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“Always advancing” Concrete in Projects of All Shapes and Sizes

8/1/2024

In 1983, ACI Honorary Member David P. Billington introduced The Tower and the Bridge. This book by the celebrated professor at Princeton University showcased and analyzed spectacular achievements of structural engineering and construction—many of which featured concrete—which Billington further spotlighted in his 1990 book, Robert Maillart and the Art of Reinforced Concrete. As the title The Tower and the Bridge implies, nearly all the structures in the book were large and prominent.

In my day job, most of my company’s projects and most of my structural engineering practice deal with smaller and more mundane structures—but lots and lots of them. According to www.construction-physics.com, single-family homes account for 90% of U.S. buildings and 60% of building square footage, with new construction skewing even more toward single-family homes. Furthermore, very small buildings greatly outnumber very large buildings, and “construction over 3 stories tall is very uncommon, even for large buildings,” with 90% of residential and 80% of commercial square footage in buildings of three stories or less. The preponderance of small buildings arguably is even greater throughout the world overall.

So, if these remarks were to have a title, the title would be “The Culvert and the Shed,” with sincere apologies to Professor Billington.

There is no question that the ACI tagline “Always advancing” reflects and promotes a strong focus on the state of the art, which is necessary and enormously beneficial. It is also important, however, for ACI to steadfastly attend to the customary practices in materials science, engineering, construction, and compliance testing that make up the backbone of our concrete industry in small projects. Good concrete is just as important in the multitude of small, ordinary projects as it is in the much smaller number of large, complex projects.

ACI does recognize this importance in many ways, such as the work and documents of ACI Committees 332, Residential Concrete Work, and 314, Simplified Design of Concrete Buildings; documents such as CCS-0(16), “Concrete Fundamentals” (in Spanish and English), and MNL-5(19), “The Contractor’s Guide to Quality Concrete Construction,” co-published with the American Society of Concrete Contractors (ASCC); and the free series of e-documents on concrete basics.

As ACI expands and deepens its international reach, the need greatly increases for solid, relevant, and user-friendly concrete knowledge and good practices for small, ordinary projects that are fundamental and critical in emerging economies. ACI is already in discussions with the International Code Council (ICC) on this front.

Over the past 9 years, our industry-gold-standard ACI Excellence in Concrete Construction Awards program has received several hundred submissions. Most of the award winners are truly spectacular and large. But the submissions, from all over the world, have included so-called ordinary projects in which the concrete has been truly exceptional. Don’t take my word for it. See for yourself at @mjpaul_aci on Instagram.

Michael J. Paul

Photo courtesy of Vincent Brillant