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Building Innovation


Message from the Chairman


When I was asked to serve as Chairman of the New York Building Congress, I wholeheartedly agreed, on one condition - that the Building Congress address the issue of innovation and best practices in our industry as part of its agenda.

With the City in the midst of another building boom, now is the perfect - and most important - time to devote our attention to building smarter, faster, more safely, and more economically. To accomplish these goals, we must be willing to challenge the status quo, embrace best practices, and implement new ideas and technologies.

Over the past two years, the Building Congress Task Force on Innovation and Best Practices has been fully engaged in that process of self-evaluation, thoughtfully considering what we can do as an industry to make us better in everything from procurement reform to building technology and processes, site management, and workforce development.

We have found that innovation is all around us, but unfortunately, it hasn't been as widely distributed and replicated as it needs to be. While many other industries see innovation as a fact of doing business, the building industry has been slow to adopt innovative tools and methods on a broad scale. We continue to build fundamentally the same way we did 50 years ago and arguably even earlier. Yet, imagine going out today and buying a car that was built the same way as the 1965 Studebaker or a computer with 141k of RAM (what a 1965 Univac offered).

We are stuck, in part, for the same reason many people get stuck: unquestioned habits. New York City, for example, is the envy of many cities around the world because our two-day cycle per floor enables very rapid high-rise construction. But the two-day construction cycle is so ingrained in our thinking that it can inhibit us from taking a fresh look at other solutions. Entrenched in our ways, we tend to leave untapped the great potential for improving how our built environment is designed and constructed.

This report, which provides an overview of the Task Force's efforts, shines a light on just some of the opportunities for productive change that can raise the bar while also setting benchmarks that are feasible and attainable. It is an initial step toward elevating innovation and best practices in the New York City building community on an ongoing basis by sharing what has been learned so far and offering recommendations for a path forward.

I thank the more than 40 dedicated industry professionals who have actively participated on the Task Force. Their leadership and commitment to our industry are, in and of themselves, best practices that we can all strive to emulate.

Thomas Z. Scarangello, P.E.
Chairman, New York Building Congress and Task Force on Innovation and Best Practices
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Thornton Tomasetti

 

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