COVID-19

This lecture series will address past, current, and future initiatives, constraints, and budgets arising from AEC Industry experiences from COVID-19. Weekly programs are scheduled every Tuesday from 12 PM to 1 PM EST, via Zoom, from May into September 2020. There is no fee to participate. Registration by Eventbrite is required. For more information and to register, click the links under the lecture of interest below.

The COVID-19 response has helped assure the health and safety of those who live, work, and study in New York City and other metropolitan areas in the United States and around the world. Since the lockdown in mid-March, we have learned new ways of interacting, new ways of learning, new ways of working. Through the application of technologies, we have shared knowledge, assumptions, aspirations, and anxieties. Now comes the time of re-working our civic infrastructure, rebuilding our structures, and re-thinking our public space. We need to re-conceptualize the work done for government agencies and private sector companies while addressing how they both carry out their mission. Industry thought leaders, from principal engineering, architectural, and construction management firms, along with government officials and major asset owners, will provide candid analyses of how essential buildings and necessary infrastructure will adapt to a world turned upside down by new needs and new perspectives.

Questions about agency and office operations to be considered are:

• How is your office or organization preparing for the resumption of services?
• How will the services provided differ from those offered before COVID-19?
• How do you envision the role of your organization in the post-COVID 19 environment? How will it be changed?
• How will your organization prepare to respond to a possible second wave of coronavirus this fall?

Questions pertaining to design and construction are:

• How will we design for a new normal that does not align with the norms we know and use?
• How will we engineer solutions to standards and codes not yet written?
• How will we design and build a future that references the past, but addresses the functional needs now being defined?
• How will we balance attention on our operations with an eye toward the resulting design and construction outcomes?

This series is being organized by Columbia University’s Center for Buildings, Infrastructure and Public Space (CBIPS) in collaboration with the American Council of Engineering Companies New York (ACEC NY), the American Institute of Architects New York Chapter (AIANY), the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the Construction Management Association of America Metro New York/New Jersey (CMAA NY/NJ), Consortium for Sustainable Urbanization (CSU) , Engineering News-Record (ENR), and the National Academy of Construction (NAC). Together we hope to identify how best to restructure our operations and how to design, construct, and manage buildings, infrastructure, and civic spaces, emphasizing social impact, sustainability, resilience, and public health, in addition to cost, schedule, quality, and safety. Now more than ever, the intersection of these operational and project determinants resonates as the AEC Industry rethinks how it carries out its essential services. Private sector firms and public sector agencies are charting new ground, rethinking the ways that have been taken for granted, and giving new vigor to experiments that until now seemed plausible only in some distant future.

Industry thought leaders, from major asset owners and principal engineering, architectural, and construction management firms will add to the conversation. They will address changes in practice, including firm size and organization. Many of these firms are both local and global, thinking and working locally, designing and building around the world. Experience gained from working in other cities, other countries, other continents, will inform our collective knowledge. Additional lectures will, therefore, draw upon the industry and government experts from around the world, such as Chicago, London, Los Angeles, Paris, Seoul, and Singapore. This lecture series will address the post-first wave COVID initiatives and innovations in civil engineering, architecture, urban design, construction technology, real estate, finance, city planning, historic preservation, landscape architecture, and their allied sciences and arts.

There is no fee to participate. Click on the links below the lecture of interest to receive additional information about the speaker, the topic, and to register for the Zoom lecture. We hope that you will be part of it!