer education barriers, green trades are that as well,” Lewis adds, stressing that the solar panel industry in particular is a great field for those interested in working in sustainability, and one not highly advertised.

That lack of advertising means exposure is key, not only for the company and what it does, but for the vital role sustainability will play throughout the construction industry at large. “What are you going to do when there are no more trees?” Lewis says. “If people aren’t thinking about green now, they’re going to be forced into thinking about green.”

Mobu’s solutions include a relaunch of its real estate development master class aimed at people who want to get into real estate development, along with those who want to get into green trades.

“It will actually help them get into our world, because we’ll teach them all the behind-the-scenes things on how to create relationships, build the camaraderie, find green vendors, and build green,” says Lewis. “Everything that we do on a regular basis, we’re now going to offer as a class to people. So for those who want to pivot now before it’s too late, this will be a great opportunity… it allows for them to be proactive versus reactive.”

That pivot needs to happen—and probably in the next five years due to climate change, Lewis adds, as floods, fires and ecological damage are becoming more and more prevalent.

“Do you see how many of these large hundreds-of-years-old trees are now collapsing in people’s yards? I don’t know why people don’t think that’s weird,” she says. “We have to not ignore these red flags about what’s happening with our climate to the point where these trees’ roots are dying and they’re collapsing… That means underground, something is happening. Just to be alive is to be aware of what’s happening around us and being proactive versus reactive… The world’s climate is not going to get better, and if more people don’t get into this field, we’re going to disappear at a rapid pace.”

That means, whether it is partnering with a vertical farm company to build farms and gardens inside shipping containers to battle food insecurity across the country, or launching its first token called The Future of Housing coin, Mobu is embracing technological advances while remaining committed to social awareness and the vital need for green construction.

To this end, Mobu’s apprenticeship program, manufacturing plant, and larger-scale green projects all aim to expose more people to these crucial opportunities. “I don’t want to be a part of the problem,” Lewis says. “And I want more people to be a part of the solution.”

The post Sustainable Solutions<p class="company">Mobu Enterprises</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

From its inception in 2005 as Riverside Door & Trim in Kitchener, Ontario, the company has grown dramatically through the years, not only welcoming various vendors and partners, including Alexandria Moulding, County Heritage, and London Trim & Door, but also a skilled roster of experienced and knowledgeable employees.

In 2015, with two warehouses, two showrooms, and two sets of offices, Riverside Millwork Group was established and today maintains locations in Waterloo, London, and Stoney Creek, Ontario.

“The company got its start when the brothers who own the company, Mario and Stelios Gianniotis, saw some opportunities in the marketplace where they were installing trim indoor for a number of builders and general contractors,” says Marketing Manager Zoey Taylor. “They saw a lot of people in the market not doing both supply and install, and when the supply and install was coming from [the same company], the process was just a lot easier for the builder.”

Younger brother Mario ended up leaving university to start the company, embracing the entrepreneurship modeled by father George, who ran a general contracting business. The brothers grew the business thanks to their sales and service expertise, and with numerous connections in the community around the Kitchener-Waterloo area, they started growing and sourcing from different vendors.

“Within a very short period of time, the company really started taking off,” says Taylor. “When you talk to the brothers, they’ll always say that’s a testament to the team they hired who helped them grow the business.”

From working on standard indoor trim to doing more custom work in the Waterloo area, including stairs and closets, the company started opening up and doing more custom doors and trim.

“Their expertise really expanded the suite of products we would offer, and that opened up who we could service because there were more high-end custom home builders or more high-end general contractors who were looking for a range of products,” says Taylor. “Sometimes they would order the standard door and trim, but on other projects, it was really important that they have custom trim and custom doors created, making sure they executed on the vision the customer had in mind.”

That attention to client needs has helped shape the company and brought it the success it experiences today.

“Fast forward a few years, and we’ve definitely expanded the product service offerings,” says Taylor. The building of more high-rises led to an opportunity to provide millwork across entire units. “We started to go down the rabbit hole of what we could do to produce fire-rated doors out of our London facility, and if we could quote that for builders.”

Along with expanding to offering all of its closet solutions, Riverside also offers kitchen cabinetry options. “We’re really trying to be that one-stop shop for builders who are building high-rises to get everything when it comes to trim, doors, closets, kitchen cabinets—all from Riverside,” says Taylor.

“One-stop” doesn’t mean sacrificing quality, however. Taylor stresses the importance of not “dipping into” too many areas and spreading themselves too thin. “We want to make sure we’re constantly improving in areas,” she says. That’s why, for example, a number of years ago Riverside shut down its flooring division. “We’re still focused on what it is that we do best and making sure that we take focus there.”

Aside from the great work Riverside does in the industry, the company also strives to create an inclusive workspace, particularly for women, a fact that Taylor can attest to personally.

“It’s just so inspiring how Riverside has changed so much in the couple of years I’ve been here, and how they made a focus on adding more frontline managers to their team,” she says. “And in that adjustment, they added many more women to the frontline management group.”

COVID, of course, has loomed large in day-to-day business around the globe, particularly impacting staff retention, but Riverside has made its employees a priority. The company clearly defines roles and performance standards to better support employees’ advancement, and provides them with opportunities for growth.

“The biggest benefit for us is just that we keep growing,” says Taylor. “There are always opportunities for team members who want to advance. I joined Riverside as the marketing manager, and even before the first year was up, we were talking about additional responsibilities and roles that I could take on. And now I’m the regional sales manager for the south region, which is the Niagara, Stoney Creek, Halton area. So I’ve experienced advancement in a very short period of time, because the opportunity presented itself and I was given these resources.”

The company has also invested in opportunities for growth and mentorship by sending all managers to applied management training for 12 weeks in total, spending half-days in a course together. “Just making that financial investment to train your managers so they achieve their career goals and what they want to accomplish I think is super powerful,” says Taylor.

In short, Riverside Millwork Group values its employees highly and does whatever is necessary to help them grow. “They’re actually making the investment in them,” says Taylor. “I think a lot of companies are nervous to make the investment for fear that people are going to leave. I just don’t think that’s a good way to operate, because you run the risk of good people leaving because they don’t feel like they’re being invested in or getting to advance.”

Investment and advancement at Riverside means equality as well in an industry that can sometimes be seen as male-dominant.

“I know a lot of women are worried about getting paid fairly and equally,” Taylor says, adding there are probably “a lot of women” who were told they should perhaps enter more traditional roles. “It’s the same issue [women have been] experiencing in STEM, where they weren’t pushed toward these careers that really utilize their skill set. And I know there are a lot of people who will say they’ve worked with women who are on the tools when it comes to carpentry, and they see how women can do the role so well because of their attention to detail.”

Unfortunately, the trades are not often suggested to girls in high school or to women looking to either change or enter new career paths.

“We still have a long way to go, but I have to say from my experience going on site, whether it’s to meet with site supers or with project managers, or to go and get marketing content, I do see it improving,” says Taylor. “You see more women on site. But it’s important to note that we still have a long way to go.”

The trades are stable and can provide a good living, which means supporting yourself, a crucial benefit for many people right now, including young women. “You’re making money even when you’re in an apprenticeship, so you don’t have to make as big of an investment in post-secondary education,” says Taylor. “It’s a smaller investment to learn some of those skills and be paid along the way.”

The trades also provide significant opportunities across the board, particularly in the home-building industry, to name just one.

“It’s not just specific to the trades,” adds Taylor. “There are so many businesses connected, and so many types of roles connected to the residential construction industry. If you don’t think you’re good on the tools, or that’s not something you want to do, there are opportunities in, for example, the warehouse and managing if you’re really good at leading people and managing people.”

Taylor mentions Lisa, a “total powerhouse,” who returned to the company following maternity leave. She was welcomed into a management role Riverside knew would provide a good opportunity for her to take with her new family. There’s also Debbie, who has held several different roles with Riverside while continually growing her career, and is currently the project manager in the London area, and with plenty of hands-on experience and knowledge, she’s balancing work with family life as well.

This commitment to inclusion and diversity isn’t the only thing that sets Riverside apart from other businesses in the industry. “It’s not only the investment in the people, but also investment into technology,” Taylor says. “It’s continuous improvement and continuous excellence. Although we’re in this growing industry, and we have the opportunity to keep things the same, our ownership loves to see things continuously improving and always evolving and growing.”

That drive has also proven to be a good recruitment strategy. “We don’t like keeping things the same way they’ve always been done,” says Taylor. “I think that’s really attractive [to prospective employees]. You’re really attracting somebody who’s interested in a higher quality of work.”

Recruiting women into the industry remains a top priority for Taylor, who, when taking over the marketing manager role, endeavoured to ensure female team members were featured in online social content, including ads where women could see themselves reflected.

There’s still plenty of work to be done of course, whether that’s making sites harassment-free or more accommodating for women, with additional porta-potties or other resources—but it’s all vital to keep growing the industry. “It’s no surprise that we’re in a short supply of quality tradespeople,” Taylor says. “If we look at where there’s an opportunity to grow, it would be to increase the number of women joining the trades.”

The post Fair Trades – Working for Equality<p class="company">Riverside Millwork Group</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

Have they succeeded in this? One need look no further than the astonishing array of awards their collaborative endeavors have brought.

With several offices across the world, the company’s Miami-based team of female leaders is passionate about the three companies’ purpose in the world and the nature of their contributions to that world.

Part of this formidable team’s design ethos is allowing interior spaces to flow with—and into—the outdoor landscapes they are set in. “It is through their interiors that we experience buildings,” says Laurinda Spear, landscape architect, founder, and principal of ArquitectonicaGEO, ArquitectonicaINTERIORS and ArquitectonicaSTUDIO.

For this reason, ArquitectonicaINTERIORS is headed up by qualified architecture designer Beatriz Arauz-Fernandez, who is as passionate about the value of creating synergy in and around buildings as her colleagues are in their respective disciplines. Creating a dialectic exchange between form and function to enhance the other within each space is one of the company’s informing design principles.

Since the advent of COVID, people’s need for a closer connection with nature has motivated an even stronger movement toward creating soothing spaces that invite the natural environment inside. The approach has won the company the respect of some of the world’s most distinguished architects and developers who turn to them for top design and project delivery.

Its interior design mirrors this ethos. Firm in the belief that well-designed spaces should, ultimately, reflect the voice of the overall architecture of a building and its surroundings, the interior design team leads with a fresh, crisp approach to achieving harmony through creative ideation and a keen eye for detail.

“We like an integrated approach. We believe that the architecture, the interiors, and the landscape all work together. Clients benefit greatly by all of us working together under one roof as opposed to being separate service providers,” says Spear.

Leading with landscape
Looking at the landscape architecture that Spear and Margarita Blanco, landscape architect, co-founder, and director, practice at ArquitectonicaGEO, it clearly inhabits an elevated space in the industry. Here, the entire outdoor site and the integration of buildings and other functional spaces create a new kind of richly rewarding environment for people.

“People still link landscape architects with gardeners who will plant your tree or shrub in the backyard. That is not exactly what it is. Therefore, a lot of education is still needed about what it entails,” says Blanco.

The team is adamant that the landscape architect must be a part of the conversation around an architectural project from the start of the conceptualization phase. “You cannot design a garden on an elevated floor if the structure of the building is not prepared for that,” Blanco explains, describing the discipline of landscape architecture as part botany, part civil engineering, part architecture, and a host of other elements.

This is a complex field. Blanco feels it stands to reason that the common assumption of some architects that they have the knowledge to do landscape architecture without any additional training—especially in southern Europe, in her experience—is unfortunate. On the contrary, American standards demand that landscape architects are licensed and that they sign off alongside the buildings’ architects on construction projects.

Landscaping for the long term
Creating greener city spaces is an evolving—and necessary—field. Yet, Spear points out, the current avant-garde desire to punctuate cityscapes with buildings shrouded in dense vegetation is not as easily achieved as one may think.

“The question is, ‘who will be taking care of the plants?’” Spear asks. “Otherwise, it requires each homeowner to take care of their plants if it’s an apartment or condo block. It takes years for plants to become established.”

As the designer of the famous Miami Beach landmark, Ballet Valet on the corner of 7th and Collins, this American architecture laureate should know.

Over a quarter of a century ago, before other now-famous buildings of a similar kind began mushrooming around the globe, Spear and her team boldly opted to use plants to satisfy the client’s need for a beautiful façade—a façade that would also meet the city’s parking-garage building standards in as aesthetically enriching a manner as possible.

Today, the striking result remains iconic, justifying Spear’s place in the league of top international landscape architects from the first glance. Moreover, Spear was honored to learn that her bold experiment served as inspiration for Herzog & de Meuron in the design of the Perez Art Museum in Miami. As part of this great compliment, the museum’s landscape architecture was placed the capable hands of ArquitectonicaGEO.

ArquitectonicaGEO’s sophisticated designs offer outcomes that contribute to healthier environments and minimal maintenance. To achieve this, making an in-depth study of every site and its natural patterns, like rainfall and seasons, guides intelligent architecture.

“You can’t transport a tropical landscape to an arid environment. We try to include rain gardens and water cisterns that collect rain for irrigation. We plant plants that attract wildlife to make our landscapes friendly to whoever is going to use them,” says Blanco.

In this process, the team translates clients’ needs, and the broader zeitgeist, into buildings and spaces where humans can flourish. “We create our environments for the end user. And in doing that we can add educational elements and provide an unrivaled experience throughout a building—from even before the user has entered the building,” says Monica Grigorescu, associate director.

Sustainable luxury
Beyond its architecture, landscape architecture, and interior design services, the company also offers a select range of luxury products. This includes product development for clients, from fabrics, furniture, and wallpaper to lighting and clocks.

To an onlooker, the creative team creates with a free-flowing fervor reminiscent of Antoni Gaudi, the famous father of Catalan Modernism and the beloved local architect of Barcelona. In the same vein, ArquitectonicaSTUDIO is in the concept stages of creating an outdoor furniture line that reflects its signature aesthetic. “Our idea is to specify our products for our project so that they have the same look and feel as the spaces they feature in,” says Blanco.

Of course, its own offices are also state-of-the-art. Recently, the firm reimagined its working spaces to accommodate more staff and add private meeting areas while expanding its third floor, where Spear designed lovely outdoor spaces to enhance the workday. Further growth includes ArquitectonicaGEO, which has extended its geographic reach by opening a new office in the heart of Málaga, arguably southern Spain’s most beautiful port city. It also recently established a presence in the Colombian capital, Bogotá, to serve its Central and South American clientele.

As an international leader in its field, the company holds several prestigious certifications, including Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED); SITES®, a rating system for landscape architecture; National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB); and is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (FAIA); and the Commercial Interior Design Association (IIDA). Its team of just over forty comprises creatives and professionals selected for their well-honed sense of detail and singular commitment to excellence on every project.

Key projects
Some of the company’s recent proud moments include its work on the University of Miami Lakeside Village, which welcomed its first students in the fall of last year. ArquitectonicaGEO was responsible for the landscape architecture design and ArquitectonicaINTERIORS for the interior design.

The team took the opportunity to create an elegant outdoor ambiance that reflects the clean lines and sleek finish of the buildings, softening the landscape with area-appropriate trees and shrubs. These include over 500 trees that had to be removed and stored in a nursery until they could be replanted in these beautiful gardens.

Even gargantuan lime rocks removed from the site were cataloged and used in the garden when the time came. The welcoming design includes a grand courtyard, study nooks, areas for recreation, and lovely terraces, all created with the comfort and enjoyment of humans and creatures in mind. The interior design is just as innovative, establishing a pleasing flow between indoor and outdoor spaces. And the shade provided by the buildings themselves, which are on stilts, provides ideal cooling and space for games, exercise, and study. Each floor comes with its own garden where students can study. The design can be described as functional yet current, comfortable, and quintessentially cool.

Another fantastic project is abroad. The design of the Mandarin Oriental in Santiago, Chile, is nothing short of delicious, thanks to the ArquitectonicaINTERIORS team. Every line and surface exudes elegance and well-considered luxury.

Closer to home, ArquitectonicaINTERIORS is working on a project for the South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center and the Make-A-Wish Foundation, both in Miami. “We’re giving it a sense of being a magical place. We can’t wait for this one to be completed. We’re very proud of it,” says Arauz-Fernandez.

Doing great and doing good
In an even larger sense, doing good is close to this team’s heart. It has supported many deserving causes over the years. That includes the Make-A-Wish Foundation, the YoungArts Foundation, and Shake-A-Leg Miami in Coconut Grove, which welcomes people with disabilities who otherwise wouldn’t have the chance to sail on the ocean. ArquitectonicaGEO recently consulted for Fairchild Tropical Garden in the same city.

For Spear, how COVID reshaped this new world is an undeniable part of history, and most certainly, of design. Like most other companies, the firm adapted, most notably achieving an efficient new synergy between working hours spent remotely and at the office. “I think it has been a great improvement in the workplace to allow that,” she says.

Multiple disciplines
Indeed, adapting and working across multiple disciplines are in the company’s DNA. All three leaders trained as architects before realizing that, to them, landscape architecture and interiors form an integral part of the proper design of any building. This insight, combined with their sense of adventure, was soon incorporated into their company offering.

Spear’s advice to prospective developers and project owners is fundamental. “In the world of clients, many are now somewhat educated in design; many are not. It would be wise for anybody embarking on a project to call the landscape architect first,” she says. “They are the ones who figure out how to site the building, which is essential. And it should not be based on anything but what the site dictates, within zoning allowances.”

She also speaks with conviction about the planetary emergency we find ourselves in. “Everything we do should be very measured and thoughtful.”

“Every person has the right to a place to live on this Earth. Homelessness—if you’re constructing a development—should be something that should be addressed,” she says, pointing out the need for a greater commitment to this problem in the United States.

Turn down the lights
Another topic close to her heart is that of outside lighting. “It engenders great ire,” Spear says. “I am a firm believer in dark skies. Nobody seems to understand this. People want more lighting and more safety—which it does not [actually] provide. I want less lighting so that we can see the stars.” Blanco describes the situation in southern Spain as the exact opposite, as people, especially in small villages, all collaborate to keep outdoor spaces as dark as possible and so light up the night sky.

As talk of the night sky turns to talk of the future, the three colleagues share their ideas about where Arquitectonica’s three sister companies are going. And, while continuing to diversify its offering and expanding its global footprint are high priorities, they would like to see its culture evolve into one where ideas develop out of discussion born of collaboration amongst all contributors.

Because, as Blanco points out, in its essence, design is a tool to improve people’s lives while not harming the planet. Using recycled materials and other genuinely eco-friendly methods, they aim to contribute to the healthy evolution of the future of design.

“I think our role is to interpret our clients’ hopes and dreams, to refine and edit those to ensure that they’re targeted properly. To make them relevant and sustainable and appropriate for the time and place in which they’re occurring,” says Spear.

The post Sustainable, Resilient Design<p class="company">ArquitectonicaSTUDIO, ArquitectonicaGEO, and ArquitectonicaINTERIORS</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

Built on old-fashioned grit and a can-do attitude, this company has gone from strength to strength. Founder and President Veronica Rose is positive about the future of construction and the role of women in the industry because for her and her team, making the world a better place is the ultimate driver.

As a supplier of intelligent electrical systems, Aurora Electric, Inc. supplies all the electricity-related services needed on construction projects like pipe and wire installation, integration, maintenance, and software. It expertly manages each team to ensure a successful outcome.

The plus of concluding electrical installations in this way is that subcontractors cannot blame one another afterward for any errors. The company’s services are so well respected in the local construction industry that the team has worked on some of the city’s most prestigious projects over the years. It is also favored for its work on prototype systems for the aviation industry.

Rose believes that everyone can learn from each other’s differences and understand one another better in positive ways. Thanks to technology, the electrical trades are now more accessible and easier for women to work in as they require less physical strength than just a few years ago.

Describing herself as an explorer rather than a pioneer, Rose is philosophical about the uphill battle of the early days. “I was repeatedly told, ‘We will give you the responsibility, we will give you the money, but we cannot give you the title or the authority because of your gender.’ I [concluded] that if I do my work well nobody will care about my gender, and because I was an explorer, I could go where I wanted,” she says. Once she realized there was no way of changing the entire world in one go, Rose set off to change her own. After all, she needed no permission to ascend through the ranks of her own business.

She equates the arrival of women in the construction industry as similar to early colonists arriving in the North American Wild West. “The first people who went out there were just men. There were no schools, no churches, and no post offices. That is what the construction industry was like when I came into it. It needed to be civilized,” she says with a smile.

While working on a job site in her early days, Rose was instructed by a colleague to go down a manhole and complete a list of tasks. To which she responded that she will get into the ‘woman-hole’ and then complete the work. That upset her colleague terribly, and he let her know that in no uncertain terms. By the next day, he had cooled down and provided her with the response she had wanted. With his hands on his hips, her colleague informed her that from now on, nobody would work in a man or a woman-hole anymore. Instead, they would all be working in conduit splice chambers. “It worked perfectly. I was proud of him,” she says, describing her forty-four years in the industry as a mission to inform, educate, and set an example.

The result of that tenacity is a trusted firm with an impressive list of completed projects and an expert team of professionals committed to doing whatever it takes to complete every project with excellence and integrity.

Rose ascribes the secret of her patience to decades of self-reflection. “My mother always said that if it is to be it is up to me; do not make excuses, and that is what got me on the path of self-awareness,” she says. In this way, she also developed the wisdom to allow herself and others to make errors on the premise that you self-correct and then leverage it to transform and improve efficiency.

She is a pragmatic and no-nonsense leader yet she has a warmth and depth of spirit that lets one know that this is a woman who has lived through and seen a lot in her time. With her generous smile and easy elegance, Rose is no stranger to hard physical labor. She knows the inside of a conduit splice chamber as well as any of her staff. As a result of her success in the industry, she made it her mission to market the trade to other women.

Her argument is simple. If women are capable of raising the next generation, they are capable of a job in construction. “It is less physically challenging to build a building than it is to raise children. Think about it. When you are a mother, between the laundry, the groceries, the housekeeping, and [a thousand] other things you have to do, it is all physically, emotionally, and spiritually more demanding than being a construction electrician,” she says.

For younger people who are new to business or thinking of setting up on their own, Rose offers some solid advice. “If you choose to be a business owner, you will need more faith than if you were a priest or a nun, and that is the truth. If you give your whole heart with that gift, you have to also surrender and have faith,” she says, pointing out that leadership has more to do with being “just another cog in the wheel,” than with power.

“A business is the sum of the people there: everyone who shows up every day. No one person makes up a business. It is when a group of individuals come together and decide to all get on a bus and go in the same direction,” she says. While this is important to remember, Rose also reminds novices of the importance of keeping family and other significant relationships in mind.

The company’s name does its culture proud. In the myths of ancient Rome, Aurora heralds sunrise as she crosses the sky every morning as dawn. While completing her degree and writing her master’s thesis in feminist religion, Rose discovered that preceding her arrival in the Greco-Roman world, Aurora was seen as the one who brought light to the world in pre-historical times. Today, the name remains a calling card for excellence.

The early days in this career were a bit of a surprise to Rose. Arriving in an industry as a business owner where some customers’ underhanded dealings and other, similar behaviors, she had to set up a watertight set of values including being able to fire customers for untoward treatment. As a result, the company’s staff turnover rate is quite low. The team members value the fact that they are respected and valued enough not to have to tolerate abuse and unfair treatment in this traditionally harsh industry.

Since then, Rose has left deep footprints in her local industry by becoming a trustee on the union’s apprenticeship board and by establishing a women’s club in which she could encourage more women to join the trade. In addition, she joined the pension board to help ensure that those women she recruited would know that they would, in the end, get what they had signed up for at the beginning of their careers.

Rose is also a board member of the Queens Economic Development Corporation and the chairwoman of Queens Women’s Business Centre. Another group that is very close to the leader’s heart is the Amber Light Society, which comprises women electricians from New York’s Local Union No. 3. “They have honored me twice in my thirty years. I feel blessed to be associated with these women,” Rose says.

The company is also a proud supporter of the police activity league. Once a year, for seven weeks in the summer, Aurora Electric, Inc. welcomes anywhere from one to three interns from a local New York community who join its team to gain work experience and mentorship.

As the industry is increasingly moving toward more sophisticated technology, staying up to date with developments is imperative. Where tools were straightforward to use in the past, it is not uncommon for people to now complete courses in using digital and electronic equipment safely and correctly in the field. This, in one sense, is the perfect metaphor for how the Aurora team intends on moving forward: by staying ahead of the trends and by committing to continuous improvement and service excellence.

The post 30 Years of Making the World a Better Place<p class="company">Aurora Electric</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

Coming to Canada from his home in Yugoslavia as a teen, the young Arpi worked in Alberta’s oil patch, later earning his sheet metal ticket. With an entrepreneurial spirit, he started Arpi’s Heating, servicing Calgary-area homes and businesses. Word spread quickly about Arpi’s professionalism, earning him more and more satisfied customers.

Today, the modest company he started back in 1963 has grown into one of Canada’s biggest and most respected full-service mechanical contractors, with hundreds of employees. The company serves customers predominantly in Calgary and surrounding areas.

Under the experienced leadership of Arpi’s daughter Julie, who serves as President, family-owned Arpi’s Industries provides heating and air conditioning services, along with plumbing and ventilation solutions on projects.

Ahead of its time
Arpi’s keeps up with the latest technologies in the market for the benefit of all its clients and projects. The company is active at trade shows and works directly with many manufacturers and suppliers.

Arpi’s residential business includes HVAC and plumbing installations for the homebuilder market as well as maintenance / repair / replacement of equipment for homeowners. This breadth across the residential market supports Arpi’s training program for the most experienced and multi-faceted technicians in the industry.

“On the commercial plumbing side, I, together with our Construction Manager for the department, and all of our Project Managers, have Gold Seal Certification, which is accredited throughout Canada,” he says.

Administered by the Canadian Construction Association, the Certification assures construction management that these professionals have undertaken training and continual skills development to achieve the highest standards of industry excellence. “We encourage that our staff become Gold Seal Certified, because it shows we invest in extracurricular training and our people have as much technical education as possible.”

Investing in solutions
At Arpi’s Industries, one of the company’s biggest advantages is its range of capabilities. Situated on nine acres in South East Calgary since 1980, Arpi’s brings three major commercial components to the company: a commercial sheet-metal fabrication shop, a fabrication shop for piping, and a material handling shop.

Taking on large jobs for years, Arpi’s has grown even more since Julie became President in 2000, increasing the company’s volume and size of projects.

“Her vision of putting the right people in the right place has moved the company to the next level,” says Morrison, who started with the company 19 years ago as an apprentice and worked his way up to building information modelling and senior estimator before becoming business development manager. “From the shoulders of her dad, she’s lifted the company to the next level.”

One of Arpi’s greatest assets is its 20,000-square-foot commercial sheet metal shop. Complete with over $5 million of shop machinery and tools including a full coil duct machine, spiral machine and plasma table, Arpi’s makes all its own ventilation and sheet metal items and can process over two and a half million pounds of sheet metal annually.

The company’s well-stocked material handling shop carries a large supply of pipe, fittings, valves, and hangers, ensuring the company is not dependent on suppliers when products are needed, which has proved invaluable during the COVID era. Additionally, Arpi’s 7,000-square-foot fabrication shop includes two 5-ton overhead cranes, three welding stations, and two grooving stations able to produce 700 weld / groove inches of fabrication per day.

Range of services
At Arpi’s Industries, size and experience count. Along with residential and commercial services and mechanical contracting, the company takes on large-scale projects with homebuilders and contractors. “People that are familiar with one part of our business are often very surprised to learn about the other areas we operate in,” says Morrison. Across the entire, diverse business, projects may be as small as a hot water tank replacement for a residential customer, or as massive as Calgary’s BMO Centre Expansion.

Serving as the city’s go-to venue for trade shows, conferences, and meetings for 40 years, the BMO Centre is undergoing a $500 million expansion, and Arpi’s is playing a key role in the upgrades as the prime mechanical contractor. The massive project will see the centre’s total floor space increased by more than one million square feet, including 250,000 square feet of contiguous floor space.

The BMO Centre Expansion is a vast, well-publicized project for the business (although not the largest in its 60-year history). “It’s a significant expansion,” says Morrison.

Arpi’s teams are handling plumbing, Hydronics, HVAC, and all ducting. They are also responsible for the BMS (building management systems) contractor, sprinkler contractor, and mechanical installation contractor, with all mechanical elements falling under their umbrella.

The right stuff
From residential home installs to massive convention centres, Arpi’s requires not only an experienced team but dedication and the right mindset.

“We look for people who want to be here and are willing to learn and be engaged,” says Morrison, “and it will only be a matter of time before they overtake someone who has the initial technical expertise but doesn’t really care or want to be here.” The right attitude goes a long way in fulfilling career and personal goals at Arpi’s.

Arpi’s staff includes ticketed Red Seal plumbers, pipefitters, refrigeration technicians, and sheet-metal workers. For the company, that ticket is an endorsement and shows that workers have the knowledge and skill set to practice their trades. Working only with indentured apprentices, Arpi’s stands behind employees entering the trades, encouraging them to get their apprenticeship and ticket, go to school, and finish their certification. Arpi’s staff are actively engaged with SAIT apprenticeship programs, with some participating as curriculum advisors, Board Members, and assisting instructors.

Internally, Arpi’s is known as a great place to work, with many employees recognizing 20, 30 and 40+ years of service to the company. Externally, the company receives both praise from customers and industry awards. Just a few include the 2021 Platinum Club Winner of Canada’s Best Managed Companies, the HomeStars ‘Best of’ Award for 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022, and a 15-time winner of the Dave Lennox Award.

As a residential leader in the industry, the company continues to provide clients with the best warranties, competitive prices, 24/7 emergency services, and a labour guarantee.

As for the 60^th anniversary of the company, plans are still in the works, says Morrison, adding that there will likely be a modest grassroots celebration in late spring or early summer. “We are the same company, just with more people than we had 60 years ago, doing the best we can and getting through COVID and all the ups and downs of the last two years,” he shares.

“There won’t be fireworks or anything like that; we will be recognizing long-term staff and showing appreciation to our staff.”

Arpi’s may have grown a lot since it was founded in 1963, but its family values remain, which is more important today than ever before. “In the world of globalization, outsourcing, and overseas everything, we believe in doing things in-house,” says Morrison, “and that translates into those we hire.”

Arpi’s retains a lot of local people. “We genuinely give people careers and, in turn, we hope we do a great job for them. People here aren’t treated like numbers, and that is becoming more and more important as we come out of COVID,” says Morrison. “We want to maintain—and we do maintain—that grassroots, local contractor feel that there is an actual person at the other end of the phone. It’s all about relationships.”

The post Finding Success With Family Values<p class="company">Arpi’s Industries Ltd.</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

Graham Smith is a man on a mission: educating clients about their housing options. As senior principal at Altius Architecture Inc., Smith not only knows his stuff about architecture, but everything involving the industry that fuels his passion, from the latest trends to building codes, sustainable construction methods and materials to interest rates. For Smith, nothing involving architecture exists in a vacuum.

The past three years during COVID-19 saw us question everything from how we live to where we work. So-called ‘remote jobs,’ which many believed would never replace in-person employment, became the norm for many who began asking, ‘Do I really need to live in a congested city like Toronto? Should I downsize? Is now a good time to renovate?’ Sticking with his clients throughout the pandemic, Smith and his team at Altius kept them in the loop about changes affecting their lives and housing goals.

Tough times don’t last
In a recent PDF to clients entitled Building on the Dip: An Architect’s Opinion, Smith boldly says: “I like recessions. Rarely will you hear Architects and Builders utter that phrase. I like recessions because they are the best and easiest times to get projects built.”

The genesis of Altius goes back to the early 1990s when Smith was an architecture student at the University of Waterloo. His voice is that of experience with the entire industry and how it is affected by global events. Interest rates go up and they go down. House prices increase and decrease.

None of this is news to Smith, who follows the markets with the keen eye of an economist who just happens to have an extensive background in architecture, including a BES.B/Arch, and BFA in Fine Arts and Architectural History from Queen’s University.

In Building on the Dip, Smith explains the ups and downs of the market over the years. From soaring interests rates in the late 1980s and 1990s to the burst of the dot-com bubble in 2000, the 17-month-long sub-prime collapse of the markets starting in October 2007, and the recent COVID crisis and soaring double-digit (in the case of timber, triple) price increases to building materials like drywall, copper, concrete, and glass.

“So what’s it going to be this time around?” Smith boldly asks. “Since the dip of 2016, our business of designing and building custom homes and cottages has been very busy. Though we’re not diversified in what we do, our clients are, and in the 25 years we’ve been in business, we’ve discovered that we’re recession-proof because the smart money builds during recessions.”

“We’ve seen this before”
As the world emerges from the pandemic, interest rates are climbing and housing sales slowing. Many of Smith’s clients are worried and perplexed, Smith remarks. “But we’re sitting here, as residential architects for decades, saying, ‘We’ve seen this before,’” says Smith from Altius’ Queen Street office in Toronto.

The markets, he explains, have been good for some years. After the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID a pandemic in March 2020, people started panicking that economic activity was going to dry up, evidenced in the prices of commodities. “It did the exact opposite,” he says.

“People couldn’t travel, and everybody started doing home remodelling or moved. Everyone was working from home and redoing their kitchens or backyards, and a lot of homeowners who were reasonably financially successful and living in a condo suddenly wanted a house with a backyard.” Many jumped head-first into the housing market, driving up prices, while the cost of labour and building materials increased.

“What we’re hearing is everybody saying, ‘Interest rates are seven percent—it’s a horrible time to build.’ No, it’s the opposite. If we look at the last four cycles of tightening going back to dot-com, the tightening of interest rates is transitory. We’re not going to see sub-two percent fixed mortgage rates probably ever again in our lifetime, but things will settle back into the three to five percent range, and it’s going to do that within the next two years,” he shares.

“So if you have money now, or need to borrow money to build, the big advantage is the price of everything is collapsing. We are trying to get this through to our clients. Twenty-twenty-three looks like the best time to build in the last five years. And if things keep going the way they are, it might be the best time in the past decade, because the price of everything is falling.”

Go for the prices
Since its founding, Altius has completed more than 650 projects. This includes urban residences and rural properties, cottages, chalets and more. Over the decades, the company has not only survived dips in the market but thrived. To its clients, Smith says that the present is not only the time to build, but that they’ll also get great deals on appliances and materials.

“At the moment, I can’t get you a Sub-Zero fridge for about another six to eight months, but if I order right now, it’s on sale. What does that tell you?” asks Smith. “Order books are drying up, supply chains are returning to normal, inventories are rising, and because it’s all arriving, demand is falling,” he says.

“If you walk into your local Home Depot right now, there are no empty shelves. They’re stacked to the roof. That’s a problem for Home Depot, but for consumers, it’s a great time. So we’ve been advising our clients to have their design work done—or at the very least, get their building permit—because if you’ve got a building permit you can sit on it and wait, and prices are going down,” he says. “We look at everything from a commodity perspective, and those prices don’t reach the consumer for 30 to 60 days trailing.”

Keep up, stay on top
For Smith and his 16-strong team at Altius Architecture, ‘keeping up with the time’ is about much more than architectural trends. It also means staying on top of such things as materials, technology, zoning changes, and construction methods.

“When we first started out, we were ‘modern’ architects,” he explains, “and back in the 1990s, ‘modern’ was a four-letter word in Toronto. Then in the early 2000s, we were ‘green’ architects. We didn’t change a single thing we did—we were still ‘modern’ architects—but all of a sudden, modern was green. Fast-forward another 20 years, and people are seriously considering that maybe some of those British colonial models we brought to Canada aren’t really good in our climate, where it goes from minus-30 to plus-30 degrees.”

One of the biggest shifts Smith has seen is in technology such as lighting. When Altius was formed, inefficient, heat-generating incandescent light bulbs were the norm. Today’s LED lighting provides greater illumination, no waste heat, and is more energy-efficient. Lighting, together with improved insulation, new building materials and methods, improved HVAC, and more are helping the firm’s clients move closer to certified, passive Net-Zero housing and eliminating or offsetting greenhouse gas emissions.

And as the price of electricity keeps rising, Smith believes greener energy alternatives, such as solar panels, make more sense today than a decade ago. “The number one reason we did sustainable practices was to save money for our clients, mostly in long-term operating costs,” he says. “A well-built, sustainably designed home is comfortable. Cool in the summer, warm in the winter, and it doesn’t have chills, drafts… It’s just a better house.”

The ‘what now?’ generation
Closely following the real estate market, Smith is seeing more people in Toronto buying houses, tearing them down, and rebuilding them as single-family homes, with much of this activity led by Millennials. Baby Boomers drove the real estate market of the 1980s, he says. Gen-X’ers got houses at amazing prices in the 1990s. Now, over 30 years later, their children are in the market.

This is presenting this new generation with the challenge of not only buying property in competition with their Canadian peers but also with the half-a-million immigrants expected to arrive in Canada this year, many with money in their pockets.

“It’s fierce, fierce competition,” he says. “Oddly enough, we’ve just come out of the biggest residential construction boom, which happened not in spite of COVID but brought on by it. And as everything is cooling off, they’re trying to taper inflation and achieve a soft landing. The U.S. might, but Canada probably will not,” he posits.

“But what does that mean for consumers in the here and now, between opportunities for Millennials maybe to get in on a corrected housing market, or for anybody else to be building? It’s a very interesting time.”

The post The Voice of Experience<p class="company">Altius Architecture</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.