Exploring Mica Coatings’ Potential
Welcoming visitors to Florida’s Space Coast, the new Exploration Tower (Port Canaveral) embraces its futuristic look by making use of a new type of color-changing coating on the building’s exterior metal cladding.
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Designing Plaza Hardscapes
Frequently constructed over occupied spaces, outdoor plazas break up the massing of neighboring buildings with landscape treatments and traffic pathways. How can one design for the various structural and waterproofing needs? Standing on a mattress can help.
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Impactable Dock Doors Help Increase Safety in Warehouses
For industrial applications, loading docks require carefully chosen openings. When it comes to specifying the doors, important considerations include not only efficiency, durability, and safety, but also the impact of high winds.
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Updating values for polyiso
The January issue of The Construction Specifier included the article, “Impact of Advancements in Model Energy Codes,” by Jared O. Blum. We received the following letter to the editor from Tim Merchant of the EPS Industry Alliance, an organization representing those in the expanded polystyrene community.
The EPS Industry Alliance has always supported informative articles that advance the knowledge, proper use, and application of foam insulation. That said, the article makes some inaccurate claims …Continue reading
Sounding Off on Acoustic Sealants
In the February issue of The Construction Specifier, we published the article, “Using Gypsum Wallboard for Acoustical Control,” by Ashwin L. Himat. The piece dealt with new drywall products designed to reduce noise. However, one reader was concerned there was a bigger picture to keep in mind. Steven Zalben, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP, wrote:
The use of acoustical sealant to reduce sound transmission was only cursorily mentioned. Using an appropriate sealant on both top …Continue reading
XPS, EPS, and Dock Flotation
After the feature, “Out of Sight, Not Out of Mind: Specifying Thermal Insulation Below-grade and Under-slab” ran in our December 2013 issue, we received a letter from retired architect, Joseph S. Bond. Mr. Bond wrote that the article in question “seems to reverse the findings” from both his personal and professional experience with expanded and extruded polystyrene (EPS and XPS):
I am a retired architect, and may not have the best current information on EPS …Continue reading