Masonry Magazine July 1970 Page. 27
NADD Report
By: Patrick D. Whitehurst
Mr. Whitehurst is Executive Secretary of the National Association of Distributors and Dealers headquartered in McLean, Virginia. His column will be a regular monthly feature.
Washington, D. C.-The Masonry & Clay Products Industry today is confronted with a challenge that we all must face, and face together each of us accepting our individual responsibility as "industry citizens." The challenge, of course, is industrialized building, and more particularly-brick panelization.
Recently at the University of Texas in Austin a seminar dissected the economics and techniques of using brick panels in the construction of a twenty-nine story building. The technique involved in the construction offered one solution to a problem that has confronted our industry and has made us take another look into the area of responsibility for development of brick panel systems.
It seems most of our industry has arbitrarily though perhaps unknowingly-placed the entire burden of panel development squarely in the laps of the brick manufacturers. The manufacturers, their operations naturally oriented toward production, have been reluctant to undertake the tremendous financial investments necessary to pioneer, develop, and promote a profitable factory-produced panel. And for these very reasons development has lagged.
The Austin job has exposed members of the Clay Products Industry to a simple, straightforward technique that seems to make everybody a winner. Panels were constructed by union masons on the jobsite using the lower floor of the building as the fabricating site. As the panels were completed, they were moved out and lifted by crane into place on the concrete frame.
Simple straightforward... and at a cost of $2.64 per sq. ft. per panel -a price competitive with any other panel system on the market today.
No expensive factories had to be built; there was not the expense or worry of transporting panels from a plant, and perhaps one of the greatest advantages was the efficient utilization masonry
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TELEPHONE: (213) 328-4704