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Construction Spending Update
Been Busy? Get Ready For More

The very strong growth in the housing construction market, widely attributed to continued low mortgage interests rates, has gotten a lot of coverage in the AEC trade papers and business press over the past year. Not surprising, since residential building has been one of the few steady success stories in the overall economy. But as many of us know, the red-hot housing sector has been masking relatively weak growth in industry-wide numbers, especially in the nonresidential sector. That formula is expected to shift in 2004 and 2005.

According to the most recent Reed Research Group Building and Construction Market Forecast, housing momentum will continue strong through the current year, cooling somewhat in 2005 while remaining at a high level. But the better news is that the overall construction industry picture is expected to brighten considerably. Sector-wide growth is forecast at 4.9% for 2004, and is expected to soar 7.8% from the end of 2004 to the end of 2005.

This healthy expansion will be propelled by a long-awaited rebound in non-residential spending. In fact, Reed is predicting large gains of 9.3% in heavy construction, 9.1% in residential remodeling and 12.3% in the nonresidential market, bringing the overall industry back in line with the business cycle after the new housing spurt in 2003. Homebuilders might not want to plan for a slowdown just yet, though. As the report concludes, "housing activity has surprised on the upside repeatedly over the last year, and it could happen again."

All statistics from
REED RESEARCH GROUP'S
Building & Construction Market Forecast
January 2004 Volume 21 #1

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Green Going Mainstream

Advocates of green design have long proclaimed the environmental, financial and health benefits of buildings constructed to optimize the use of energy, light and other resources. With the recent publication of what is probably the most definitive analysis of green building ever conducted, those benefits have come into sharper focus than ever before. Reporting to the Sustainable Building Task Force, a group of more than 40 California state government agencies, the U.S. Green Building Council has detailed a long and impressive list of the advantages of incorporating green design concepts into new and existing buildings.

For instance, the report shows that minimal increases in upfront costs of approximately 2% to support green design will, on average, result in building life cycle savings totaling 20% of overall construction costs. The study backs these percentages with hard numbers showing buildings constructed to LEED standards (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) incur much lower ongoing costs for electricity, heating and water. Perhaps even more impressive were the findings on less tangible gains, as the study demonstrated that better building design and performance in areas such as lighting, ventilation and thermal control directly increases tenant/worker well-being and productivity. In fact, the report concluded that the state of California could expect to realize increases in productivity equal to $665 per employee per year by adopting green design concepts.

For more information on the U.S. Green Building Council, and to get a copy of the report, please visit http://www.usgbc.org/News/pressreleases_details.asp?ID=495

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Tips & Tricks

Buzzsaw Document Viewing
Quick Browser vs. Full Blown Application

One of the reasons that Buzzsaw is so easy to use is that it has a familiar interface very similar to that of Microsoft® Windows Explorer. Which means that Buzzsaw users can manage files and documents just as they would on their desktops using features such as drag-and-drop, right-click, and hierarchical file trees. It also means that Buzzsaw users have options when it comes to displaying, editing and saving project files and documents.

Specifically, you can open files quick-browser style, so that they immediately launch within Buzzsaw in an Explorer window when double-clicked, or you have the option of opening files within their native application. Buzzsaw allows you to take advantage of this quick-browser capability because it supports complementary plug-ins for applications such as Autodesk Express Viewer, Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Word and many others.

The difference between "opening through the browser" and "opening through the application" is important because some types of documents are more likely to simply require viewing capabilities, while others require more robust editing options. For instance, if you need to view a CAD drawing in .DWF format or an instruction manual in .PDF, it's much faster and easier to launch them with the plug-in version of these programs. On the other hand, if you regularly receive Microsoft Word format RFIs or memoranda that require editing, opening through the browser might not be up the job because plug-ins often exclude certain standard toolbars and functions, such as extended printing functionality.

But as we said, with Buzzsaw, you have options. In fact, you can choose whether to view within a window or launch a full application on a file-by-file basis. Here's how:

1. From the Windows start menu, open the Control Panel
2. Open the 'Folder Options' and choose the 'File Types' menu
3. Locate and select the file type that you want to configure (for instance, .DOC for Microsoft Word documents, .XLS for Excel spreadsheets, and so on)
4. Once selected, click the 'Advanced' button. This will open the selected file type's 'Advanced' menu
5. Look for a check box at the bottom labeled 'Browse in same window'. If this is checked, you will view your documents through the plug-in, which is through Internet Explorer. If you would like the full blown application to launch, you will want to UNCHECK the box.

(NOTE: if the 'browse in same window' button is grayed out, you do not have the option to alter the program default configurations)

If you have any further questions or comments about this or any other Tips & Tricks topic, please direct them to bcs.support@autodesk.com

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ASK BUZZ

Can you tell me about a timesaving feature in Buzzsaw that I might not know about?

So glad you asked! There is a subscription notification feature that both site administrators and members have found extremely helpful. If you would like to know automatically whether a project or file has been updated or modified, you can simply right-click on the orange project folder or a specific file and choose the "New Notification" function. A dialog box will then appear and you can choose to receive notifications of the changes immediately as they occur or in a daily summary format. After you have chosen your preferred format, an email message will be automatically generated every time a change is made to that project or file. The message contains information on the type of change made, the person responsible for that change, and the time and date the change was made.

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