2019 Call For Entries Now Open - Since 1989, the Brick Industry Association has sponsored one of the country's most prestigious architectural award programs. For decades, BIA has been recognized by the architectural community as the authority on clay brick. As such, the Brick in Architecture Awards has become the nation's premiere architectural award featuring clay brick.

With 8 categories, you can submit your projects in a variety of areas. All entries must be complete by the October 31, 2019 deadline.

Growing demand for more privacy options and gender neutral toilet partition solutions was the catalyst behind the introduction of Hadrian's new Elite MAX toilet partition series, which features 92-inch high doors and panels while also eliminating all sightline gaps.

Hadrian Elite Max enhanced privacy toilet partition

Available in 22 powder coated colors and stainless steel finishes, Elite Max is the most private solution of Hadrian's Elite series. 92-inch high doors, panels mounted 4 inches (102mm), 6 inches (152mm) or 9 inches (229mm) above the finished floor with continuous stop, hinge filler and continuous channel made to match the height of the partition.

Architects and designers can choose from three styles to achieve the level of privacy required for the space. Headrail braced mounted 6 to 12 inches AFF, headrail braced with pedestal 4 or 9 inches AFF, or floor to ceiling mounted 6 to 12 inches AFF.

It is now easier to discover the information you need when deciding if you should specify fireproof columns on your projects:
Live chat w/ Black Rock employees during business hours
Product shapes and sizes with ALL available sizes, WF from 4x13 to 14x730 and HSS from 4x4x1/4 to 22x22x7/8!
Specification section including a sample specification sheet in MS Word format, MANU-SPEC SHEET and SPEC-DATA SHEET PDFs
Education section with links to our videos, AIA accredited online courses and Lunch & Learn request form
Submit budget and quote requests through website including the ability to upload drawings

Check out one of our latest projects;

Penn Medicine at Radnor in Radnor, Pennsylvania. The Architect & Structural Engineer was Ballinger out of Philadelphia. On the project, we provided 26 fireproof columns with 32 shells weighing over 93 tons! The columns were Type OH with a 2-hour UL fireproof rating.

Bossier City, La. — Advanced Roofing Inc. of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., runs its operation by the belief that what the customer wants, the customer gets.

The Solid Waste Authority (SWA) in West Palm Beach, Fla., had a building with an aging and leaking R-panel metal roofing system. “It was leaking everywhere,” says Mike Scardina, the Sheet Metal Department Manager at Advanced Roofing. “The original roof looked to be over 20 years old.”

Advanced Roofing Inc. (ARI) is a commercial roofing company with nine locations, specializing in roof re-roofing, repairs and maintenance services for occupied buildings in Florida and the Caribbean. When it comes to commercial re-roofing to meet strict building standards and wind codes, Advanced Roofing has seen it all.

This particular SWA building was used as a dumping site for foliage collected from the community. Eventually, the leaves are moved to a compost site or a recycling facility. Roof leaks were threatening electrical components and creating many problems in a small workshop within the building. The SWA wanted a permanent solution to fix the leaks and wanted a long-lasting solution for an area where hurricane-force winds are a constant threat.

The 238T symmetrical roof system was chosen because of its extremely high uplift capacity over the open framing and ease of repair if it would ever become damaged by a future storm. This system also eliminates the need for additional edge and corner framing typically required when re-roofing an open frame metal building like this, with existing 5-foot on-center purlin spacing. Instead of a complete tear-off of the original R-panel roof, Advanced Roofing left the roof in place and installed Roof Hugger sub-purlins every 5 feet on-center … 7,600 feet of Roof Huggers. Leaving the existing roof in place maintained the structural diaphragm that the R-panel provides to the building. The roof re-cover was completed with the 238T symmetrical standing seam roofing system from McElroy Metal in .040 aluminum. This assembly is the only Florida High Velocity Hurricane Zone-approved aluminum structural standing seam panel system.

“SWA wanted their roof system engineered to the highest standard possible and in line with their goals of durability in the most extreme conditions … and that's what we gave them,” Scardina says. “This system will last a long time and hold up under tough conditions.”

McElroy's 238T symmetrical standing seam systems do not have male and female seams; instead they are comprised of panels with matching left and right seams. The panels are joined with a mechanically seamed cap. The panels are non-directional and can be installed left to right, right to left or even from the center out. In addition to the installation benefits, symmetrical panels offer easy individual panel removal and replacement. Individual panels can also be re-installed, requiring only the purchase and installation of a new cap.

Before working on the roof, Advanced Roofing had to replace several rusting 20-foot purlins with new purlins. The roof panels for this project were .040-inch aluminum, painted Ash Gray and 16 inches wide with pencil ribs to reduce the appearance of oil canning. Seventy percent of the panels were 87 feet long and the remaining 30 percent were 100 feet long … all of the panels were run at the eave as Advanced Roofing used its in-house crane division to lift their 238T roll former into place.

To obtain HVHZ and Florida building code approval, the 238T roofing panels were installed with 100 percent 24-gauge continuous clips, meaning the clips run the entire length of each panel. The C-shaped clips are pre-installed back-to-back and run down each side of the panel and attached to the top of the Roof Huggers using two or three fasteners per side. Because of the extreme -147 psf corner pressures and the 5-foot purlin spacing, a small 22-gauge plate was added on top of the clip base over the Roof Hugger in the edge and corner zones. After three holes were drilled through the plate, clip and Roof Hugger, an AB #14 screw was used to fasten the plate and clip to the Roof Hugger in the edge and corner zones.

“It's a special fastener that has a point and gets real fat where it meets the hex head,” says Tom Mahon, Sheet Metal Field Superintendent for Advanced Roofing. “It meets the uplift requirements for the area.”

Scardina and Mahon say to meet High-Velocity Hurricane Zone approval, the installation is more labor intensive, mainly because of the time needed to pre-drill plates, but the level of added durability makes it worth the work. The symmetrical panel legs are capped and the caps are secured by a seamer.

Amba Products, distributor of heated towel rack systems, announces a partnership with Hydrologic, one of Florida's largest wholesale distributors of plumbing, indoor and outdoor lighting, fans and other home accents. The partnership will provide Amba with permanent space in its showrooms, as well as increased visibility among a wide range of builders, architects and interior designers.

According to Peter Manidis, Amba marketing manager, Tampa, Florida, serves as a design epicenter and space in Hydrologic's showroom will help Amba reach its distribution goals.

“Our vision is to have a heated towel rack in every bathroom in America,” he said. “The European consumer market has been utilizing heated towel racks for decades to enhance comfort, reduce towel dampness and conserve the energy it takes to constantly dry towels in a commercial drier. Being featured in Hydrologic's showroom helps more U.S. designers see our product in action, which helps them see the possibilities.”

Eva Lowe, showroom manager at Hydrologic, said heated towel racks are becoming increasingly popular in U.S. bathrooms, laundry rooms, hotels and dorm rooms. She said the addition of Amba heated towel racks add a unique item to the Hydrologic showroom.

“Bathrooms and laundry rooms have been trending toward minimalism, so designers are looking for fixtures that enhance both style and function,” said Lowe. “Heated towel racks are sleek, extremely functional and give standard bathrooms a spa-feel. We're excited to partner with Amba and let more designers see how heated towel racks can be easily integrated into their designs.”

Vectorworks Architect 2019 competing in Design Tools – Apps & Digital Tools category before voting closes on July 5

Columbia, MD (July 1, 2019)—Global design and BIM software provider Vectorworks, Inc. announces its selection as a finalist for the 2019 Architizer A+Awards. Vectorworks Architect 2019 is one of four contenders in the Design Tools – Apps & Digital Tools category, competing for two of the most sought after awards: The Architizer A+ Jury Award and the Architizer A+ Popular Choice Award. “It’s an incredible accomplishment to be a finalist in the highly-respected Architizer A+Awards, as the architecture market is filled with fierce competition,” said Jeremy Powell, vice president of marketing at Vectorworks. “Vectorworks Architect 2019 was created with a focus on increasing design efficiency through overall performance and quality, adding new innovations and enhancements to further improve 3D and BIM modeling, 2D documentation and presentation workflows. Designers will see a dramatic impact on productivity, thus making their day-to-day work faster and easier.”

The seventh annual awards are judged by a diverse jury from fields such as fashion, publishing, product design, real estate development and tech, including Denise Scott Brown and Tom Kundig, as well as personalities from beyond architecture like Tony Hsieh (CEO, Zappos), Yves Behar (Fuseproject), John Edelman (CEO, Design Within Reach), Cameron Sinclair (Architecture for Humanity) and Barry Bergdoll (MoMA).

The Architizer A+ Popular Choice Award is chosen through online public voting. Voting is open now until July 5. Winners for both awards will be announced on July 9.

Learn more about Vectorworks Architect 2019 at vectorworks.net/architect, and why you should vote for the leading BIM tool by July 5 on Architizer’s website.

Company recognized as “BEST of SHOW” and “Ones to Watch”

Columbia, MD (June 26, 2019)—Global design and BIM software provider Vectorworks, Inc. has received two more awards, including Architosh’s 2019 AIA National “BEST of SHOW” award in the BIM category for Vectorworks Architect 2019 and BUILD Magazine’s 2019 Design & Build Awards as “Ones to Watch in the USA”.

“These awards are recognizing our significant presence and achievement in the industry,” said Dr. Biplab Sarkar, CEO of Vectorworks. “We would like to thank Architosh and BUILD Magazine for honoring our software and company once again. These awards in particular reinforce that Vectorworks is on the right path, and our goal is to excel as the top BIM software program in the industry with the distinction of being purpose-built around an architect’s design process.”

The “BEST of SHOW” award is designed to recognize the most interesting and promising technologies making an impact on architectural practice in the United States and globally. The BIM category was measured by:

• Implementation quality

• Acceleration of quality of solution

• Quality of attack on addressing pain points in BIM workflows

• Adoption, extension and commitment to Open BIM philosophies so that data and toolchains are social and democratized to their fullest extent

Fitting convergent technology paths and driving at synergistic directions for the industry. “Vectorworks 2019 this year produced a very nice blend of updates, but the addition of live-linked connections to Lumion coupled with a suite of Open BIM and Revit support features truly boost this package’s appeal to architects and other design professionals,” said Anthony Frausto-Robledo, AIA, LEED AP, Architosh.

The Design & Build Awards are our way of endorsing and recommending the most promising and best performing firms across all sectors of the architecture, construction building and interior design, and each recipient is hand-picked by our internal team through a strictly merit-based process of research and analysis.

According to the BUILD research team: “Vectorworks was awarded Ones to Watch in the USA in the 2019 Design & Build Awards for their substantial work in BIM software development. They have shown sustained innovation and creativity in their solutions since their launch in 1985, and we believe we can expect great things in 2019 and beyond. Vectorworks’ contribution to the everchanging digital revolution in the AEC industry has shown consistent ingenuity, and we hope to continue celebrating their exceptional and innovative use of BIM in the built environment.” As part of its victory, Vectorworks will appear in an upcoming issue of BUILD magazine.

To learn more about Vectorworks Architect 2019 and its BIM capabilities, visit vectorworks.net/architect.

Follow the award-winning company on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and Planet Vectorworks.