Author Archives: mike@standardsmichigan.com

  1. Home
  2. Articles posted by mike@standardsmichigan.com
    3. (Page 5)
Loading
loading...

Ædificare & Utilization

New Construction Release Schedule: https://www.census.gov/construction/c30/release.html

Reports are usually released at 10 AM EST the first day of every month except this month. (May 2026)

There’s been a significant redesign of the look and feel of the monthly Census Bureau reports construction activity. Today we sort through the rather more granular statistics that inform our recommendations for facility spend.

 

December 1, 2025

It has been 20 years since we began tracking educational settlement facility spend.  Starting this month we will examine federal government data together with the best available data about space utilization to enlighten our response to the perfectly reasonable question: “Are we over-building or under-building or building ineffectively”.  Use the login credentials at the upper right of our home page.

United States: Schools of Architecture

The Society for College and University Planning (Ann Arbor, Michigan)

National Center for Education Statistics

The Financial Impact of Architectural Design: Balancing Aesthetics and Budget in Modern Construction

 

Homeschooling

2022 International Existing Building Code 

  • University College London

As reported by the US Department of Commerce Census Bureau the value of construction put in place by August 2025 by the US education industry proceeded at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $137.604 billion.  This number does not include renovation for projects under 50,000 square feet and new construction in university-affiliated health care delivery enterprises.   Reports are released two months after calendar month.  The complete report is available at the link below:

MONTHLY CONSTRUCTION SPENDING August 2025 (released two months after calendar month)

 

 


This spend makes the US education facilities industry (which includes colleges, universities, technical/vocational and K-12 schools, most university-affiliated medical research and healthcare delivery enterprises, etc.) the largest non-residential building construction market in the United States after commercial property; and fairly close.  For perspective consider total public + private construction ranked according to the tabulation most recently released:

$137.604 billion| Education Facilities

$155.728 billion | Power (Note data center buildout)

$69.625 billion | Healthcare

Keep in mind that inflation figures into the elevated dollar figures.  Overall — including construction, energy, custodial services, furnishings, security. etc., — the non-instructional spend plus the construction spend of the US education facilities is running at a rate of about $300 – $500 billion per year.

LIVE: A selection of construction cameras at  US schools, colleges and universities

Architectural Billings

We typically pick through the new data set; looking for clues relevant to real asset spend decisions.  Finally, we encourage the education facilities industry to contribute to the accuracy of these monthly reports by responding the US Census Bureau’s data gathering contractors.

Reconstruction of Ancient Agora

 

As surely as people are born, grow wealthy and die with extra cash,

there will be a home for that cash to sustain their memory and to steer

the cultural heritage of the next generation in beautiful settings.

More

National Center for Educational Statistics

AIA: Billings Index shows but remains strong May 2022

National Center for Education Statistics

Sightlines: Capital Investment College Facilities

OxBlue: Time-Lapse Construction Cameras for Education

Architectural Billing Index

IBISWorld Education Sector

US Census Bureau Form F-33 Survey of School System Finances

American School & University

New Report from Occuspace Finds U.S. Campuses Face Significant Underutilization

Global Consistency in Presenting Construction & Life Cycle Costs

Carnegie Classifications

Gallery: School Bond Referenda

In terms of total spend, the US elementary and secondary school industry is about twice the size of the higher education industry according to IBISWorld. About $100 billion is in play every year for both (which we cover during our Ædificare colloquia); with higher education spending only half of what elementary and secondary school systems spend on facilities.

Note that some districts are including construction for faculty housing.

Our focus remains on applying global standard to create educational settlements that are safer, simpler, lower-cost and longer-lasting — not on the hurly-burly of local school bond elections.  We recommend consulting the coverage in American School & University for more detailed and more timely information.

“GV Brew”

ALLENDALE WEATHER

Grand Valley State University Statement of Financial Position 2023: $1.057B

Michigan West

Located on the First Floor of the Mary Idema Pew Library*

Facilities Services

Moving into college vlog

Moving into Grand Valley State University | Kent County Michigan

Grand Valley State University

Facilities Services

* Proposed GVSU Library to be named for Mary Idema Pew

Tyme

“Tyme” was used in Middle English and earlier forms of the language, and it was commonly found in historical texts, poetry, and manuscripts of that time. It was used to refer to the passage of time, an era, or a specific moment in history.

“Steam alarm clock with a polyphonic whistle” 2004 Jacek Yerka

Today at 16:00 UTC we refresh our understanding of the technical standards for the timing-systems that maintain the temporal framework for daily life in education communities.  The campus clock continues as a monument of beauty and structure even though digitization of everything has rendered the central community clock redundant.

Most leading practice discovery (and innovation) is happening with the Network Time Protocols (NTP) that synchronize the time stamps of widely separated data centers.  In operation since before 1985, NTP is one of the oldest Internet protocols in current use and underlies the Internet of Things build out.  NTP is particularly important in maintaining accurate time stamps for safety system coordination and for time stamps on email log messages.

Use the login credentials at the upper right of our home page.

Time

More

National Institute of Standards and Technology: What is Time?

Sapienza University of Rome: Clock Synchronization

IEEE Standard 1588: Precision Clock Synchronization Protocol for Networked Measurement and Control Systems

National Fire Alarm and Signaling Code

Athletics

Fully automatic time (Sport)

Permanent RFID Timing System in a Track and Field Athletic Stadium for Training and Analysing Purposes

USA Swimming: Time Standards

Language 600

Starting from the canonicals of any standard suitable for optimizing innovation (and incorporation by reference into public law) — Title, Scope, Purpose and Definitions — we will turn our attention to the Call for Public Comment by NIST which is open until July 28th.

Innovation and Competitiveness in Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence is built upon language, but the meaning of “standard language” becomes complicated when machines learn from billions of human expressions. Unlike electrical, building or safety standards, language standards are rarely governed by a single authority. Dictionaries, style manuals, universities, publishers, governments and professional societies establish conventions, while ordinary speakers continuously modify them. AI systems operate in the middle of this tension between prescription and usage.

Training data. Large language models learn statistical patterns from books, websites, journalism, academic literature, software and other sources. The composition of that material influences what the model recognizes as normal, authoritative or acceptable language. Decisions about inclusion, exclusion and weighting can therefore function as de facto standards, even when no formal standards organization is involved.

 Grammar and intelligibility. AI can reinforce conventional spelling, syntax and technical terminology, making communication across institutions and borders easier. This is particularly valuable in engineering, medicine, law and education, where small differences in terminology can have substantial consequences. Yet excessive normalization may flatten dialect, regional vocabulary and inherited forms of expression.

Meaning. Words change over time and contested words often carry political, cultural or institutional assumptions. When an AI system chooses one definition over another, it may unintentionally appear to settle a dispute that society itself has not settled. Transparency about ambiguity is therefore an important characteristic of trustworthy AI.

Tchnical standardization. AI increasingly depends upon formal vocabularies, ontologies, metadata, machine-readable definitions and interoperability protocols. Standards organizations such as International Organization for Standardization, IEEE and National Institute of Standards and Technology have roles in developing frameworks through which AI systems can be evaluated and governed.

Above all we still face the question: Who gets to set the language standard? Should AI reflect contemporary majority usage, established literary traditions, professional terminology, institutional style or the language of particular communities? Probably some combination is unavoidable.

For Standards Michigan, the deeper question may be this: AI does not merely follow language standards; through widespread daily use, it may increasingly help create them. If millions of students, teachers, engineers and institutions rely upon AI to write and interpret language, the model’s linguistic choices can become conventions themselves. Understanding how those choices are made may therefore become as important as understanding the standards written by traditional standards-setting bodies.

 

S. 542: English Language Unity Act of 2025

Language

November 2026 Update

S. 542 remains pending in the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.  Executive Order 14224 and subsequent Department of Justice guidance  have meanwhile advanced federal English-language policy administratively. Neither measure resolves the separate challenge of maintaining precise, consistent technical English across engineering standards, legislation, scientific literature and AI-generated documents.

Hanging Gardens of Babylon | National Geographic

Related:

The White House: Designating English as the Official Language of The United States

H.R. 9742 (IH) – English Language Proficiency Act

Standardize: Aligning Language Models with Expert-Defined Standards for Content Generation

 

The language of the Internet is shaped by large language models, international standards, and software platforms developed by people from many linguistic backgrounds. The challenge is not that many contributors are non-native English speakers — and that is a serious cultural problem — the challenge is ensuring that, despite the differences in how English is taught, understood and used — technical English remains precise, stable, and consistently interpreted.

Ambiguous wording, subtle shifts in meaning, or differing cultural assumptions can introduce confusion into engineering, law, medicine, and public policy when replicated at Internet scale. The remedy is not linguistic exclusivity but stronger standards: carefully defined vocabularies, consensus terminology, authoritative style guides, and rigorous editorial review by diverse experts.

English has become the principal working language of science, engineering, and commerce because it supports a vast body of technical literature and international collaboration. Preserving its precision is therefore a matter of stewardship. As AI systems increasingly generate and interpret technical information, maintaining a common, standards-based engineering English will become as important as maintaining reliable communication networks themselves.

Tokens

All Hallows

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_from_Fear_(painting)#/media/File:%22Freedom_from_Fear%22_-_NARA_-_513538.jpg

“Freedom from Fear” 1943 | Norman Rockwell

Halloween celebrates the imagination and exuberance of the young. All Saints’ Day remembers those whose lives and labors made their world possible. Between these two observances lies much of the purpose of an educational settlement: to provide beautiful, safe and enduring places where young people may form friendships, fall in love, raise families and eventually leave something of value to generations they will never know.

Halloween

Healthy Halloween Snack Spooktacular

Halloween Safety Tips

Mortuary Science

“The Halloween Problem” | Recursive Self-Improvement

Halloween Cooking

Mortuary Arts

For all the Saints – Sine Nomine

Spooky Specialties

Monster Culture

Día de los Muertos

Refrigeration Systems: Cadaver Preservation

Evensong “The Parting Glass”

Of all the money that e’er I had,
I spent it in good company.
And all the harm that e’er I’ve done,
Alas, it was to none but me.

And all I’ve done for want of wit,
To memory now I can’t recall.
So fill to me the parting glass,
Good night and joy be with you all.

Grilled Burgers with Slaw

Standards Indiana

https://standardsmichigan.com/tag/hanseatic/

Extension Home

 

Beef Stew

Standards Iowa | Iowa State University Extension

Beef Stew - Spend Smart Eat Smart

Department of Inspections, Appeals, & Licensing


“CyTown”

 

 

Welcome

Standards Michigan Group, LLC

455 East Eisenhower Parkway, Suite 300
Ann Arbor, MI 48108 USA

888-748-3670

DIRECTIONS

icon icon
icon icon
icon icon  
Layout mode
Predefined Skins
Custom Colors
Choose your skin color
Patterns Background
Images Background
Standards Michigan
error: Content is protected !!
Skip to content