Alex Schreyer's Blog, Projects, Books, and More
Anything related to commercial or residential construction goes here: News, photos, ideas, etc. Also, don’t forget to check out my book: Fundamentals of Residential Construction.
APA just released a free publication on advanced framing techniques full of information and construction details. From their description: Advanced framing – also known as optimum value engineering (OVE) – was developed by the NAHB Research Center, an independent subsidiary of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), in the 1970s for the purpose of […] Read more..
I just noticed something familiar in the images in Google’s latest blog post on the Turner Construction SketchUp Pro casestudy: That window in the right side of the screen is of course my Ruby Code Editor plugin! Great to see it put to such good use. Google’s post shows nicely how Turner uses SketchUp Pro […] Read more..
A good friend of ours, Jim Taggart from Vancouver, BC, just completed a beautiful new book on wood architecture with the visionary title “Towards a Culture of Wood Architecture”. It features various modern examples of enlightening architecture in wood but also presents traditional buildings that illustrate the foundations of this culture. All are elaborately illustrating a recent trend […] Read more..
In a press release published yesterday, Tom Vilsack, current USDA Agriculture Secretary, laid out plans to increase wood use in buildings. This is of course great news for anyone related to wood research, manufacturing and construction but above all it’s great news for the environment. After all, wood is the only major building material that’s […] Read more..
APA (The Engineered Wood Association) just released an iPhone/iPod Touch app, which gives easy access to its product reports. Another feature is a “click to call” button to reach APA’s tech support. Here’s the official announcement: The first APA App – featuring APA Products Reports®, is now available for iPhone®, iPad®, and iPod touch® mobile […] Read more..
While browsing through construction-material supplier catalogs to get some data for my classes, I came across some hand-drawn instruction comics. These were safety-related sketches of goofy-looking construction workers illustrating mostly what not to do. I am sure these kinds of illustrations exist in other industries, too. And there’s nothing wrong with exaggerating visuals to make a point. […] Read more..
APA, the organization that deals with engineered wood products has recently published updated versions of their product specifications on structural plywood and glulam. Following is their announcement and below is a link where you can download the documents for free. The new Voluntary Product Standard, PS 1-09 Structural Plywood, provides expanded and updated national standard […] Read more..