Brickwork Gives Houston-area School Project a Timeless Design

Lining up Supplies Early Meant not Running up Against a Brick Wall

When it's completed, the new Clear Creek Independent School District's new Intermediate School No. 9 will have 640,000 bricks in five different colors including a custom black brick manufactured especially for the project.

By Angelle Bergeron

In his four years with the Clear Creek Independent School District, located in the Bay area of Houston, Hector Menendez has overseen $165 million in renovation projects as well as new construction.

During that time, it's safe to say he's seen just about every problem that can throw a wrench in a construction schedule, including delay of brick delivery.

That's one problem Menendez, project manager for the district, was determined to overcome during the approximately $20 million construction of the district's Intermediate School No. 9. With the support of the project's general contractor, Dyad Constructors of Houston, the brick was ordered earlier on.

"Sometimes contractors estimate and they might be short on the order, so having brick readily available is important," he said. "When we start laying, they deliver as needed. Basically, if we have 40 masons, we will put about 800 bricks per mason. So quite a bit is required."

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Menendez decided that to avoid delivery delays, and spend the school district's money in its own back yard, he would purchase brick from a Texas company.

He contacted Robert Byrne, owner of Architectural Masonry Products and the architectural/commercial representative for Hanson Brick in Southeast Texas.

It just so happened that Hanson had recently acquired Athens Brick (see HED TK, page TK), ensuring the company's ability to satisfy both the location and quality specifications for the job. The 180,000-sq.-ft. school was designed by the League City office of PBK Architects Inc., one of t-e largest designers of educational facilities in the state. Designs called for approximately 640,000 bricks of five different colors.

"Masonry offers a timeless design, a traditional appearance which speaks to education," said Roy Montalbano, architect for the project.

Montalbano chose five colors for the brick exterior to complement the surrounding community and environment. The predominant field of red brick is lined with black, white, cream and tan decorative banding, which visually softens the otherwise imposing vast exterior of the building and creates a welcoming aesthetic.

Production of white, rock-face brick was unusual, Byrne said. "Only a handful of manufacturers in the country today will make rock-face because the equipment required to produce it is special and it involves a labor-intensive process of texturing the brick," he added.

Each brick is handpicked and put into a machine that chips the face to give it a rough, heavily distressed texture, Byrne said.

The black brick created by Hanson posed its own set of difficulties, primarily due to the natural clay deposits in that area of the state, he said. The Hanson Athens plant formulated a special coating to stain the dark, red-bodied brick to give it a black appearance. The red, cream and tan colors are readily available from natural raw materials, he added.

"Creating that black brick was a first for Hanson's Athens plant," Byrne said. "It made sense to go with them because they had the flexibility and desire to do this. They have clay they can blend, have experimented on other colors in the past and were willing to say, 'Yes, we can do this for you.'"

The majority of manufacturers eschew specialty projects in favor of mass-produced ones, Byrne said. The Athens plant, which provides brick for both residential and commercial projects, takes more time and effort to produce special requests for commercial projects, he added.

In addition, the plant performs its own testing, and the specially created black brick has been vitrified, meaning the color is fired onto the brick, which ensures its durability, Byrne said.

"When you have a project this large in size, you must have consistency in color," he added. The bulk of the brick, about 416,000, are the red "field" brick, but that leaves a large chunk (some 200,000 plus) of the specialty brick.

"When you wrap the building and go from one side to the other and you butt up, you want them to match," Byrne said.

The design also stipulated brick in the main entrance and commons area, Montalbano said. "It was brought in for durability, which minimizes maintenance. It also creates a good relation between the exterior and interior."

The school's interior will accommodate 1,200 students in grades six through eight and is broken up into a variety of spaces with various wall and floor finishes,

Montalbano said. The building's features include 32 classrooms, 10 science laboratories, five computer laboratories, a stage with teaching theater, television studio and production room and athletic facilities.

Although Dyad mobilized on the site in early July, the district hadn't completed the permit process so the contractor could only perform infrastructure and dirt work, said Rick Trask, executive vice president for Dyad.

"We basically sat there stagnant until Sept. 10," Trask said. "One of the things we capitalized on during that lag time was to order the steel and brick so it would be ready to go."

The upshot is that the project is holding fast to its 17-month schedule that requires a May 2005 completion, Trask added. About 30 percent of the brick has already been placed on the exterior and drywall and mechanical work are moving along on the interior, said Steve Casares, site superintendent for Dyad.

Project Team:
Owner: Clear Creek Independent School District, Houston
General Contractor: Dyad Constructors Inc., Houston
Architect: PBK Architects, Inc., Houston.
Masonry: Winco Inc., Humble
Brick Supplier:Hanson Brick (distributor for Southeast Texas: Architectural Masonry Products, Houston)
Mechanical, Electrical & Plumbing Engineer: ACR Engineering Inc., Austin
Steel Contractor: Empire Steel, Houston
Concrete Supplier: Rainbow Materials Inc., Austin
Masonry Supplier: Custom Masonry Corp., San Antonio
Concrete Contractor: Keystone Concrete, Houston
Electrical Contractor: Action Electric, Houston
Mechanical Contractor: Barry Berry Inc., Houston

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