As I See It: Building Resilience

From the ICFMA: Still Standing After Disasters
By Brian Corder
Strong storms, high winds, tornadoes, and other natural disasters are becoming more frequent every year due to the drastic changes in climate. But natural disasters are no match for homes and buildings constructed with Insulated Concrete Form walls.

Building a Concrete ADU
By Levi Gurule
The author’s guest house idea (officially called an accessory dwelling unit, or ADU for short) had been on hold while other priorities took center stage, but in 2020, California changed zoning laws to allow building an ADU when a property can otherwise support the second unit.

Engineer’s Corner: The Increasing Popularity of ICF Construction
By Dave Gowers
While most people might think that ICF should be used for primary residential or commercial projects, it’s far more versatile than that, with many possible applications.

Why ICF Safe Rooms Provide the Best Protection During Dangerous Wind Events
By Fox Blocks
Safe rooms or shelters, built according to FEMA’s guidelines, provide the best protection for the occupants of residential, commercial, and community spaces against the more than 5,700 tornadoes that occurred between 2010 and 2020 in the United States.

Design Perspectives: Disasters Happen, What Can You Do?
By Trevor Brown
Tornados, hurricanes, floods, blizzards, and fires happen. Whether you like it or not, you can’t stop bad things from happening. Building with ICFs IS what we can do about it.

How To: Troubleshoot Blowouts
By Tom Patton
The worst word to hear in ICF construction is “blowout.” Most ICF blowouts occur during concrete placement. Here is how to avoid and take quick action to fix this if it does occur.

Project Profile: Palos Residence
Palos Residence in Santa Clarita, California, is also known by another name: the PHNX1. The name is an homage to the fact that the home was a rebuild of a home lost in the 2019 Tick Fire.

Project Profile: Panther Creek High School
The Frisco Independent School District has built more than 20 ICF schools since 2014. Many other school districts look to Frisco ISD for examples of success.

Project Profile: The Tom
On this condo in Canada, ICF walls also acted as shear walls to deal with shear forces in the building without changing material types, and allowed for continuous ICF installation, which reduced the complexity of the build and time on site.