Masonry Magazine April 2004 Page. 43
QUALITY MASONRY TOOLS
KING BRICK HOD
This is particularly true for younger, and young-minded, designers contemplating "futuristic" materials. Few if any students of architecture stop to think that such "futuristic" thinking about materials is often first explored by the craftworker. Therefore, on a search for new design possibilities, the craftworker should be invited.
"That is what creates the real value," says University of Notre Dame Professor Don Sporleder. "Teamwork is absolutely required. Building is itself an art and a craft."
Look to the Craft
A LOOK AT the education and experience of the craftworker dramatically illustrates what the designer needs to learn. Much like the craft of architecture, the craft of masonry is based on rules and guidelines that address properties, proportions and technique. And much like the study of architecture, the study of masonry begins with fundamental understanding of unit sizes, movement characteristics, possible (and impossible) variations and the tools.
Then there are the materials themselves. Masonry includes a family of trowel-applied materials: brick, stone, tile, terrazzo, marble, cement and plaster, as well as the restoration arts for all of them. To truly be a master of masonry design means understanding both materials and their constructability, so as to develop the expertise to incorporate the various materials in a way that is creative, aesthetic and functional.
Amazingly, for all its historical significance, masonry's potential is still often overlooked on campuses. A key example of this is masonry's value as a structural material. Fortunately, that recognition is more common among practitioners, notes IMI Director of Program Development Maria Viteri, AIA. Structural masonry is prevalent, largely because it is competitive with other materials' schedules, and it is even showing up with greater frequency in architectural awards. Yet in design school, she says, "it is still being taught as a veneer system. That's unfortunate, when there is so much more out there."
Hazel Bradford is the Director of Communications for the International Masonry Institute (IMI), and a former Washington correspondent for McGraw-Hill and ENR magazine.
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April 2004
Masonry 41