This week's blog highlights from across the industry look at:
France Unveils First Solar Panel Road
Wattway, a 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) long photovoltaic road pavement system, has been installed in France as part of a two-year project to test durability and the amount of energy that can be generated from the sun on a stretch of road traveled by 2,000 cars per day. The 2,800 square meters (30,000 square feet) of solar panels is expected to generate enough electricity to power 140 average size French households. Click here to read more about the project on Shane Hedmond's post at the Construction Junkie blog.
Seller-Doers Leading the A/E/C Industry to New Levels of Marketing
Writing at the ENR blog, Scott Butcher follows up on a recent report published by the Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) that finds an increase in business development expenses across the board by the A/E/C industry. Scott discusses the increases in staffing of dedicated business development professionals along with a trend for more “seller-doers,” i.e., technical professionals engaging in sales activities. Click here to read Scott’s complete blog post. The SPMS report may be downloaded here.
How People Look at Buildings - The Devil Is in the Details
A recent post at Suffolk Construction's Build Smart blog recaps architect Ann Sussman’s study of what aspects of building design catches people’s eye, and why some buildings are more attractive than others. Sussman, and her co-researcher Justin Hollander, applied modern technology to analyze eye movements and unconscious response to photos of different buildings, noting that people have a general preference for details, which is explained as anthropomorphism – a tendency to attribute human characteristics to objects. Click here to check out the blog post by Suffolk’s Linday Davis and Patrick Kennedy to learn more about the research technology itself and further insights expressed by Sussman.
