Peter Loughney: Architectural Advice

    Loughney is in constant contact with architects and designers and engineers from across the nation as he consults with them on how to design, detail and specify stone in their projects.  IMI is the joint labor/management alliance of the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers and their signatory contractors, with core missions of craft training and technical assistance to the design and construction communities.
   We caught up with Loughney at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, where he gave a continuing-education seminar co-sponsored by the Minnesota chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA).
   
   Q: Do find architects receptive to the training you offer through IMI?
   A: They are generally enthusiastic, ask a lot of great questions, and respond well. Because of the pressures they are faced with in terms of liability, architects and engineers are very anxious to know and understand as much as they possibly can about the systems they are putting together.
   You have to remember that when they sit down to put a building together, there are literally thousands and thousands of decisions that have to be made about components, applications, quality of materials, construction regulations, codes and so on. When you think about what it takes to get a whole building together from a rough idea to the point that someone can estimate it and build it, they have a ton of issues on their plate and are under a lot of pressure.
   So they have an admirable commitment to keeping themselves up to date. They seem to be very receptive to getting as much information as they can about the fundamentals of stone; new techniques; and training with respect to any code changes that come along.
   Most states have regulations requiring a certain amount of continuing education credit and most architects are very committed to meeting those requirements.
   
   Q: What other kinds of resources does IMI provide to architects and designers working with stone?
   A: IMI has a national toll free number – (800) 464-0988 – that architects and engineers can call with any questions. For example, if an architect doesn’t know which ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials) standard they need to meet, they can call us and we’ll do the research.  
   Depending on which state they’re calling from, the national number directs them to their local IMI office.
   We have numerous stone reference materials in our offices, and we also work with other groups like the Indiana Limestone Institute, which publishes a great book. IMI has published a series of technical briefs which are fairly generic in their approach but provide very good background material. If the solution is in these or any other type of publication within the industry, we’ll guide the designer to the correct reference.
   So it’s not as if we are always providing an IMI answer to their questions. A lot of times what we’re doing is just getting them to the correct information … whether it’s a particular standard, handbook, technical publication or codebook.  
   
   Q: What kinds of questions do you field?
   A: I’ve had questions from across the gamut – everything from, “What kinds of patterns do I use with ashlar stone?” to “How long does a bed joint typically run?” all the way down to questions about anchoring systems. Every time I think I’ve heard every question that’s out there, something new pops up in the next phone call.
   If a pattern develops where we keep getting the same question over and over again and we see a particular area of concern, we’ll either get something up on our Website or publish a technical brief covering the topic a little more thoroughly.
   
   Q: What do you say to architects who are considering using stone but are concerned about budget constraints?
   A: We tell them that stone is rarely one of the lower-cost alternatives if they are looking at initial cost only. But if they look at life-cycle costing, stone is very economical, especially if you plan on having the same cladding on a building for numerous years.
   It’s all a matter of perspective. In terms of initial cost, the more information they have in the design phase, the closer they can stay to their targeted square-foot cost.
   There are a lot of different types of stone out there and there’s a great deal of variance in cost. Certainly there are things we can do to make suggestions to help them stay within budgets. Even with stone being one of the more-expensive exterior-cladding materials, there’s a lot of ground to work with if they look into it diligently.
   
   Q: What advice do you give architects and engineers who raise concerns about the reliability of pre-existing testing data on a particular variety of stone?
   A: I tell them there is no short cut for having the proper testing done in order to design with confidence. They need to work with their quarry on that. Generally speaking, if they are not real experts on stone design, one of the smartest things they can do is work with a very reputable, very well-known quarry that can provide lots of good and accurate testing data.
   A lot of the better quarries have lots of testing results to look at that have been taken over a considerable length of time. If designers are dealing with smaller quarries or those that are lesser-known, they should be very careful to know exactly when the tests were done and whether they were done on the exact same material. There can be a pretty fair amount of variance between characteristics of stone from one end of a quarry to another.
   
   Q: With all of the international products being marketed to architects and designers these days, what advice do you give them about working with imported stone?  
   A: It just means they have to be a little more careful. There are some stones coming out of Africa, for instance, that are absolutely gorgeous. But they don’t have the test history of a known quarry. On the other hand, if you’re talking about some of the marble quarries in Italy, they date back to the times of the Roman Senate. In that case, there truly is a history and everybody knows what that stone can do.
   Brazil has a lot of stone. China has a lot of stone. And a lot of these quarries are relatively new and there isn’t as much history there. They probably haven’t been tested by as many reputable testing firms as we have in this country, so there is an additional element of risk.
   It doesn’t mean architects shouldn’t consider those products, but they need to be more careful in their approach to selection and verification of actual quality – even if they have to ship some stone to the U.S. and have some testing done over here. They just need to do a good job of getting samples and make sure testing is done by a reputable firm.
   Another question they need to ask when deciding whether to use international stone is how much do they want to do by remote control? At some point, if they’re thinking about purchasing a lot of stone, we tell them it’s probably worth the expense of putting somebody on a plane and sending them over there to take a closer look at the operation and verify for themselves that there’s an adequate supply…. that they’re seeing veins of adequate size that can handle the quantity of the type they want. Additional time and expense probably needs to be taken.
   
   Q: So you emphasize quarry visits?
   A: I tell them that any time they’ve got a significant amount of stone going on a building, whether domestic or international, they’ll be doing themselves a big favor by going out to the quarry. The last thing in the world they want to do is get the stone fabricated and delivered to the job site and not be happy with it. It’s well worth their time to know and understand the quarry and to make those visits so that everyone is comfortable.
   
   Q: How problematic are change orders when it comes to stone applications?
   A: The one thing we tell architects with respect to change orders is that they have to view the process as designing an entire system. So, if they make a change in one area, they have to look at the implications all the way through.
   We may see a case where the type of stone was changed, but nobody went in and changed the specs for cleaning that type of stone. Or, if you change one piece of the system, such as caulked joints instead of mortar joints – or, if a different kind of stone is chosen, that may well affect the rest of the system.
   
   Q: There are a lot of stone-anchoring systems out there. Do you get a lot of questions about them?
   A: Stone anchors probably represent one of the more frustrating areas of stone design. I get people saying they want a seminar just on, “detailing, detailing, detailing!” It’s a learning process, and we certainly have plenty of resources, references and successful projects for architects to look at. We point out that it’s difficult to know exactly what kind of anchoring system you’re going to be using until you know what the back-up will be, how thick the stone is, how heavy per cubic foot the stone is, and so on.
   There are excellent references for detailing stone, but they need to be working with the right amount of information before they can start to pin down specifics.
   There are a tremendous variety of really good anchoring systems out there today, even compared to what were available 20 to 30 years ago. Stainless steel is in abundance now. I wouldn’t say it’s cheap, but it’s relatively cheap. Today’s anchoring systems, if they are correctly applied, are the best they’ve ever been. You don’t have the old iron anchoring systems that rust. In that sense, anchoring has come a long way in the last few years.
          
   Q: Are there any general misconceptions about stone construction among the design community?
   A: We get a lot of questions like “Gee, if I design this thing in stone, are there enough people out there who can actually build it?” or, “Can we fabricate something like that today?” It’s particularly common in the area of restoration. “Can we get an exact match for a carved capital on a column?” Things like that. And, of course the answer is yes, yes and yes.
   There was a period of time when we lost a significant chunk of stone carvers – a couple of generations of them – because of silicosis. When people stopped hand chipping stone and began shaping it more with pneumatic tools, they created some dust problems. Today, between safety legislation, organizations like IMI changing our training techniques, and the newer equipment that is available, that has changed.
   But there is still a mistaken perception out there among some designers that there might be a shortage of master stonemasons. But, we explain, BAC has thousands of stonemasons at IMI, and IMI offers stone training at all levels – from pre-job to specialty skills and applications. We have a rigorous apprenticeship program and it’s one of our major craft areas. Just in terms of stone carving and hand detailing, they need to know that workers are still available and everything they’ve ever seen done in stone can still be done in stone.

— Interviewed by Todd Messelt

This article first appeared in the June 2006 print edition of Stone Business. ©2006 Western Business Media Inc.