Blog/Events
We are pleased to announce that our CEO and Founder, PE, SECB was inducted into the National Academy of Construction (NAC) last week! He was among the select few industry leaders honored for their integrity and dedication to the construction field.
At the induction ceremony, the academy celebrated Mal as an “innovative executive and engineering leader known for conceptualizing and executing revolutionary designs for projects worldwide…who pioneered the discipline of professional engineer-diver.”
“The 2019 class has been selected not only for their leadership, but for their integrity and their dedication to making our collective work the great contribution that construction represents in our quality of life,” said Wayne Crew, General Secretary of NAC. “In addition, the new members bring added expertise to the Academy.”
The National Academy of Construction (NAC), founded in 1999, celebrated its twentieth anniversary at the annual meeting. The new class will bring active membership to 325. The mission of the academy is to share its unmatched reservoir of expertise in service to the nation, to be the industry’s honest broker, and to honor individuals for leadership and contributions.
Congratulations to all of the 2019 inductees who have made outstanding, life-long contributions to the design, construction, and engineering industries.
As Brooklyn keeps getting bigger, McLaren is engineering a new face for downtown’s tallest developments. At One Willoughby Square, Brooklyn’s tallest office building, our Building Envelope team is engineering the aluminum composite metal paneling for all 34 floors.
Around the corner stands Brooklyn Point, the borough’s tallest mixed-use residential building. McLaren is developing the support system for the impressive stone cladding at the rooftop retreat, indoor pool area, retail space, double-height lobby and terrace bar. At the rooftop retreat, featuring the highest residential infinity pool in the Western Hemisphere, McLaren is also engineering the cold form steel holding the stone work as well as the decorative composite metal panels.
Both 1WSQ and Brooklyn Point are set to open in 2020. Read more about Brooklyn’s tallest developments.
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, underwater bridge inspections are an integral part of a comprehensive bridge and safety program. McLaren is keeping bridges safe all over the country by providing professional engineering underwater inspections.
In this example for the Barnhart Island Bridge over the Saint Lawrence River in Massena, New York, McLaren’s PE Divers provided hands-on underwater inspection and fathometer survey services for the New York Power Authority.
Walkway over the Hudson is celebrating 10 years, 5 million visitors and its 1.28 miles that dub it as the world’s longest elevated pedestrian bridge.
For this historic bridge conversion of the former Poughkeepsie-Highland Railroad Bridge, McLaren provided a range of engineering services including a full underwater and climbing inspection, repair design, construction engineering and elevator design.
The steel cantilever bridge has become a global destination that showcases the natural beauty with unparallel views of New York’s Hudson Valley.
+Pool Light designed by PLAYLAB INC. and Family New York in collaboration with Floating Point for Friends of + POOL, is illuminating the importance of water quality awareness at South Street Seaport in downtown NYC. Empowering people with data and engaging them visually, this + shaped floating public art display changes color, brightness, frequency and sharpness based on the quality of water passing through it.
McLaren was part of the permitting, engineering and project management for the framing and floating system of the 50 x 50 feet sculpture that changes direction in the current.
“Water quality data is incredibly complex, so access to data means very little to everyday people,” said Kara Meyer, managing director of Friends of + Pool. “We wanted to figure out a way to empower people with the data and engage them visually with what is happening in the water in front of them.”
+Pool Light will be on display now until January 4, 2020.
Franklin Middle School’s track and field was renovated in time for fall sports. Our team worked with DMR Architects to refurbish the scoreboard, track and practice field. McLaren provided surveying, geotechnical and civil engineering services for the foundation design, sediment and erosion control plans, permitting and construction phase services for the Hamilton Street Campus in Somerset, NJ. Go Warriors!
Join us Thursday for our 3rd Annual McLarenFest! Come from 5pm to 7pm to our Lehigh Valley Pennsylvania office at 5100 West Tilghman Street, Suite 265, Allentown, PA. Dust off your lederhosen, bundhosen and dirndl and connect with us over beer, brats and mulled wine!
St. Pete Pier™, the newest landmark in Florida, is set to open in the Spring of 2020. Perched on the waters of Tampa Bay, the entertainment pier will connect to St. Petersburg’s downtown business district with interactive waterfront experiences along its 3,065-foot length.
This highly anticipated “pier for everyone” promises to be a destination location for both the Central Florida community and tourists. The .6 mile pier will feature exploration and activity areas, children’s play spaces, fishing spots, education centers and local vendors. At the end of this waterfront development, stands a massive 5-story pierhead building.
This pinnacle pierhead building was engineered to offer 5-levels of entertainment including event space, restaurants and a rooftop tiki bar. The complex construction of the fourth floor alone entailed an 8 ½ hour concrete pour that took 80 workers, 77 concrete trucks and 767 cubic yards of concrete to complete! The concrete floor slab of the fourth story is approximately 36 inches thick!
However, there is a fundamental challenge with concrete—it is extremely heavy.
McLaren’s Orlando office provided construction engineering services to help make the erection of the weighty pierhead building possible. The team engineered a temporary system of independent pile supported steel beams to support the shoring for the pier head building’s upper concrete slabs.
What is shoring? Shoring is way to temporarily support a building as the heavy concrete is poured and cured into slab form. The shoring system developed by McLaren’s construction engineers enabled the concrete to be poured and cured evenly without loading the pier deck below.
McLaren’s value engineering efforts included assessment of alternate materials, pile types, pile layouts, beam layouts and member sizes. This resulted in cost savings to the City of St. Petersburg of approximately $1.2M for the independent steel-framed shoring system.
Once open, St. Pete’s Pier is expected to become an iconic hub for activity; not only at the pierhead building, but all along its span.
On a typical construction project, rework accounts for 12 to 15 percent of the cost of construction! With 3D laser scanning, the ability to catch conflicts before they occur has proven to reduce rework down to 1 to 3 percent which translates into hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings on change orders.
Laser scanning and lidar technology combine controlled swath angles with a laser range finding to provide precise accuracy of complex geo-data. The data collected can then be integrated into a complete BIM model to be used for clash detection and overall design automation. McLaren’s geomatics team is at the forefront of technology.
Have you tried laser scanning and lidar technology to mitigate rework and keep costs down?
McLaren is accepting applications for 2020 summer engineering interns now through November 15th! Working with us, you’ll gain hands-on experience collaborating with industry leaders as they draw up revolutionary designs and concepts. McLaren offers an interactive experience where you’ll be fully immersed in various aspects of the engineering business. Find out more about our multiple opportunities here.