Mason-Ree

The first paragraph here is going to sound like another pet peeve post... but here it goes! I love masonry. I love the materials, the hardness, the structural capacity, the security, the versatility, the beauty, the patterns, the modularity, and even the name. The word is called masonry, pronounced mason-ree. A lot of people - sometimes within the industry and even masons - pronounce it mason-ary, like at the end it sounds like canary. No! there is no 'A' at the end of the word, thus we do not need this extra syllable. Before I turn this into a rant, I should explain that I am not trying to pick on or poke fun at anyone here - I am simply trying to spread awareness and educate the offenders so that they can stop making the mistake and we can all move on at the job site without having that quiet chuckle when someone slips up.

For those of you that know the difference and pronounce the word correctly, maybe you just want to learn a little bit about the building material. Masonry is a term that encompasses a wide range of modular building materials that start with a raw material and/or a mixture and are baked or cured to hardness - and are bonded together using mortar into the monolithic forms that we see cladding buildings today. Examples of masonry include any of a variety of bricks to concrete masonry units and even glass blocks. the difference in these subdivisions of nomenclature is all in the material and how the piece is produced. I could write a book on all the different kinds of masonry, their uses, and their construction, but I will try to keep this concise in the interests of your valuable time and bandwidth.

A brick is a smaller piece used for exterior cladding. A brick was once used as a structural product, but with the advent of stronger and quicker masonry units, it has come to be more of an aesthetic type of masonry - we call these "veneers". Bricks are made from firing red clay into a variety of modular sizes, the most common being 7-5/8" long x 3-5/8" wide x roughly 2-9/16" thick. You see these size bricks all over and they were used extensively in older urban construction as exterior bearing walls. By placing them 2 or 3 rows deep (called wythes) they could support 2 or 3 floors, with the rule of thumb ratio being one floor vertical for every wythe thick. Case in point is the Monadnock building in downtown Chicago that is an all brick skyscraper with about 6ft worth of brick wythes at street level. Today the brick veneer is backed up by stud walls and is only one wythe thick because that's all you need to see it. The irony is that bricks used to hold buildings up, but in new construction, the building supports the brick!

Another type of masonry unit is the concrete masonry unit (CMU), commonly referred to as the cinder block. This term is a little outdated though, because cinders are not commonly used anymore to make these units. They are a good utilitarian piece used for structural walls, including foundations, and also fire-separation walls because of their excellent fire-retarding ability. However, they can be and have been used as the exterior face of a building. Some utility buildings such as garages and warehouses use them for their cost savings and ability to take paint. The faces of CMUs can sometimes have patterns and clefts that are moderately attractive, so you may have seen them used for big box retail stores. CMUs are made of a concrete mixture that is cured into their familiar forms until they reach appropriate strength. They are made much larger than bricks, the most common nominal size being 8x8x16 - nominal means the approximate size of the unit plus one mortar joint added onto each dimension. CMUs come in a variety of different sizes; however, all based on need and usage.

Yet another type of masonry unit is the glass block. It is odd that this is considered masonry, but it fits the mold (no pun intended) because of its stacking ability and it is installed on union projects by a mason - meaning masons are specifically trained to correctly erect glass blocks. We all know what a glass block is, unfortunately we don't see them as much today as we did in the constructions of the 50s through the 70s. They can be clear or translucent/frosted/etched, so they can be used as a window or artistically to provide a peak at the scene beyond. They aren't really structural, so besides their own weight, they are not meant to support any additional floor or roofs, and must be used in conjunction with an appropriate structural system - they are usually used to divide spaces using the aforementioned trickery or as sculptural pieces on their own. Glass blocks are made in one of two ways - as a solid piece of glass, or as a hollow block of two halves fused together. The most typical nominal size is 8x8x4, but they too can vary, with a little more limitation than its brothers. Personally I like the look of glass block and would like to see it more widely used in modern fashion, but unfortunately due to its higher cost of building than other glass systems, it is eschewed in many contemporary building projects.

So that is a very watered down crash course on masonry construction. So please if you can find it in your hard to pronounce it correctly, you'd be doing this industry a lot of favors and would warm up this architect's lowly heart. If you want more information about masonry or have any questions, just ask in the comments!

Dream Machine

That little beauty above is my new all-in-one printer, copy, scan, fax device. I bought it and set it up yesterday and have been cranking away on the printing and copying features ever since. There is an underlying reason why I bought the machine, other than its sleekness, tabletop seating, functions, quality, and - most importantly - value.

I decided to move my operation into my home. When I started the business I had some friends in the industry who had an excess of office space. They offered electricity, high-speed internet, a desk and comfy chair, private restroom, microwave, refrigerator, and camaraderie. When it came down to it, the only one of those things I couldn't be provided with in my own home was the camaraderie. Even though I was paying a ridiculously cheap rent, it just made more sense to me to spend time here, that way I could spread out my down time and save the rent, albeit low, and put it into my own pocket.

In a few months or years, I hope that my business expands and consequently so will my need for larger office space. For now, this has been working out nicely for me and I have been really happy with my decision. Purchasing this one piece of equipment has been extremely liberating and I hope that the investment has a nice return with a lot of continued success.

Concrete

I want this blog to serve not only as a way to keep clients, colleagues and friends updated on the goings on at cj architects, but also to try to educate at the same time. For this particular post, my broad topic is to eradicate one of the most common misconceptions in the construction industry. The misconception is that the words 'concrete' and 'cement' are interchangeable, both meaning that hard, gray stuff used for buildings, pavement, and pools.

In fact, these two terms are not interchangeable. You see, cement is simply one ingredient that makes up the finished concrete product. Including Portland cement, some of the other components usually used in making concrete are water, sand, lime, and aggregate - usually limestone rock or gravel. Concrete is a concoction that was first used by the Romans for the purposes of sound and semi-permanent building.

So when you see that hard gray stuff in your basement, on the sidewalk, or in your pool, please, please do not call it cement... it is concrete. Concrete is not a product you can go buy, since it is mixture of which I have already explained. You can; however - and this is pretty typical - go buy either a bag of cement to make your own concrete, or a bag of concrete mix which contains all of the necessary components - when buying for a DIY project, you need to know the difference. These components are combined in a hopper or a ready-mix truck and then delivered in a timely fashion to the end site.

Concrete, when all of the ingredients are combined, begins its chemical reaction immediately upon mixing and thus begins to harden. It usually sets up in an hour and a half, so it is imperative to pour, finish, and begin to cure soon after it is batched. Since concrete gets harder the longer it is allowed to cure, it is typically cured for a period of one to four weeks to reach maximum strength - or at least the strength that the concrete was designed so that it can hold the loads planned to be imposed upon it. Curing is the process of keeping the concrete moist and covered through the length of the curing time it takes to reach strength.

So there is a little crash course in concrete. I also wanted to clear up the difference between concrete and cement to spread awareness and keep the two aptly separated, not only within the construction and design communities, but also in the public in general. If you have any questions please leave them in the comments and I will do my best to respond.

Facebook

CJ Architects is now on facebook! Click *here* to view our page and add us as a friend. Some extra portfolio work can be found there, in the 'Photos' section. Status updates may become a usual occurrence and we'll be sharing more photos, etc. Plus you can see who we're friends with and just stay informed at an extra layer to this blog and the website.

Thanks for visiting and checking us out!