75 James Street South | 108 m | 34 fl | Under Construction

[jonny24]

Originally Posted by Chronamut

Sighs, even though they bricked the podium themselves, the lintel system they used still makes it looks like precast panels - just.. feels.. so.. AWKWARD looking...

are they no longer capable of making a multi-story building look like a seamless brick face? This seems to be the trend with all new builds.. I mean core urban does...

...just makes the end result sadly look much cheaper than it ever should have...

Seamless brick face happens on building that are structural brick. (multiple layers of brick that ARE the building).

We no longer build like that. The structure is wood, steel, or poured concrete, and the brick is just an attractive and durable cladding. But because different materials expand differently, the brick façade requires expansion joints. Most commonly this is at every floor, so that no floor has to carry an excessive load of brick. The brick sits on shelf angle that ties back to the structure.

[downtown_eddie_brown]

Originally Posted by jonny24

Seamless brick face happens on building that are structural brick. (multiple layers of brick that ARE the building).

We no longer build like that. The structure is wood, steel, or poured concrete, and the brick is just an attractive and durable cladding. But because different materials expand differently, the brick façade requires expansion joints. Most commonly this is at every floor, so that no floor has to carry an excessive load of brick. The brick sits on shelf angle that ties back to the structure.

I was about to post this, actually. It's less that people don't "know" how to build double-brick masonry anymore; The trades will learn how to build with whatever the market demands. It's that we have better and cheaper methods of construction than they did at the turn of the century.

Structural brick looks gorgeous and ages very well as long as it's maintained. If developers were willing to pay for it, we'd probably see some on new builds for aesthetic purposes, but unfortunately the goal is to make as much as possible and spend as little as necessary. With regards to the prefab brick cladding, at least it doesn't extend up beyond the second level. I've seen buildings where they'll cover 8 or 9 stories with the stuff and it looks incredibly ugly.

[TheRitsman]

Originally Posted by jonny24

Seamless brick face happens on building that are structural brick. (multiple layers of brick that ARE the building).

We no longer build like that. The structure is wood, steel, or poured concrete, and the brick is just an attractive and durable cladding. But because different materials expand differently, the brick façade requires expansion joints. Most commonly this is at every floor, so that no floor has to carry an excessive load of brick. The brick sits on shelf angle that ties back to the structure.

The Augusta Block buildings have seamless brick faces that are not structural. It has nothing to do with whether the brick face is structural at all.

https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/thread...0/post-2076114

[jonny24]

Originally Posted by TheRitsman

The Augusta Block buildings have seamless brick faces that are not structural. It has nothing to do with whether the brick face is structural at all.

https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/thread...0/post-2076114

Of course, nothing is impossible with enough budget. That seems to be a very notable exception to standard modern construction practices. I wonder how they did accommodate for movement over that height.

[Chronamut]

Originally Posted by jonny24

Seamless brick face happens on building that are structural brick. (multiple layers of brick that ARE the building).

We no longer build like that. The structure is wood, steel, or poured concrete, and the brick is just an attractive and durable cladding. But because different materials expand differently, the brick façade requires expansion joints. Most commonly this is at every floor, so that no floor has to carry an excessive load of brick. The brick sits on shelf angle that ties back to the structure.

Core urban does it seamlessly and theres is not "structural" brick. Their buildings all look like they have been there forever they blend in so seamlessly with that style.

One only has to look at their progress pics to see how they did it.

They have jutout notches from the concrete to help the brick.



and voila, seamless results.



It's simple, and it looks beautiful. Proof we can still do anything they did back then, and make it even better when we apply ourselves.

Core Urban has proven so many assumptions of things people assumed we couldn't do anymore wrong.

[TheRitsman]

Steve provided me a great response into my question about this:

"Brick ran continuously has to be supported quite frequently, as in the weight can’t continue to compound on its self. We put steel behind the brick regularly to alleviate the issue but in a way that is hidden. It requires a lot more labour because we need to think of ways to hide the steel and still keep even mortar joints. Sometimes the solution is to shave or cut the back of the brick to accept the steel and keep the facade consistent."