‘Municipal/Urban’ Category

Building Fire Escape

Photo Credit: Alex Mead

Featured on this building is a moderately tall fire escape in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Fire escapes like this one are used as a second safe exit for occupants to leave in case of a fire. One advantage of a fire escape exit from a burning building is moving the people away from the noxious smoke created by building fires. Smoke, which causes people to asphyxiate, is responsible for many of the deaths associated with fires today.

Electrical Substation

Photo Credit: Alex Mead

What you are looking at is a sub-station on the electrical power grid. Electricity is produced at large power plants, with a very high voltage. This high voltage is advantageous because it leads to lower losses acquired in the transmission process of the power. However, this large voltage, that is good for transportation, would destroy most devices that run on electricity. As a result, the electrical grid has sub-stations, like this one, to reduce the high voltage to more manageable magnitudes.

Frozen Fire Hydrant

Photo Credit: Alex Mead

Above is an example of the harsh conditions civil infrastructure must endure in northern states and places where long winter climates are a fact of life. As you can see the entire outside of this fire hydrant is covered in a layer ice! Ice is incredibly strong at prying apart seems, spreading cracks, and generally reeking havoc on anything man made. Any civil engineering infrastructure that is designed for northern climates must be made to handle forces such as those presented by ice.

Urban Cell Phone Antenna

Photo Credit: Alex Mead

So this may appear to be just another building, and it is. What’s unique about this picture, however, is the group of white vertical bars near the top of the building. Those vertical bars are actually antennas used for cell phones. Most people don’t notice them, but if you start to look around these antennas are on a surprising amount of buildings in urban environments.