Please join our next Building Enclosure Council event; Mr. Matthew Farmer will present a case study that incorporates innovative technologies on a stone facade restoration. Prior to the advent of individually anchored stone veneer systems, stacking stone cladding panels was a common practice. One of the most popular architectural styles in the late 20th century embraced alternating vertical “strips” of cladding and glazing. One of the best examples of this aesthetic is the National Geographic Society Building in Washington, DC, designed by renowned architect, Edward Durell Stone. Constructed in 1960, this building incorporated solid marble panels stacked to form fins that project from the plane of the facade. Restoration of this iconic style of architecture posed unique challenges. Due to the stacked panel configuration and the inaccessible lateral and gravity connections, conventional practice would have required destruction of several undamaged fin panels to access the one needing repair, making the cost of the work prohibitive and time consuming. Valuable historic building fabric from this landmark structure would have also been lost in the process. In response to these concerns, an innovative repair approach was developed that utilized pre-tensioned cabling to temporarily support the intact panels and allow removal of discrete portions of the damaged fins. This technique resulted in the ability to restore the existing connections (consisting of dowels and stiffened bearing seats), target only the damaged stone panels, minimize loss of the intact stone cladding, and enable cost-effective repair access using only suspended scaffolding.
Learning Objectives:
As a result of this presentation, attendees will better understand:
1. A unique approach to supporting load-bearing, stacked stone cladding units, enabling repair of individual stone units without removal of intact units.
2. How to restore existing stone-to-stone dowel connections without damaging the stone units.
3. How corrosion of structural support elements can lead to stone cladding damage.
4. How to replace full depth portions of stone cladding panels in-situ with matching stone material.
Speaker Bio:
Mr. Matthew Farmer, PE, Principal, Washington DC, Wiss Janney Elstner Associates, Inc., has served as principal investigator on numerous evaluations of buildings and monuments; he has concentrated his practice in the area of masonry building enclosure systems engineering, design, investigation, analysis, and repair. Projects have included institutional and commercial, as well as numerous historic landmarks. Mr. Farmer is a registered professional engineer in Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. He received a Bachelor of Science in Architectural Engineering and a Bachelor of Environmental Design from the University of Colorado; and a Master of Civil Engineering from Cornell University.
Sponsor:
This event is generously sponsored by FUNDERMAX, an exterior panel consisting of duromer high-pressure laminates; visit their website at www.fundermax.at or locally at www.constructionsalesgroup.com