Masonry Magazine June 1968 Page. 14
SCPI Dedicates New National Headquarters
McLean, Va. Structural Clay Products Institute officially dedicated its new $735,000 national headquarters building on June 12th.
The striking, walnut-colored structure is located in Westgate Research Park, in the Washington, D.C. suburb of McLean, Va. Built almost entirely of clay products, it was designed by Washington architect Charles M. Goodman as "an essay in brick", and houses the Institute's laboratory and administrative functions.
The headquarters has 35,000 square feet of floor space and is constructed with loadbearing brick walls. Brick of various sizes were used; exterior brick is walnut-colored, sand-faced brick while the paving brick are ebony colored.
Representing the MCAA at the opening were Allen Young, MCAA Vice President; R. C. Doyle, MCAA State Chairman and George Miller, Executive Vice President.
Visitors comments about the building include "it looks like a fortress," or "a Persian palace." They are right. Architect Goodman drew his inspiration from the simple and powerful architecture of the early Persian and Turks and incorporated their strong forms into the SCPI Building. Goodman calls it "the eloquence of simple mass and powerful form without enbellishment."
The Administration Building is formed by four pavilions which face on each other. Three stories high, they are built of curved brick walis, and are topped by a slab-like, rectangular third story which projects beyond the lower walls. Slit-like windows resemble those of a fortress and are "restrained so not to dilute the power of the massive forms."
A glass corridor connects the administration and laboratory buildings. Located on this corridor are two tall brick towers. One houses lavatory facilities for each floor; the other contains elevator and fire stairs.
The Laboratory Building itself is a massive, two-story shell. It contains testing equipment (including a one million pound testing machine, climate rooms, wind force simulators and ceramic lab) and other offices.
Accepts New Position
Corbin E. Garton, Executive Director of Structural Clay Products Institute in Chicago, leaves the Windy City to join the technical staff of Brick & Tile Service, Inc., at that association's Greensboro, N.C., headquarters.
Garton, an architectural engineer, will serve as assistant manager with primary responsibilities in research and development, an area in which he earned an enviable reputation as Supervisor of Field Operations with Structural Clay Research Foundation during the 1950's.
The newly transplanted Tar Heel brick expert is a graduate of Iowa State University, an army veteran (Combat Engineers), and is active in affairs of the Construction Specifications Institute (CSI) as well as the American Society for Testing Materials (ASTM).
The Gartons, including Kendall (14) and Kathryn (12), plan to take up residence in Greensboro shortly after school adjourns in June.
Ohio Firm Expands
T. L. Goudvis, President of Concrete Masonry Corporation, Elyria. Ohio, has announced that recent growth and expansion has prompted a change in organization structure. The Company's two major product lines, concrete block and precast-prestressed structural concrete, previously marketed separately, have now been unified. George W. Vaught has been promoted to the position of General Manager, Richard R. Haller to Marketing Manager, and Gordon R. Richmond to Operations Manager. T. L. Goudvis continues as chief executive officer.
The company has been well known in northern Ohio since 1946 as a pioneer in factory-made concrete products for building construction. More recently the company developed XOC, a new process for incorporating handles during the manufacture of concrete block which facilitate handling, thereby speeding construction and reducing wall construction costs, a process which is being licensed to concrete product manufacturers throughout the United States and abroad.