Something to put on your calendar. Next month, the Guam Post of the Society of
American Military Engineers (SAME) will be hosting a one-day workshop entitled
"2012 IBC FUNDAMENTAL STRUCTURAL PROVISIONS FOR ENGINEERS, ARCHITECHS AND
BUILDERS". The event is slated for February
20, 2013 at the Hyatt Regency Guam. This workshop is designed to help the Guam
Engineering, Architecture and Construction industry with the transition to the
2012 International Building Code (IBC) to be implemented on Guam within the next 12 months.
It took much work and lobbying by local contractors, but Guam recently moved from the 1994 edition of the Uniform Building Code (UBC) to the 2009 edition of the IBC as the basis of the Building Code of Guam. For the users of the Building Code of Guam, this involves a steep transition, because the following model code editions were skipped: the 1997 UBC, the 2000 IBC, the 2003 IBC, and the 2006 IBC.
The focus for the event will be on designs for the two natural hazards common to Guam-wind and earthquakes. When you live in a place where you have four named storms a year and sit along "The Ring of Fire", it makes so much sense to understand more about the changes. Additionally, the impacts on the IBC changes on steel and concrete structures (both cast-in-place and pre-cast) will be discussed in detail.
This course, along with efforts by the Guam Legislature to adopt
the Guam Tropical Energy Code are great first steps in modernizing construction
techniques and standards on Guam. The
GTEC should be passed in the first quarter of this year -GET, LLC will be able
to assist with the LED Lighting upgrades and recommendations on sustainable
insulation solutions for steel and concrete buildings.
While there are many who would say that such alterations will
bring up the cost of construction on Guam, the changes are necessary for our
island to be in compliance with the code and prepare ourselves for the buildup
related to the move of the III Marine Expeditionary Force to Guam in the years
to come-an effort that would require such requirements. We can't expect changes such as these to come
only because we are going to see large amounts of federal monies into an aging
infrastructure, but because t is the right thing for us to do as a modern
American community building facilities for the future of the next generation of
Guamanians.