Metal Composite Material Archives | The Miller Clapperton Partnership BlogThe Miller Clapperton Partnership Blog

Editors Note

We are pleased to announce today that we will be cross linking the Miller Clapperton Blog with the Blog of The Metal Initiative (http://blog.themetalinitiative.com/). Let me suggest you check out The Metal Initiative website. It contains a great deal of current information about how metal is being used effectively in construction and you may find something that can enhance your company.

When you hear the term “ivy covered walls” your mind almost automatically shifts to a university campus, with masonry buildings in collegiate gothic style with ivy expanding up the walls surrounding a grassed quadrangle. Can’t you smell a grill cooking meat for the tailgating party before the football game?

I have visited two (2) university campuses this week and I can report to you that much of the new construction on these campuses has a new feature element and it is not ivy on masonry anymore. What I have seen is attractive uses of metal, sometimes the entire wall in metal but most commonly metal walls are being used as the featured element of the building.

In comparison to the construction of university campuses of just a couple of decades back; this expanded use of metal is a significant change. I remember in the early stages of my career, most designers of university and college buildings would use a straight arm technique worthy of a great running back with the use of the phrase, “the university has an established design format that only allows masonry or stone; metal can not be considered”.

So, what has changed?

What has changed is that designers and facility managers have become aware of the benefits of metal. The wide variety of metal wall systems have given designers great flexibility for their designs. From extremely flat, to curved, to sloping, to ribbed; metal systems offer designers an ever expanding list of choices to make their designs distinctive.

Facility managers have learned that metal wall systems require almost no maintenance. This meshes nicely with the current state of finances for these institutions where capital may be available from an endowment to build a new facility but the funds to actually operate a facility are as scarce as hen’s teeth.

The point is this; metal has gained acceptance as a “go to” product for institutional buildings because of its inherent benefits and performance. So, all of us in the metal industry should approach designers and building owners with confidence when we recommend metal.

Check out some recent uses of metal on university campuses below:

My friend, Michael, who is a regular reader of our blog, recently asked me if we ever worried about burning bridges or damaging business relationships in any way due to something we write. I told him that as a general rule, we try to have three or four positive blogs for every negative one and that we never name names when we “go negative.” After all, this blog currently goes out to 3,215 customers, vendors, associates, and assorted other construction industry folks and we would be foolish to write some “nuclear” piece that would hurt sales. Sometimes though, we do name names in a subtle fashion and those within the industry can connect the dots for themselves. Today is such a day.

First, allow me some quick background on the project that is the subject of today’s blog and then I will let a few pictures tell their respective 1,000 words. This is a job at a large university in Florida. When the job first bid in 2009, our price was $380,000 and we were apparently low (not by much though…a worthy competitor was at $381,000). The job eventually re-bid off of revised drawings and since the metal panel scope was unchanged, our price remained $380,000. Out of the blue though, a part-time panel installer in Tampa, buying panels from a fabricator 3,164 miles from the jobsite, was at $340,000 and was consequently awarded the project. It is worth noting that this competitor’s price was $420,000 on the first round of bidding and that the architect wielded great power in the award of the panel scope to their favored fabricator/installer. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but you win some, you lose some. We had (and have) other projects going on at the university though and I would occasionally ask our project managers who had been to the town how this job turned out. I was always pleased to hear that panels appeared to be late and that at one point, most of the landscaping was in and the walls were still bare sheathing. Well, it turns out that it wasn’t worth the wait for the GC or the university. Take a look….

(click an image for fullsize and caption)

Obviously this is some of worst craftsmanship you will ever see, but it is important to note that much of the problems come from poor field measurement and installation, not fabrication. The lesson for architects is that it does little good to specify a fabricator and not put restrictions on who can perform installation.

If you’re wondering what became of this, the GC approached us last year about re-making all of the problem panels, but at present, they and the university are wrapped up in a legal battle with the subcontractor who performed so poorly and the building remains as unsightly as it does in these 2010 pictures.

Thanks for reading.

Scott Stafford

Tool of the Week, Day, etc. – “It’s unwise to pay too much, but it’s worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money – that’s all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot – it can’t be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.” ― John Ruskin

Tag Archives: Metal Composite Material

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