Book: How to Read Bridges

Looking for a holiday gift for that special engineer in your life?  Check out this book.

How to Read Bridges: A Crash Course In Engineering and Architecture was recently reviewed in Structure magazine, and sounds like a worthy addition to bookshelves of engineers, educators, and bridge aficionados alike.  It covers bridge materials, types, uses, and the famous engineers (Roebling, Maillart, Calatrava, Eiffel...) who have designed them.  Also included are case studies of various bridge types such as beam, arch, truss, opening & moving, cantilever, suspension, and cable-stayed.  A combination of historic photographs and sketches, as well as an engineering terminology glossary and recommended book/website list add to the mix.

While looking for this book on Amazon, my search also turned up How to Read Buildings: A Crash Course in Architectural Styles.  In case you have a special architect in your life too...

Energy metabolism: The Very Hungry City

Today's interview with author Austin Troy about his book The Very Hungry City... on WYPR today:

"How will Baltimore fare in the future as the global demand for energy grows and prices rise? Austin Troy, an expert in urban environmental management at the University of Vermont, looks at cities with "high energy metabolisms" and what they need to do about the problems of energy consumption. Troy is the author of The Very Hungry City: Will Your City Thrive or Wither in and Energy-Strapped Future?"
http://www.wypr.org/podcast/thursday-march-29-1-2-pm-very-hungry-city

This author mentioned a strong statistical correlation between trees and crime:  the numbers show that neighborhoods with more trees experience lower crime rates.  So... go plant trees!

Also:  people who live in places with extensive bicycle infrastructure are happier about where they live.  Copenhagen and the Nordic countries were mentioned in this context.

Fire In The Wind: book signing tonight at Inner Harbor

Local author and Delegate Dana Stein to discuss his book Fire In The Wind tonight at Barnes & Noble Inner Harbor tonight 6-8pm, sponsored by Maryland's US Green Building Council chapter.






Dana Stein, a member of the Maryland House of Delegates, will appear at the Barnes & Noble Power Plant on Thursday, October 13 from 6 pm to 8 pm, for readings and discussion of his novel Fire In The Wind.


The book signing is being sponsored by the Maryland Chapter of the United States Green Building Council as part of its Local Author Series. The book store is located at 601 E. Pratt Street in Baltimore City.

Set in the year 2036, this short novel describes the efforts of the United States to deal with the negative effects of climate change, including coastal flooding, the loss of farmland and the uprooting of families. The central characters of the fictional piece involve a displaced farmer, a member of the National Security Council and a college professor.

More information on the book is available at http://www.fireinthewind.com/

Stein is the Executive Director and founder of Civic Works and sits on the Environmental Matters Committee of the House of Delegates.

The Maryland Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council is comprised of local businesses, organizations and individuals that offer educational programs and organize lobbying efforts to advance the development and operation of sustainable and environmentally-conscious office and industrial buildings, retail centers and related structures.

Sustainable transportation planning guidebook

The School of Civil & Environmental Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology has recently completed the development of a Guidebook on Transportation Planning for Sustainability for the Federal Highway Administration, the result of a 2-year project.

The objectives of this project were as follows:
-Review US and int'l best practices in transportation planning for sustainability
-Identify appropriate data sources and data collection needs
-Provide guidance to transportation agencies through catalog of practices and case studies
-Share information on sustainability practices with state DOTs and other transportation agencies

It is available for free download at http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/hep/climate/resources.htm#sustain

Thanks to Adjo Amekudzi, Ph.D for sharing this resource!

Book: Cities for People

I just read an impressive review of the book Cities for People in this month's Civil Engineering magazine (which you can read online here)...

The book's author, Jan Gehl, is an architect and professor of urban design at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, and is credited with helping to make Copenhagen the model of pedestrian- and bicyclist-friendly urbanism that it is today.  The review notes that more than 1/3 of Copenhagen's commuters travel by bicycle.

Sustainability-minded urban planners will want to read this book!

Sustainability for Structural Engineers

I wish I'd written this book: Sustainability Guidelines for the Structural Engineer

Here's the description from the ASCE online store:

Sponsored by the Sustainability Committee of the Structural Engineering Institute of ASCE.
This report presents guidelines that are intended to advance the understanding of sustainability in the structural community and to incorporate concepts of sustainability into structural engineering standards and practices.

The guidelines are organized into five sections:
Sustainable Design and Construction,
Sustainable Strategies,
Building Materials,
Infrastructure, and
Case Studies.
Although many of the subjects are related, each section—and the related subsections—have been written to stand alone, allowing this report to be used as a practical reference. Infrastructure gets particular attention because many of the concepts and ideas in this guide that relate to infrastructure can also be applied to design and construction.
This report was written for structural engineers, but related disciplines will also benefit from the contents. This book will help structural engineers as they meet the challenge to design and construct a sustainable built environment

Shop for it here: http://www.asce.org/Product.aspx?id=2147490021
Also available on Amazon.com

Sell your books at Ukazoo

This week I discovered a new way to recycle books:  trade them in for cash or store credit at Ukazoo Books in Towson.  A stack of my gently-used hardback books brought $8 cash or $9 store credit... so I used the store credit and left with a couple of used audio books.  Score!

You can peruse the shelves while you're waiting for the Book Buyback clerk to process your books, or you can choose the auto-accept option and leave with a receipt for the books they decide to buy.  The unsold books you leave behind will be recycled into paper products.

Let me sum up:  unclutter your bookshelves AND cash in or trade for better books.  What's not to like about that?

Alternate options:  www.bookthing.org and www.paperbackswap.com as mentioned in an earlier blog post.

good book: Farewell, my Subaru

I read a fun, irreverent book over Christmas break:  highly recommended reading before you move to New Mexico, buy a ranch, invest in goats, convert a truck to biodiesel, install solar panels and a solar hot water system, or any similarly rash green life-changing actions.

Read more about the author's adventures at his website:  http://www.dougfine.com/