A complete reconfiguration of a 1920s-era bridge was successfully accomplished, including raising the structure’s fortification wall by about seven feet, along with its approaches, and the adjacent Vista Point overlook. Mechanical seismic isolation bearings were used to isolate the deck structure from the supporting bents and pier walls that are anchored to the dam crest. The new route across the reservoir provides trail users with a beautiful view of the water and woods in the 23,000-acre watershed.

Pioneering mechanical and electrical design is helping Millersville University achieve its goal of a total carbon neutral campus by 2040. Its new Lombardo Welcome Center is already a sustainable net-zero facility, with a 172.6-kW photovoltaic roof array, a 20-panel ground-mounted array that can track the sun throughout the day, and a 20-underground well geothermal system. The building currently generates 210% of its annual power needs with the extra used for other campus structures.

Believed to be the first of its kind in North America and only the seventh similarly designed bridge in the world, The Manning Crevice Bridge is rare single-tower asymmetrical roadway suspension bridge featuring a single-tower. Design selection for the 300-foot-long bridge was the best option to deal with challenging site conditions including steep topography, equipment restrictions, and swift and highly variable river flows.

More than a century of logging, mining and acid production left Copper Basin contaminated with hazardous concentrated metals including copper, iron, and zinc-forming sulfur compounds. Since mining operations ended in 1987, a massive nearly 20-year effort took place to clean up what was the largest reclamation site in the eastern U.S. Restoration efforts for the 4,000-acre site included disposal of mining waste, construction of clean-water diversions and piping around mining-impacted areas; and re-establishment of natural, healthy communities of aquatic insects; and construction of new contaminant-filtering wetlands. What once was the site of orange rivers nearly devoid of fish and aquatic species, is now green and lush and a popular spot for white water rafting and fishing.

Innovative treatment plant upgrades help a major water district meet water treatment requirements, potential future regulations, and emerging contaminant risks. The expansion increases the facility’s treatment capacity to 40 million gallons per day, incorporates two-step ozone, two-stage mixing, flocculation, sedimentation, biological filtration, chlorine disinfection, and ultraviolet inactivation systems. A new solar photovoltaic system generates about 40,000 kW of clean renewable energy annually.

A common rail traffic choke point has been eliminated for a major rail corridor along the eastern seaboard. The century-old Virginia Avenue Tunnel was a single-track tunnel that could only accommodate one single-stack train at a time, which caused major rail backups. The state-of-the-art two tunnel replacement can also accommodate double-stack intermodal trains. Cross streets spanning the 11 city blocks above the tunnel construction were rebuilt with shared-use paths and dedicated bike lanes.

A pioneering $161 million upgrade to this wastewater treatment facility redoubles the district’s efforts to restore health of the Chesapeake Bay. A unique versatile bioreactor integrated with the plant’s existing nutrient removal processes help meet increasingly stringent discharge quality mandates, while increasing peak flow capacity by 50 percent. Ten buildings and more than 90 miles of foundation piles, and a 108-inch-diameter pipeline were installed to support structures and utilities over a closed landfill.

New side-by-side and elevated avalanche bridges can accommodate a 100-year snow slide event, while minimizing road closures and increasing vehicle capacity when traveling one of the most scenic mountain ranges in the U.S. The twin 1,200-foot-long avalanche bridges incorporate new standards for Cascade Mountain snow designs. Located along a hazardous stretch of I-90, the new bridges provide a freeway safe from rockfall and avalanches.

Innovative foundation design will support a massive concrete and steel platform to support a proposed massive urban development including twelve mixed-use 50- to-70-story towers above congested rail tracks and utilities. The project will cover Long Island Railroad’s John D. Caemmerer West Side Storage Yard with the platform, creating 32 acres of “new” developable real estate.

Rejecting the idea of a traditional corporate campus, creative structural design helped produce the “Neighborhood” a breathtaking three-block urban development. It features three 38-story office towers and “The Spheres” a nine-story structure with three intersecting, glass-and-steel sphere conservatories designed to enhance employee creativity and collaboration. The spheres include treehouse meeting rooms, waterfalls, a four-story “living wall,” and more than 40,000 exotic plants from 30 countries.

The new U.S. Embassy in Pristina, Kosovo is a water-saving marvel. The embassy surrounds a large multi-purpose water feature that collects stormwater and effluent from an on-site wastewater treatment plant, and supplies irrigation water for landscaping and graywater for toilet flushing. The water also serves as a large heat sink for the central plant’s ground-source heat pump system by allowing the building’s HVAC system to extract heat in cold months and reject waste heat in warmer weather.

Four congested at-grade rail crossings were eliminated through innovative design which lowered a 1.4-mile section of the Union Pacific Railroad track into a 30-foot-deep concrete trench, that was then topped with new pedestrian and vehicle bridges. Eliminating a longstanding safety hazard, the new trench also reduces emissions from nearly 90,000 idling motorists and saved more than $100 million in excavation and associated construction costs.

Credit @Thomas Heinser, Provided by T.Y. Lin International

Serving as a major gateway into the City of Montréal, the new 2.1-mile, Samuel De Champlain Bridge spans the St. Lawrence River between Île des Soeurs and Montréal’s South Shore and is the cornerstone of the New Champlain Bridge Corridor Project, one of North America’s largest infrastructure initiatives. The landmark asymmetric cable-stayed structure features a single, 558-foot-tall concrete tower and stay cables in an aesthetic harp arrangement.

Accelerated pavement deterioration on I-696 forced the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) to fast-track immediate repairs to avoid a traffic nightmare when in proximity with upcoming major I-75 construction. The project team used advanced 3D modeling to create electronic documents that provided accurate depictions of the pavement surface for contractors and surveyors and became a first for MDOT for including electronic deliverables as part of the actual contract.

Imaginative engineering crafted a an eye-catching 115-foot-tall performance and exhibition building that can move or retract as needed to accommodate a range of patrons, artists, scales, and complexities. When an event calls for more space, the outer shell of the flexible semi-translucent lightweight material can be deployed and cover a 17,000-square-foot area. Operable door and wall elements allow for an open-air pavilion or a fully enclosed, climate-controlled hall. Rolling out 114 feet at its top speed, the shed can be fully deployed in just five minutes.

As part of a three-year project to measure ground subsidence statewide and identify potential risks to infrastructure, the project team looked to the sky, or in other words, satellite-based Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar technology. Utilizing two satellites launched in opposite orbits, the team isolated not only any deformation from subsidence, but also vertical change across the entire state. Satellite readings now help more than 260 local groundwater agencies protect infrastructure from costly subsidence-related damage.