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1. More Chinese Homeowners May Now Appear on the US Market
According to the National Association of Realtors, the highest dollar amount of foreign real estate transactions in the U.S. falls on China. However, thanks to Obama’s recent visa deal for Chinese nationals, even more Chinese homebuyers are likely to be attracted bythe US real estate market. Moreover, university as well as secondary and primary school students may choose to study in the U.S., bringing their parents as real estate buyers with them. Read more
2. Keystone XL Pipeline Project Might Still Be Approved
On November 18, 2014, Senate Democrats stopped legislation of the 1,179-mile Keystone XL pipeline between Canada and Nebraska, via Montana and South Dakota. This multibillion project could have created 20, 000 jobs in total and 13,000 constructionjobs in particular. However, according to New York Times, Barack Obama can still approve this project later in exchange for approval of one of his policies. Read more
3. The Construction Industry of Texas on Fire
Thanks to a boom in horizontal drilling and fracking, the oil output of Texas has more than doubled since 2011. As a result, residential, manufacturing, office, and hotel construction industries in the Houston area have been on the rise, welcoming over $25.1 billion worth of construction projects, a 176% increase over the same period in 2013. Read more
4. Skyscrapers Made of Wood? – No kidding?!
Nowadays engineers are looking into more sustainable and environmentally friendly
materials for skyscraper building and are seriously considering super-plywood, in which multiple layers of softwood are glued together to maintain the strength of high-rise constructions. The 9-story Stadthaus in London and the 10-story Forte Building in Melbourne are the first examples of such plywood skyscrapers, and two more “plyscraper” projects in Norway and in Austria are underway. In his book, The Case for Tall Wood Building, Michael Green explains that such wood skyscrapers can absorb 2.5 as much carbon dioxide as a concrete building can. Not surprisingly, many of the world’s leading engineers and construction experts predict that “plyscrapers” can soon become much more widespread as we might think now. Read more
5. A Town Built at the Bottom of the Ocean
The Japanese construction company Shimizu Corp plans to start building an underwater living space that would be able to accommodate about 5,000 people. This spherical structure would be 500 meters in diameter and 15 kilometers long. People would live inside the 500-meter pod and would use the resources carried from deeper down. Temperature differences in ocean water would be used to create energy, and desalinated water would be produced by hydraulic pressure. This project could require as much as 26 billion dollars and no longer than 5 years. Read more
