Masonry Magazine June 1965 Page. 16
Pennley Park Apartments, Pittsburgh
Pennley Park Apartments, Pittsburgh, which served as a case study for the recently held National Bearing Wall Conference. By projecting some exterior curtain walls and recessing others, the architect was able to provide added privacy and link rooms in one, two, and three-bedroom apartment units.
600 Attend Bearing Wall Conference
PITTSBURGH, PA. Design and construction of buildings taller than 18 stories supported entirely by brick and tile bearing walls was predicted at a national conference attended by 600 architects, engineers, contractors and manufacturers.
The two-day meeting was sponsored by Structural Clay Products Institute with the cooperation of NADD and the Allied Masonry Council. Members of AMC are the Mason Contractors Association of America, Bricklayers, Masons & Plasterers International Union and SCPI.
Purpose of the conference was to discuss, and disseminate information about, one of the most significant building innovations in many years the contemporary bearing wall concept.
This concept revolutionizes traditional design and construction of brick bearing walls, permitting relatively thin brick walls to support high-rise buildings. It calls for floors and roofs of buildings to act as horizontal diaphragms and distribute lateral loads to masonry walls which act as vertical diaphragms and carry loads to the ground.
Utilizing this concept, thin brick walls can provide a combined structural-wall system, making possible significant economies in design, construction, and materials.
Building industry interest in contemporary bearing walls has already led to the design and construction of several outstanding examples of modern masonry bearing wall structures in this country. One of them, the Pennley Park Apartments in Pittsburgh, served as a case study for the conference.
The prediction that this country would soon have buildings higher than 18 stories of loadbearing brick masonry came from James G. Gross, head of the Engineering and Technology Department of SCPI. He said this will help "fulfill the expectations of Americans to have better buildings built faster and at lower initial and ultimate costs."
One of the country's leading structural engineers, William J. LeMessurier, of Boston, presented to the conference engineering calculations showing that it is possible to have a 25-story building supported by eight-inch-thick brick bearing walls.
Architect Gyo Obata, AIA, St. Louis, said that "the potential of brick as a bearing wall has hardly been realized, and certainly has not been generally exploited in this country." He noted that in Europe, and notably in Switzerland, (continued on page 26)
Transverse bearing walls are 22 feet apart at Pennley Park. The floor system is of precast concrete planks which bear four inches on the masonry wells. Precast spandrel beams frame into the bearing walls to carry corridor and exterior panel walls.
MASONRY
June, 196