Week 6: Adventure Time!- Part 2

PART 2: The Design (brick edition)

If you read Part 1, you would see that there were existent buildings in this water reclamation facility. If not, no worries! Here's a video:

This video shows the original building facilities, as well as the actual water treatment plant that is located directly below the structure LEA is designing. 

(This video was taken from a drone--- speaking of drones, I got to see one for the first time during the site visit too!)

The Palm Valley Water Reclamation Facility project was strictly to design an expansion of their already existent buildings. This means that the new building LEA designed must still match the current "theme/style" of the existent ones. I guess you can say that this was the "box" LEA was given: follow the existent structures. 

But, how would just staying inside the box do LEA any good? So, LEA made a design that modified, or dare-I-say improved the original design of the buildings. This being that they used elements of the original building design, but then put their own LEA-spin on it. This makes multiple benefits: client is happy, architect is happy, campus is elevated/improved thus making consumers happy. 

The bricks were a defining element in the original designs. They had this 'pattern' where the top maybe 3/4th of the wall was flat brick, while the bottom 1/4 was a 'ruffly brick' (for lack of better term... I forget what they were actually called, but I will find out again and update this word!) Lance said he usually does not design using the flat brick/ruffly brick style, but due to the existent buildings, he integrated them and put an LEA-spin on it. I didn't get a picture of it, but please reference my hopefully adequate drawing...

rectangles in the "new" drawing are windows: hence the ruffly bricks meet up to the window level

Speaking of bricks, Did you know that bricks need expansion joints? I guess I never thought about bricks expanding and contracting with the heat. Also when bricks are sprayed over with coloring, you definitely will not notice these joints. However, at the construction site with 50% completed, all of the bricks were grey. Their connections were grey. And their expansion joints were a rusty red color. A rusty red line straight down the middle of the running bond brick wall. 

Here's some brick patterns to reference (running bond is top right): 

 http://www.damput.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/creative-brick-patterns-natural-brick-designs-brick-patterns-architectures-wonderful-brick-patterns-for-nice-finish.jpg

Here's how their brick wall with expansion joint looked like: 

These joints are repeated every few feet, to ensure that no cracking will form in the bricks. The placement of the expansion joint does not have to be in a straight line like above, either. They may be placed along the natural contour of the laid out bricks. 

Prepare for Part 3!~