Columbus Ohio Building Expert Directory

The Irresistible Urge to Build Cities From Scratch

November 21, 2018 — Monte Reel - Bloomberg
Embedded in the cerebral folds of every city planner who’s ever lived, there’s a cluster of neurons that lights up like Las Vegas when confronted with the possibility of a blank slate. It started with Hippodamus, the man Aristotle claimed was the father of urban planning. When the Persians destroyed his hometown of Miletus, Hippodamus discovered a bright side to catastrophe: The attackers had erased all the regrettable improvisations that, over the centuries, had made a mess of the place. Tasked with rebuilding, he seized his chance to impose order upon chaos. And so the concept of the urban grid was born. Ever since, the dream of carte blanche has proved an all-but-irresistible seduction. Leonardo da Vinci drafted detailed sketches of an “ideal city” after the plague ravaged Milan, and a few hundred years later, Frank Lloyd Wright designed a metropolis that solved the problem of vehicular congestion via a network of helicopter taxis. Every so often, this urge in city planners breaks out into a full-scale epidemic, such as the one that spread throughout Europe and North America in the early 1900s. Known as the “garden city movement,” it aimed to counter the indignities of the Industrial Revolution by creating planned communities with plenty of green space. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Monte Reel, Bloomberg

Contract Change #1- Insurance in the A201 (law note)

April 11, 2018 — Melissa Dewey Brumback – Construction Law in North Carolina
Insurance– everyone needs it; everyone would just as soon not have to deal with it. I get it, I do. Attorneys, Insurance Agents– no one likes spending time with those folk! Good news though. The changes to the A201 mean that you may end up spending less time with both! The most important change to the Insurance requirements of the AIA contract is that most of it has moved to a new Exhibit. Why is this important? Instead of having to send the entire contract to your agent or broker, you can now send them only the section that they really need to review for compliance. This also means that if insurance policies change (as they surely will), the entire contract document does not need to be re-written– the Exhibit can be updated accordingly, leaving the rest of the A201 alone. Nice, right? This change was made to streamline insurance review and provide for that flexibility of the changing insurance market. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Melissa Dewey Brumback, Ragsdale Liggett PLLC
Ms. Brumback may be contacted at mbrumback@rl-law.com

Insurer Must Pay for Matching Siding of Insured's Buildings

December 02, 2019 — Tred R. Eyerly - Insurance Law Hawaii
The Seventh Circuit found that the insurer was obligated to pay for siding of a building that was not damaged by hail so that it matched the replaced damaged portions of the siding. Windridge of Naperville Condominium Association v. Philadelphia Indem. Ins. Co., 2019 U.S. App. 23607 (7th Cir. Aug. 7, 2019). A hail and wind storm damaged buildings owned by Windridge. The storm physically damaged the aluminum siding on the buildings' sought and west sides. Philadelphia Indemnity, Windridge's insurer, contended that it was only required to replace the siding on those sides. Windridge argued that replacement siding that matched the undamaged north and east elevations was no longer available, so Philadelphia had to replace the siding on all four sides of the buildings to that all of the siding matched. Windridge sued and moved for summary judgment. The district court ruled that matching was required. The only sensible result was to treat the damage as having occurred to the building's siding as a whole. The policy was a replacement-cost policy. Philadelphia promised to "pay for direct physical 'loss' to 'Covered Property' caused by or resulting from" the storm, with the amount of loss being "the cost to replace the lost or damaged property with other property . . . of comparable material and quality . . . and . . . used for the same purpose." The loss payment provision offered four different measures for loss, leaving Philadelphia free to choose the least expensive: (1) pay the value of the lost or damaged property; (2) pay the cost of repairing or replacing the lost or damaged property; (3) take all or any part of the property at an agreed or appraised value; or (4) repair, rebuild or replace the property with other property of like kind and quality. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Tred R. Eyerly, Damon Key Leong Kupchak Hastert
Mr. Eyerly may be contacted at te@hawaiilawyer.com

Illinois Joins the Pack on Defective Construction as an Occurrence

December 16, 2023 — Anna M. Perry - Saxe Doernberger & Vita, P.C.
Illinois joins the majority of states finding “property damage that results inadvertently from faulty work can be caused by an ‘accident’ and therefore constitute an ‘occurrence’.” The Illinois Supreme Court’s ruling in Acuity v. M/I Homes of Chicago, LLC1 (“Acuity v. M/I Homes”) is the first high court ruling in Illinois on this critical coverage issue for contractors. M/I Homes of Chicago, LLC (“M/I Homes”) constructed a townhome development. After completion, water entered the townhomes resulting in interior water damage. The townhome owners’ association filed suit against M/I Homes alleging it, or its subcontractors, caused the damage because it used defective materials, conducted faulty workmanship, and failed to comply with applicable building codes (the “Underlying Action”). Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Anna M. Perry, Saxe Doernberger & Vita, P.C.
Ms. Perry may be contacted at APerry@sdvlaw.com

The Living Makes Buildings Better with Computational Design

November 12, 2019 — Aarni Heiskanen - AEC Business
The AEC industry has a responsibility and mandate when it comes to addressing significant global challenges in the sector and improving operational practice. Professionals such as Lorenzo Villaggi, Senior Research Scientist at The Living, believe that new design technologies hold the key to better-performing built environments. “Although I’m trained as an architect, I’ve always had an interest in how technology can interact with and have an impact on design processes,” says Lorenzo. “I’ve developed a familiarity with advanced computational tools and eventually developed my own.” These computational tools are primarily designed to assist with the generation of design options and improve performance analysis. They range from small systems that help users design faster, all the way to elaborate software that can perform complex, mission-critical tasks. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Aarni Heiskanen, AEC Business
Mr. Heiskanen may be contacted at aec-business@aepartners.fi

Another Defect Found on the Bay Bridge: Water Leakage

February 11, 2014 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the eastern span of the Bay Bridge has dealt with alleged “defective welds” and “cracked steel rods,” and now there are reports of leakage. The Chronicle stated that rainwater “is dripping into the steel structure beneath the road deck on the suspension stretch of the span, which,” according to Caltrans “is supposed to be watertight.” Water corrosion on a bridge could cost $6.4 billion, the San Francisco Chronicle claimed. Caltrans said that they “are going to have teams of engineers and inspectors there this weekend to assess the problem.” Read the court decision
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Florida Chinese drywall, pollution exclusion, “your work” exclusion, and “sistership” exclusion.

May 26, 2011 — CDCoverage.com

In Auto-Owners Ins. Co. v. American Building Materials, Inc., No. 8:10-CV-313-T-24-AEP (M.D. Fla. May 17, 2011), insured drywall supplier ABM was sued by general contractor KB Homes seeking damages because property damage to houses built by KB Homes using defective Chinese drywall supplied by ABM. ABM’s CGL insurer Auto-Owners defended ABM under a reservation of rights and filed suit against ABM and KB Homes seeking a judicial declaration of no to duty to defend or indemnify ABM against the KB Homes lawsuit. On cross motions for summary, the federal district trial court directed entry of judgment in favor of ABM and KB Homes and against Auto-Owners, holding that Auto-Owners had a duty to defend and indemnify ABM against the KB Homes lawsuit.

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Reprinted courtesy of CDCoverage.com

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Defect Claims Called “Witch Hunt”

November 20, 2013 — CDJ STAFF
Saying that “it was blatantly obvious that LAWA’s airport maintenance has culpability in this matter,” Tutor-Saliba Corp is claiming that the recent lawsuit from Los Angeles World Airports, the operators of LAX, is “an apparent witch hunt.” The airport has claimed that Tutor-Saliba’s work in building the runway was defective. The firm notes in response that their warranty against defects expired in 2009 and claims that some of the areas with problems are areas they did work. Instead of defective workmanship, Tutor-Saliba has suggested that the problems with the runway are due to poor maintenance. Their suggestion is that LAX review its maintenance procedures. Read the court decision
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COLUMBUS OHIO BUILDING EXPERT DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES