What's VVAS doing during the COVID-19 pandemic? We're writing specs, that's what! As a business owner, it's my job to keep my team safe,...

I hear from the Instagram grapevine that today is a day for celebrating 25 years of the ADA. So it's the perfect day for a quick post...

We all expect natural materials to vary in color, pattern, and texture. Concrete, too, and other things that are, let's face it, made of...

There will always be a role for someone with a knack for organizing verbal information in design and construction work.

For most projects, a paint that claims "zero-VOC" is equal in quality and compliance to one that claims "less than 50 g/L VOC."

In honor of the NHL Stanley Cup finals, and because it's been a while since I posted, I thought I'd give you an update to my...

Is this naïve design gone wrong... or a clever demonstration of concrete's need to shrink as it cures?

We technical designers make a sport of bemoaning the cluelessness of aesthetic designers. My colleague Louis Medcalf tweeted a common...

Perhaps I did have an inkling that Anderson Todd was important during my years at Rice. I spent some time at my dad's house this week...

Are you communicating with your specifier during construction administration? Are you, perhaps, a little afraid to tell your specifier...

I’m specifying a system that depends as much on the fabricator as it does on the materials. In this case, it’s a concrete countertop, but...

I recently needed to help a client select a ceiling fan, and I wound up learning exciting new things about motors. (Yes, it's a motor...

Think specs aren't the sexy part of architecture? They should be. I stayed in architecture, when engineering was looking awfully tempting...

Anderson Todd taught my freshman architecture class in the fall of 1986 at Rice University. It might have been his last freshman studio...