Masonry Magazine January 1974 Page.13
St. Timothy & Good Shepherd
Two loadbearing concrete masonry structures for senior citizens designed by Architects Bennett & Bennett of Pasadena and Structural Engineers Arvelo & Deardorff of Los Angeles are the 12-story Good Shepherd Manor in Los Angeles and the 8-story St. Timothy's Manor in Compton. Both are of painted concrete block. They were erected by Mason Contractor Fireside Construction and General Contractor R. J. Daum Co.
Bush St. Apartments
In San Francisco, the 108-unit apartment building recently completed is recognized as the city's first multi-story loadbearing masonry structure built in nearly six decades. Since the 1906 earthquake, Bay Area masonry buildings had been limited to 35 feet, but modern reinforcing has changed that requirement.
Smith & Haley Construction, Inc., erected the building with General Contractor John E. Branaugh & Son and Mason Contractor Person & Western (MCAA).
Tower 14, Southfield, Michigan
Tower 14, designed by Nathan Levine & Associates, has established itself as one of the most unique contemporary loadbearing jobs. General Contractor Darin J. Armstrong built the 280,000 sq. ft., 14-story office building whose walls are panels of composite brick and block. The panels were made by Vetovitz Masonry Systems on launch pads at the site and hoisted into place. The huge triangular corner panels designed by Architects Levine, in conjunction with Structural Engineers William Lefkofsky & Associates, make Tower 14 an attention-getting element in the prestigious Northland Shopping Center.
Loadbearing in Canada
The shift is to loadbearing masonry in Canada, too, where one of its most outspoken advocates is Raymond L. Kaiser, president of R. L. Kaiser, Ltd. He recently built the first two highrise loadbearing masonry-wall apartment buildings in eastern Canada. The 11-story Clayton Park Towers, a multi-sided, 93,500 sq. ft. polygon, and 13-story, 169,000 sq. ft. Forrest Green are in Halifax, Nova Scotia. With composite walls of concrete block and brick, they went up with a schedule of a floor every 5-1½ days.
Describing the fast pace, Kaiser said, "We complete a floor a week, which is good in any man's language, but look what we get the floor, all our major partitions, stairwells, elevator shafts, and our back-up walls on the exterior. This means earlier completion. This is efficient and therefore saves money."
Reasons For Loadbearing
Loadbearing masonry buildings, in most part, are going up as luxury apartments, hotels, motels, retirement homes, college dormitories, senior-citizen housing, office buildings, military housing, and for other uses. From its overview of such construction, IMI notes a wide range of visual variety with the masonry structures designed as hexagons, rectangles, squares, and every imaginable configuration.
Reports coming into IMI indicate that the surge of interest in loadbearing masonry construction is resulting from: a) availability and economy of product; b) savings in time and money through elimination of poured concrete columns or steel frame which are not needed with the loadbearing masonry system; c) the ability to move other trades in and finish a lower floor while masons build another one overhead; d) short construction time-span; e) decreased construction loan interest, and f) with earlier occupancy a far faster return on investment.
No matter where the structures are going up in North America and whether the major component is concrete, block or a composite, reports indicate that they are consistently topping out with lower construction costs and faster completions than other systems. These factors are becoming especially appealing to builders, architects and structural engineers, who are increasingly more cost-conscious due to the current state of the economy, as well as soaring costs and shortages of other type building materials.