Civil Engineering Magazine

Constructed in the late 1860s, the dome-shaped Tabernacle on Temple Square—a religious gathering place in Salt Lake City for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—was recently seismically retrofitted and renovated to meet the church’s current needs while preserving its historically important fabric.

With the closure in 1997 of San Diego’s Naval Training Center, remarkable opportunities arose for the communities surrounding the former military base. More than 360 acres (145.7 ha) of valuable waterfront property became available for residential, recreational, commercial, and industrial use. The City of San Diego Redevelopment Agency—the official local redevelopment authority for the U.S. Navy—Decided to reuse the property. With a new name—Liberty Station—the area has been transformed and is becoming a waterfront destination for residents and tourists alike, featuring a park, esplanades, promenades, arcades, hotels, a cultural center, and a golf course among its public amenities.

Rather than use cut-and-cover techniques to install two consolidation conduits in an urban setting, a contractor developed a value engineering approach that relied on an extensive grouting effort to improve ground conditions before pipe jacking was used to complete the installation.

In June 2006 a diverse group of civil engineering and other leaders gathered in Lansdowne, Virginia, to participate in the Summit on the Future of Civil Engineering. Their purpose was to articulate a global vision for the future of civil engineering addressing all levels and facets of the civil engineering community. Their report, prepared by the ASCE Steering Committee to Plan a Summit on the Future of the Civil Engineering Profession in 2025, was published in June. This article is a distillation of the report.