Municipal Masonry Projects
Masonry is one of the most common materials used for the envelope of municipal buildings.
ACCESS Chester Community Center | Chester, PA
This unique project features five courses of Mist split face masonry units at the base of the building envelope, providing a strong “foundation” on which to scatter Gemstone®units in Mist, Slate, and Charcoal above it—giving the building a light, airy, “floating” feeling. Some split face units were carried from the base up through the building corners, tying those finishes together.
A major challenge in this project was to scatter the three different Gemstone colors without looking too structured and repetitive, while also not making them look too haphazard and sloppy. This is much harder than it sounds, and required a significant amount of planning and design layout to get the proper balance of colors/units. You’ll notice their efforts paid off, as the color scattering is nearly perfect around the complete structure.
ACCESS Chester Community Center is a non-profit community center offering educational, social and recreational opportunities for all Chester, PA, residents, regardless of ethnicity, economic status or gender. Their focus is on connecting and empowering the community. This new facility allowed them to expand their community offerings, reaching more residents in need.
Wyandotte County Juvenile Justice Center | Kansas City, KS
As the first phase in a long-range master plan of the County’s justice facilities, a three-story, 47,000 SF facility in Kansas City, KS, was built using a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors of masonry units from York Building Products.
The secure juvenile detention areas are organized around a central courtyard to allow access to the outdoors and to stream daylight into the living and classroom areas.
This project features the masonry laid in an ashlar pattern, where different widths, heights, and colors are interspersed in a complicated matrix design. Laying block in this fashion requires extensive planning, with which York Building Products assisted, as well as patience and attention to detail from the masons.
St. Clair Hospital | Pittsburgh, PA
This project is comprised of over 43,000 SF of our Gemstone® masonry units including four different colors - Parchment, Arctic White, Putty, and custom - and three different sizes - 12x24, 8x16 and 4x16. What makes this project especially noteworthy is the difficult layering of shapes and colors to provide a contemporary look.