CHICAGO | General Developments

[Notyrview]

Slick. Much more of that please.

[Rizzo]

I was wondering about this project. I bike past there weekly. Love this design.

[Baronvonellis]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

Most of what gets built here really isn't that bad, some is stunning. In particular Candea development is slapping up killer lowrose masonry stuff all over Andersonville and Lincoln Square. Real limestone, normal sized face brick, jumbo face brick on the sides. The kind of development that will last centuries.

Also that lowrise they built on LSD in the Gold Coast is stunning, real limestone with awesome deco esque detailing. Makes OBP look like trailer trash.

Yea, that lowrise on LSD is really nice when you use quality materials it makes a big difference!

How come they paint lots of brick buildings in NYC and Boston? Is the climate in Chicago really much different from those places, that the brick would be ok there but not in Chicago?

[LouisVanDerWright]

^^^ You really aren't ever supposed to paint brick, especially old soft hand made bricks. This is because old masonry needs to breathe which means let moisture out through it's natural channels: the mortar joints. The reason buildings need to be tuckpointed is that mortar is actually a sacrificial element of the wall which degrades overtime and, in the process, makes the bricks themselves last essentially forever.

The process of a well built and healthy brick wall works like this: the brick is set in mortar that is slightly softer than itself. In old buildings this mortar is almost always just sand mixed with lime putty and essentially little or no cement. If you've ever wiped up a spill, you know that liquid almost always travels to the softer material (i.e. the cloth or paper towel). In brick walls the softer material must be the mortar so that moisture absorbed by the wall is drawn to the mortar and out of the brick. Thus when that wall hits a freeze thaw cycle, the mortar takes the damage from the freezing moisture and not the brick. Also the brick can be damaged without a freeze thaw cycle if the moisture is exiting the wall through the brick by means of efflorescence (the white stuff you see on damaged brick walls) which is salts being drawn out of the brick and mortar by the evaporative process.

The worst examples of this kind of damage typically occur when someone tuckpoints an old brick wall made of very soft hand made bricks with new age super hard mortar (which in modern construction is often more cement than anything else, remember old walls used basically zero portland cement in the mix). If you have ever seen a wall where the bricks have dissolved yet the mortar joints are still there, you've seen this kind of damage. The water in the wall is exiting through the bricks causing them to be exploded by freezing moisture or by giant salt crystals forming as the water evaporates out of the brick leaving behind salt.

The problem with painting brick walls is very similar, if you cover the whole surface with a water resistant or impermeable coating, you disrupt the natural process of evaporation that old walls are designed to undertake. Instead of the mortar absorbing all of the water and taking the salt/freeze damage, the water exits anywhere the paint coating allows it too. Since brick is harder in old walls, it tends to "throw off" (i.e. paint starts pealing) the paint first while the porous mortar joints hold the paint longer since they are softer and inherently more absorbent (that's what this is all about right, absorbency). This again results in water exiting through the bricks and destroying them instead of gradually dissolving the mortar in the joints which is designed to be periodically removed and replaced.

Now painting brick like we see above which is extruded brick (i.e. super consistent clay squeezed out of a machine and fired at high temperatures to form super hard, uniform bricks) isn't as bad, but it's still a bad idea. Even in modern construction the water needs to find somewhere to go which is why you see all sorts of contrived solutions in super hard modern masonry ranging from little plastic straws sticking out above lintels (which of course are usually metal instead of stone or brick arches) to layers of felt sticking out between courses of brick to little wicks (ropes) left to stick out of the mortar joints. All of these roundabout moisture solutions would be unnecessary if we still built using the same ancient technology that continues to support buildings in places like Rome a few thousand years after it was built. But since arches take longer to put in place than a simple piece of steel, we use the steel and then have to tear apart the lintel and the wall every 30 or 40 years because the steel rusts and expands and causes the 5-10 courses of brick above it to start bulging out (something I'm sure you have also seen a ton of). For this reason when I buy buildings I always try to get ones with stone lintels or brick arches for that reason and I NEVER replace them with steel unless it's totally unsalvagable.



But I digress, painting brick is always a terrible idea. Not only is it ugly and it covers up the beautiful aesthetic of a brick wall, but it is destructive and causes massive mason's bills down the road. This cannot be stressed enough for historic masonry where a single coat of paint can totally trash an irreplaceable historic masonry wall in a decade or less.

[Near North Resident]

The Ronsley looks horrible in person IMO, what a disappointment... renderings look better than the actual thing

[harryc]

^^ TYVM ! - I have spent too many hours tuck-pointing, and didn't understand why as well as I do after that.

[SolarWind]

November 5, 2018

[LouisVanDerWright]

Originally Posted by harryc

^^ TYVM ! - I have spent too many hours tuck-pointing, and didn't understand why as well as I do after that.

Tuckpointing is hard work and gets old fast, but it's oddly satisfying kinda like floating drywall. Just make sure you always use no harder than type O preferably type N mortar which is a Sandy beige color, never use harder modern type S or M which contain high amounts of cement and appear grey or white. Any time you see that color mortar in a Chicago common wall you know it's doomed to dissopve. Or, if you want to be old school mix your own mortar out of 4 parts sand to 1 part lime. It's not an exact science and I've seen Masons literally just measure with a shovel when they only want a little bit of mix. 3 scoops lime to 9 scoops sand or whatever they need.

In theory you should also never use a grinder on old brick either since it's so soft or you will trash the perfectly precise old joints which I've seen laid to a 16th of an inch tolerance. The right way to do it is to match the mortar you are using to existing stuff and take an appropriately sized pointing chisel to the joint only removing loose bits and filling them as you go. Also most people don't realize the variety in color that old mortars can have, many older red brick walls, for example, used charcoal grey which really makes the brick pop. Many walls are ruined when someone repoints them with white or some other color mortar that doesn't match the original design. I actually just ripped white pointing out of the joints in one building and replaced it all with the original charcoal that was underneath.

[Skyguy_7]

^^ New facade looks great! Nice photos. Hard to imagine this is a $500 million dollar enhancement. There was once a proposal to remove the bronze window panes and re-clad the entire building. Maybe this is part of the project? Would certainly look nice if it were replaced with the black and clear combo we see above.

[mark0]

Originally Posted by Skyguy_7

^^ New facade looks great! Nice photos. Hard to imagine this is a $500 million dollar enhancement. There was once a proposal to remove the bronze window panes and re-clad the entire building. Maybe this is part of the project? Would certainly look nice if it were replaced with the black and clear combo we see above.

The Sears and especially the John Hancock are in dire need of re-cladding, they are looking quite faded and chalky up close. A return to the jet black anodized would be awesome.

[Baronvonellis]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

But I digress, painting brick is always a terrible idea. Not only is it ugly and it covers up the beautiful aesthetic of a brick wall, but it is destructive and causes massive mason's bills down the road. This cannot be stressed enough for historic masonry where a single coat of paint can totally trash an irreplaceable historic masonry wall in a decade or less.

Yea, thanks for the information. I'm trying to understand why people do it in other places then. Cities in Belgium and the historic districts of Amsterdam have lots of painted brick buildings that are 400 years old, I'm surprised they would do that if it was going to be trashed in 10 years. They have more of a preservation mindset than Chicago does, almost all of the center is full of 400 year old buildings, they never tear down old buildings like the rate Chicago does in the the center. You hardly see any new buildings there. I would think that they've been building brick for hundreds of years longer than in Chicago and have an understanding about it.

Rome and Prague have stone buildings that are hundreds of years old and they are usually painted.

[jc5680]

In my very cursory googling, it looks like you can buy vapor permeable paint specifically for masonry purposes.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by Baronvonellis

Yea, thanks for the information. I'm trying to understand why people do it in other places then. Cities in Belgium and the historic districts of Amsterdam have lots of painted brick buildings that are 400 years old, I'm surprised they would do that if it was going to be trashed in 10 years. They have more of a preservation mindset than Chicago does, almost all of the center is full of 400 year old buildings, they never tear down old buildings like the rate Chicago does in the the center. You hardly see any new buildings there. I would think that they've been building brick for hundreds of years longer than in Chicago and have an understanding about it.

Rome and Prague have stone buildings that are hundreds of years old and they are usually painted.

Lime wash and other traditional brick coatings are very different from modern paint. Plus you can add pigments to stucco/plaster etc and the stucco is usually breathable if done in the traditional way.

[mark0]

Originally Posted by Baronvonellis

Yea, thanks for the information. I'm trying to understand why people do it in other places then. Cities in Belgium and the historic districts of Amsterdam have lots of painted brick buildings that are 400 years old, I'm surprised they would do that if it was going to be trashed in 10 years. They have more of a preservation mindset than Chicago does

Its a Lime wash, not paint

[ChickeNES]

Originally Posted by mark0

The Sears and especially the John Hancock are in dire need of re-cladding, they are looking quite faded and chalky up close. A return to the jet black anodized would be awesome.

Heartily agreed! I used to work in 200 S Wacker and seeing the faded panels from across the street was always a bit disappointing,

[marothisu]

Curbed reporting that the 1 story currency exchange building (and I think surface parking) at Chicago and Lasalle has finally sold to a developer who plans to redevelop it. Mixed use commercial/retail and residential. Not many other details other than current zoning is already DX-7...

[r18tdi]

Originally Posted by marothisu

Curbed reporting that the 1 story currency exchange building (and I think surface parking) at Chicago and Lasalle has finally sold to a developer who plans to redevelop it. Mixed use commercial/retail and residential. Not many other details other than current zoning is already DX-7...

Finally. The site is begging for some density.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by marothisu

Curbed reporting that the 1 story currency exchange building (and I think surface parking) at Chicago and Lasalle has finally sold to a developer who plans to redevelop it. Mixed use commercial/retail and residential. Not many other details other than current zoning is already DX-7...

Yes!

The One Chicago Square effect, I call it

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by r18tdi

Finally. The site is begging for some density.

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Yes!

The One Chicago Square effect, I call it

It was for sale for at least a year - so happy it's sold and they want to build something on it that's probably denser. There's a pending permit but it doesn't have many details on it. I found the real estate record and I think that it's Bucksbaum Retail Properties that bought it but can't find anything on it yet...

[Rizzo]

Originally Posted by marothisu

It was for sale for at least a year - so happy it's sold and they want to build something on it that's probably denser. There's a pending permit but it doesn't have many details on it. I found the real estate record and I think that it's Bucksbaum Retail Properties that bought it but can't find anything on it yet...

I think it is too. I checked the recorders website which came up with a random LLC. So I looked that LLC up on the states website which gave an address... which matched Bucksbaum office

http://www.bucksbaumrp.com