Bracing is Beautiful!

Heads up for all the building designers out there... Bracing is Beautiful!


There are very few building systems as cheap and efficient as braced frames. Allowing your engineers to put just a few braces in the building will make them a very happy person. You'll see a lower cost per sq. ft of building, use less material, and make a green statement. Moment frames open up the floor areas, but you sacrifice a lot of room for the deeper beams, bigger columns, and tricky connections.

The most important reason to consider bracing is that people love seeing structure expressed in their buildings. It worked for the Hancock Center in Chicago, and it can work for you! There are buildings and architectural styles that it won't work for, but you can hide the braces pretty easily.

There are many flavors of bracing. Concentric, eccentric, chevron, knee, buckling restrained braces, multi-story bracing, etc. Just put those terms into an image search and you'll see a world of options waiting for you.


If you are concerned about exposed steel members (fire resistance, corrosion, vandalism) then you may want to coordinate with a specialist during your initial design. If appearance is a concern, then I strongly recommend you consider some of the newer imported components available. For smaller loads, a pin-connected rod from StaLok will work, whereas for a Cast Connex bracing component can handle even large bracing forces seen in high seismic areas.


We all want to do our part to help the owners get the building they want - at a reasonable cost with great performance. I think recommending a bracing system is a great way for engineers to add value to the project, without the high initial cost of shearwalls or moment frames.

The high costs of ignoring seismic design

Hopefully you guys remember the EQ in china (7.9M) from a few months earlier. The Chinese gov't has now posted some expected costs for rebuilding efforts. Total expected costs are $147B, which is an almost unimaginably large cost. For comparison sake, the Northridge EQ (6.7M) in California cost a total of $12.5B and was one of the costliest disasters in US History.

One of the larger costs will undoubtedly be the rebuilding of 3400 schools and strengthening a further 2600 schools. How did so many schools collapse? It's hard to pinpoint blame in a situation like this. Was it the engineers fault - a faulty design? Or maybe construction crews built it wrong? Or maybe the building inspectors who signed off on the building? Or perhaps the national government for not providing financial support or motivation to meet the applicable building code?

It should be noted that China has a modern building code, and that any of their new modern skyscrapers will probably compare pretty well to US skyscrapers. But the lower profile of rural schools and other buildings probably made them easy targets for low quality construction in return for bribes to local officials. While I haven't personally investigated any of those sites, it seems a likely probability because students were so disproportionately affected by the earthquake.

Certainly, any developing nation has a hard choice to make between investing money and resources in EQ resistant buildings vs. building cheap and quick and hoping the big event never comes. Poor choices create a legacy of risk that future generations must live with. We all have a different personal tolerance for risk, let yours be known.

A case in point - one of the heroes of the EQ in China was a school principal in the area, Ye Zhiping, who led efforts to strengthen his school against seismic events. All 2323 students in the school were saved. The total cost for the work was about $60k, or about $25/student. I'd say that was a pretty large return on the investment.

Irvington Icehouse History

The Irvington Ice and Coal Company began operation in 1916. The company was founded in the city of Irvington by a few local businessmen eager to fulfill a growing need for ice. It was near the commercial area of Irvington served by trains and streetcars, and situated adjacent to the railroad tracks. The building was very industrial in appearance, and slightly more modern than the other commercial buildings in Irvington. There was little adornment, no fancy awnings or architectural features, and the front entrance was easy to ignore.

The original Plat Plan showing a basic layout and floorplan

You can imagine trying to get a building like this put into a suburban neighborhood these days, it would be difficult if not impossible. Of course, we have records of opposition to its "offensive architecture" by the neighbors so it's clear that it wasn't easy back then either. The neighborhood continued expanding beyond the icehouse for some time, but when times got rough the railroad tracks seemed to be the dividing line and now the building is squarely on the wrong side. We are the first property outside the Irvington Historic District, which is truly a wonderful place.

The picture above captured a moment early in the history of the company. It's a picture of a summer morning where the drivers are just about to start making their deliveries. Icehouses were full of modern technology and their product really benefitted everyone's daily life. It made ice (and therefore fresh food) readily available and certainly improved people's diets. But let's get back to the building.

The company also sold coal during the winter, as was common practice for these businesses. The large piles in the photo above are actually huge chunks of coal. The railroad would deliver a large supply and the coal was stored on site throughout the winter.

Smaller rail tracks on the property allowed special vehicles to move and load the coal onto waiting trucks or carts. From there the coal was sold at the storefront or delivered in a similar manner to the ice blocks. I don't rightly know what the little shed was for, but maybe to keep the residential orders out of the rain and ready for immediate sale.

Company letterhead from 1929

This model of business continued until self-refrigerating iceboxes became available. Ice wasn't necessary anymore, so coal and heating oil became the important products. I believe ice was still sold, but not made on-site.

Here's a heating fuel delivery truck circa 1960's just about to go out for a delivery. At this point the icehouse building has been through several changes. The steel framed windows have been replaced with glass block. The ice-making machinery inside has likely all been sold off or scrapped, and the business has moved into the smaller commercial annex. While the Irvington Ice & Fuel company continued to deliver to the neighborhood, competition from other service providers and modern technology made it uneconomical to operate much longer. The property was sold in the mid-1960's, but the heating oil delivery business stayed on site much longer.

The second owner was Custom Models Inc. This company specialized in sheetmetal fabrication and prototyping. Major clients included RCA. All those TV's and VCR's were first prototyped, and shops like this one created the sheetmetal forms to attach all the components to. It was a great business to be in at that time.

As you can see from the photo above, Custom Models made some large changes to the property. All of the original rooflines were overbuilt with either metal or asphalt roofs. The top of the tower collapsed due to disrepair and a small gable roof was built in its place. New metalworking machinery was placed in the icehouse and several shed buildings adjacent to the original structure were built for additional workspace. The coal yard became a parking lot for the employees, and the city claimed some of the property for their right of way.

As time passed, RCA and similar companies were moving all production offshore to lower their costs. These days, I don't think prototypes are made anywhere, everything is checked on the computer screen. However, Custom Models stayed in business up until 2006 and probably could have gone on much longer had the family owners not lost their son (and manager of the business) to cancer some years ago.

The business owner's former partner still has a workshop in the neighborhood, though, so I get to hear plenty of fun stories about life in the shop. There are also quite a few ex-employees living in the neighborhood, and they all have fond memories of working for the family owned business.

Now that we own the property, we are trying to renovate it in a creative way that keeps as much of the historic fabric as possible, while still being a comfortable residence. We very much appreciate the history of the building, it's one of the reasons we live here and I desperately want to preserve the feel of the industrial setting. With any luck there'll be a lot more layers of history added in the future!

Seismic upgrade cost calculator

For owners/engineers/architects looking to estimate how much it would cost to do an actual seismic renovation or upgrade to an existing building, see this online calculator.

You have a few options to get an answer, but I recommend using the detailed option and form entry. When I go through the exercise using my own building, I get ~$82 per sq. ft. which works out to a total cost of $500k for a complete seismic retrofit. I promise to get around to that as soon as I can...

Note that the choices you make can have large consequences on the overall cost. When I choose a lower the lowest goal of "risk reduction" and limit other anticipated work then the cost drops to half of the original $82/sq.ft.

The methodology is based on a database of retrofit projects. It knows how much those projects ended up costing, so it can compare the variables chosen for your project against the database and come up with an accurate market driven answer. Pretty nifty. Now you can tell your clients that you have a pretty good idea how much the work will cost. Of course, you might want to really investigate the options and help menus before you submit any numbers from it. And don't forget to convert the answer to today's values, because the cost it gives you is in terms of 2002 dollar values.

Apartment Renovation and associated mayhem

We started renovating the apartment in the icehouse in August 2007. The existing space wasn't in too bad condition, but we decided to go all out and strip it down and rebuild it. I think it turned out to be the right decision, especially considering how much debris we extracted. The room was originally the employee break room, and as such it had some residential features and so was a natural place to begin the entire project. A few decades ago it was converted into a real apartment where people lived, so it did have a kitchen and bathroom.

Here is the old living room. Wonderful linoleum with newspaper backing, luan (sp?) walls, drop ceilings, cheap windows, small closed in rooms, disgusting wallpaper, and an electrical/plumbing layout that almost made me cry...

Oh the horror, the absolute horror of this wallpaper! I probably shouldn't mention the dead mouse behind the stove...

This is where we moved into for our temporary lodgings. It is the bottom floor of the tower (now known as the guest dungeon) with 24" thick masonry walls. Living here was great, except the bathroom was at the other side of the house. Now that we have the nearby bathroom working well, this has become our guest room and includes a sofa, chair, TV, and A/C unit.

Ah, the first cut!

Work begins on refurbishing the old apartment. We ripped all the old wall panels down, cleared the floor off, cut down all the interior walls, and removed all mechanical components. That part was fun, except for the decades worth of dust and debris that would fall down in your face every time you touched something. Respirators were worth their weight in gold in this phase.

After everything was stripped down to original surfaces, we began building back up. Starting with many layers of paint to seal out the nastiness that once was. I think we have about 6 layers of paint and primer now, it's glorious. A spray gun is definitely the best way to paint brick, I recommend you purchase a good one because it cuts your time to 1/10 of hand painting.

Here is Heather balancing on top of the ladder and painting our ceiling beams. We used a primer that would convert some of the existing rust into an inert compound, but otherwise just treated it like a normal surface. The beams looks great and add a lot of detail to the room now, and are great for hanging things from.

Speaking of paint guns, our little handheld was barely adequate for the walls. When it came to painting overhead it didn't even work because of the paint feed system. We bought a contractor version with a separate pump and gun and life got much easier. You just stick the feed hose into the bucket of paint and spray like crazy. It was one of the most satisfying experiences of the project. Do yourself a favor and get the right tools for the job.

You might notice that nobody ever took a photo of me working on anything. Part of that is because around this time I managed to seriously wound myself. I fell off our loading dock onto a broken ceramic toilet and cut my left arm open. Miraculously I didn't cut an artery, vein, or large nerve, but everything else was severed. Try this if you aren't squeamish: ArmDamage.jpg All of my extensor tendons had to be re-connected and many weeks of therapy followed before I was able to use it again. I still remember the first day I could hold a beer in my hand, it was glorious.

In the meantime, I called on all my friends and coworkers for help. The winter was rapidly approaching and we had nowhere to stay warm. Luckily, we received a great response from everyone and after a few work weekends the apartment project was substantially complete. Thanks to all who pitched in, your assistance was truly noble.

Heather's boss helped to re-plumb the hot water heater and install a filter. We still don't drink the water but the filter does improve the water quality.

My friends David and Matt helped me run conduit for the main bedroom. Everything works great, so thanks for the help once more, guys!

My friend Tom with the big drill, helping me run conduit for later work. I am just about to start major work in this area, so hopefully we can double our finished living space within the next few months.

The old sink base was custom built in the apartment because the room's door is too small to pass it through. We decided to keep it, which meant that when it was time to do the floors we had to levitate from the ceiling. Just another one of those wacky things you gotta do to get the job done.

Once the floor was finished, it was just a simple matter of putting the furniture back into the room, all by way of this beautifully preserved industrial ship's ladder. No railing, no problem. honestly, the railing would have prevented us getting any furniture into the space because you the stairs are too narrow. Now that we've moved in we did install a chain railing, and that adds a level of psychological comfort that is hard to underestimate.

The final result is absolutely great. We repurposed a lot of our old furniture and things we found, and it all came together beautifully. The choice to use only black and white furniture and paint really makes our artwork pop out from the walls, it is quite nice.

The open shelving for the pantry makes it seem a bit messy at times, but convenient. Having the open space in general makes the apartment feel bigger, and the dogs get to run around and bark all they want.

As the final missing piece, we found two cats that match the decor. Here's Charlie doing what she loves best, fantasizing about a fresh meal. We often had a wet cat until we unpacked the aquarium hood. But all is well now and everyone gets along very well in our small space.

So that was our first renovation project, and we finished it around January of 2008 after all was said and done. We have been waiting to start work on other parts of the property while we worked out financing options and got our plans fully worked out. If you know how hard it is to get a loan in this market, imagine what it's like to get one for a project that doesn't resemble anything else in town. But of course, that is a post for another day. Thanks once again to all who helped us on the apartment renovation.