Civil Engineering Magazine

Natural forms and materials, sacred geometries, and advancements in the science of civil engineering are united in the Cathedral of Christ the Light, a structure that has transformed the northwest shore of Lake Merritt in Oakland, California.

A difficult intersection of Interstate 87—the New York State Thruway—with Interstate 84 in Newburgh, New York, required travelers to use a short stretch of a local road for ingress and egress, tying up local traffic and creating long backups on the interstates. A newly designed interchange project not only provided more direct connections and a smoother flow of traffic, it also included environmentally friendly buildings within the site that will house toll road maintenance operations, a police headquarters, and a tandem trucking assembly station.

The problem: how to cross a wide navigable river beneath an airport’s flight path given the fact that a cable-stayed bridge would be too tall and a concrete box girder bridge too deep. The solution: an extradosed bridge—a hybrid of the two bridge forms that features shorter towers and shorter girder profiles. The new bridge, in Vancouver, British Columbia, is the first extradosed bridge to be completed in North America.

The $190-million Broad Run Water Reclamation Facility, in Loudoun County, Virginia, meets some of the most stringent water reclamation standards in the world. The first large-scale facility to employ membrane bioreactor technology with carbon treatment and disinfection by ultraviolet light, the 11 mgd (41,635 m3/d) plant complies with strict nutrient limits while providing a community amenity that will confer educational, aesthetic, and recreational benefits well into the future.