
Explore how a building is designed and built by breaking complex projects into materials and systems, mastering construction vocabulary and the sequence from site utilities to turnover.
Explore the structural steel workflow from foundations to a completed composite slab, including anchor bolts, base plates, shims, girders, beams, shear tabs, metal deck, and reinforcement.
Explore building structures by mastering frames, lateral resistance, and load paths; compare concrete, steel, masonry, and wood, and learn how spans, materials, and codes shape structural choices for different facilities.
Explore the range of construction cranes—from hydraulic and tower cranes to lattice boom crawlers and specialty cranes—and learn how site logistics, foundations, outriggers, and counterweights enable safe lifts.
Explore cast-in-place concrete structures, their durability, fire resistance, exposed concrete aesthetics, slab types one-way, two-way, ribbed, and waffle, plus reinforcement in construction sequencing.
Discover how cast-in-place and pre-stressed concrete use pretension and post-tensioning to compress concrete, extend spans, and yield shallower members and taller floor-to-ceiling heights.
Precast concrete offers factory-made, fast erection with integral decks and high-quality finishes, but requires careful planning, crane access, and limited design changes.
Trace the history of steel from iron and cast iron to the Bessemer process, and examine how steel frames enabled skyscrapers from the Wainwright Building to the Petronas Towers.
Explore the structural steel design-to-erect process, from steel shapes and shop drawings to fabrication, anchoring, composite slabs, and fireproofing, highlighting advantages, drawbacks, and connections.
Explore masonry, tilt-up concrete, and wood as structural options, noting their durability, fire resistance, cost, and typical uses in box-shaped, low-rise buildings.
Compare cast in place concrete, precast concrete, and structural steel for typical building types; discuss advantages, disadvantages, lateral-load resistance, diaphragms, backfill considerations, and follow-on trades toward enclosure.
No matter which role you have in a building construction project, it is vital that you understand the "guts" of a building in order to make a positive impact. For contractors, engineers, architects, real estate developers and facilities managers, it takes years or even decades to learn the materials and systems in a building. The typical source of this education is on-the-job because this material is not taught in schools. Young professionals spend an extraordinary amount of time trying to understand the complexities of a modern building. Every project is different and the materials and systems can change drastically from one building to the next. Time can be better spent by adding value to projects instead of learning terminology and construction sequencing. The lessons in the course have been developed to boil down years of on-the-job training into high-impact, bite-sized classes.