#368 - Architectural Ratchet Straps - Archispeak

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Evan Troxel (00:09):
So how many, how many purple pens do you have in your possession now?

Cormac Phalen (00:13):
In my hand

Yeah.

tree

And you were like

and then I purple fi

On

pur purple.
Fine point.

Oh my gosh.
Multiple pen.
What?
What would you call

Yeah.

Nib Weights of

I

pen.

also,

felt tip pens.
Geez.

I'm also looking for a purple Lamy

Are you

safari

like

with, with purple ink.

I bet you can.

you can.
You can get purple ink,

interesting.

you can get any color ink.
Really?

But you're just looking for a reason to get a, another Lamy
though, is what it sounds like.
You don't

I, I don't know if I need another reason.
It's just like I'm,

pretty sure you don't.
I'm still

I,

the, the Acme, frank Lloyd

let's see.

of the Fountain Pen.
Here.
It's, it's, I

Brown room.

lost my Lamy.
I only had one though.
So I mean, now I can understandthe importance of having backups.

Yeah, the, yeah.

it's around here somewhere.
It'll, it'll, I'll,it'll be stumbled upon.
Look at you.
How?
Oh, just, I have other,other fountain pens over

Well, this is just in,

my cool pen holder.
But none of 'em are as, as good as the.
Frank Lloyd Wright edition.
I mean, there's just something

yeah,

premium about this pen.

I think, which one is that?
What kind is it?

It's Acme.

Oh, Acme,

Yeah.

because it,

So I

that sort of looks like the same one as my Darth Vader edition,

oh, yeah,

because everybody should have a

to focus on it because I

Exactly.

eye.
There it goes.
There it goes.
I have the eye trackingfocus thing turned on, so.

See, so I have all these,

people.
That's why we're doing this.

Wait, hold on.

There you go.
Oh my gosh.
Nice.
You have a full spectrum of Lamy,

I do do cla

have enough

uh,

turn it into a

but, but still, this one's sort of, grown
in currently is my favorite.
The red,

go-to is the red.

well that's, that's the one that friend of mine gave me,
and she was a student of Frank Ching.
Francis Ching that we all know love and

Cherish.

know, well,

We

you know, we cherish.

Chang.

And she was, he was teaching her a studio of hers and required
to write and read with a red Lamy.

Oh, so, so Red

And so,

in a red Lamy.

I don't know if it was red ink.
I, I'll have to have her.

red ink in yours

I don't, my signature ink or the ink that
I prefer to use is blue, black

Oh, oh, I just have black.
I don't have blue, black, but here it is.
It just happens to be on my desk,so I might as well hold that up too.
Noodlers Noodlers ink.

Is that blue?
Black?

this is just black.
Black,

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
I,

blue black, but.

yes, I don't, I don't accept.

I'm gonna buy blue, black, but c Cormick, I have a
little bit of restraint, whichis a word you might look up.
I was gonna go through this first.
was gonna go through

Go through this.

before I purchase

like telling, that's like telling me,

on

why don't you,

be that long there.
I don't, I didn't want it to, Ididn't want it to separate and
go to waste, you know, like.

well, but you've, I've got the cartridges for the thing, but
I don't have the refillable cartridge.

I do refillable.
I'm a, I, I like, sustainabilityis another word you might look up.

You mean you also like the ink stains all over your hands?

I, I can do it.
I can actually do itwithout getting ink stains.
60% of the

Lies.

60% of the time.

I have 'em in cartridges and I still have ink stains on my hands.

What a loser.
Geez.
Oh my gosh.
I have, I have an image to show you.
This is,

Ooh,

I'm gonna do a screen share and we're gonna do our best to
describe this image to the folks who are

in your mind's eye.

To this, but let's see.
I gotta go to a window.
We're gonna go to that.
We're gonna click share.
We're gonna edit all that out.
Okay.

sweet.

out.
Okay.
What, what are we looking at here?
Cormick, explain tothe audience what your,

joy.
Pure joy is what we're looking at.

are taking in right now.

Just, um, yesteryear we're looking at if, if I have
to like actually be specific.
We're looking at T squares,we're looking at rulers.
We're looking at drawing anddrafting supplies of plenty.
We're seeing staler, we're seeing, youknow, there's, there's, there's trace.

(05:08):
There's just, uh, it's,it's, it is honestly

Design

to me, I.
That image, that image is pure joy.
That's what that image is.

obviously I thought of you taking this picture
because, because how can I not?
But at the same time, checkout the date on this photo.
Look at the top.
Check out the date.

Uh, you're gonna have to tell me because

zoom in, but yeah, April 4th is when I took this image.
So about a

April 4th.

weeks ago, I took

Yeah.

So this is a modern picture, like I didn't chat.

Yeah.

I didn't create this image out of a mere text prompt.
That might be fun, something fun to do.
I, I, I literally took this photo with myiPhone, standing in an aisle in, to guess?
You wanna guess this is a chain.
Kind of a weird chain, kind ofa, I wouldn't call it, it's not
like a, a super chain of stores.
It's a, it's more of like aindependent chain of stores.

so not a blick or something like that.

what'd you say?

A blick blick.

not an art store.
It is

It is not an art store.
Ooh.

is what is so interesting about finding these

Yeah.
That

I

you're gonna have to give it.

it, but, but

I, I, I'm not,

One more guess.

ACE hardware.

Dude, you totally guessed it.

Seriously.
I wanna move to that place andget, go to that ACE Hardware.
Uh.

like, what is going on in the hardware

know,

This is a cool hardware store, by the

I,

there's a section where, okay, weed whacking is
a serious business around here.
There's a section in this hardwarestore where they, they sell
steel S-T-I-H-L equipment, right?
So it's like chainsaws and weed whack.
There's literally like a hundredof them hanging from the rafters
because so many people need a quality.
Weed whacker.

(07:03):
Like what a, what a hardwarestore, what an experience.
This is not a big box place

I don't know if anybody truly appreciates Ace as,
as they should because we've gotour local Ace and we've got, all
of the other big box chain stores.
And honestly, I ace one.

(07:28):
It's, neighborhood, it's gota neighborhood feel to it.
The, the manager there, he's,

Where?
Where everybody, yeah.

know, funny enough.

with the cashier at Ace.

funny enough they do.
And all the people who work there, fromlike the high school students who are
knowledgeable because they have to be,

Right.

You can't just go and, but I mean, it, it does, it has all
these like, random things that you justdon't expect a, a hardware store to have.
And

You're,

is.

an idea in me that I need to look up while, while you keep
talking, but I, I just can't wait toshow you our other ace hardwares here.
Oh my goodness.
You're gonna freak.
Okay.
Go ahead.
Continue.

Oh, I keep talking while I'm looking,

while I look, while I look things up.
Yeah.

but I mean, our, ours is just great.
I mean, because there's just so much, likerandom stuff that you can get there and
it's just like, yeah, this I, I like this.
This place because again, it is just,neighborhood size, neighborhood, it,
it, they're part of the neighborhoodand you can't necessarily get
everything that you're looking for, butguarantee you they'll help you find it

Right.

you if they don't have it, if you do wanna buy
there, they'll order it for you.

I, it, it Well, that's very true.
And I, and I have to say, like,I, I've been really surprised.
I don't, this isn't just an AceHardware thing, but it's like, how
do, how do these people actuallyknow when you ask for a thing?
Oh, it's on the bottom shelf in aisle 22.

Yeah,

Like what?

bottom, bottom shelf, approximately about maybe
five, six feet over from the end.

Yeah.

know, now you're gonna have to look past the other
brand, but specifically whatyou were asking for is like.
Three boxes away from, kindof like the big shiny red box.

Yes.

how, how?
Because honestly, that's like the,the manager, he is like, oh yeah,
yeah, just go over there and go overthere, go over there, look past this.
And you look at, it's, it's, heliterally gives directions like
he was southern dude giving youdirections to someplace in the holler.

I have to say like it's hard to get that kind of service, that level
of service in a big box store, which iswhere their apps or their website comes in

Yeah,

'cause it'll tell you what aisle and what bay.
To look in,

yeah, yeah, exactly.

like, like if you

Oh my gosh, yes.

store hack, that is it.
It's like, is it in stock?
Okay, where is it?
And that, that will tell you because

Yeah.

find the customer service that you're talking about.

So you can go, for me, this is my experience.
I can go into my local ACE hardware andI can ask a teenager who's, that's their
after school job, summer job, whatever,and they will know where to look.
I can go into one of the bigbox Home Depots or whatever.
Look, sometimes I kind of specificallylook for the old gray hairs

(10:23):
to see, they, they gotta know.
And, and then they pull out theirlittle phone and look on their app too.

They

are like, are you kidding me?
What

totally.

how do you not know where all this stuff is?
Like,

Here, here,

uh.

locally.
I didn't not expect to be talkingabout stores so much as we kick off
this episode, but there's, there'sa, there's a plumbing and electrical
supply store here called Grover
Okay, this is the place where youwalk in, you go through the cash
registers to a central information hub.
It's right in the middle, frontand center, and you get to pull

(10:59):
a ticket with a number on it.

Ooh,

LED sign with which number they're serving.
And these people basically help youpersonally shop for everything that you
need to figure out for your project.

Nice.

man,

That is,

that is incredible

that is like 1950s gas station service attendant, cleaning
off your windshield, checking your oil,

And

filling your tires, you know?

stores, right?
They're,

Yeah.

competing with.
And you know what?
They've got an angle, and thatangle is customer service, right?
It's just,

Yeah.

their prices are the same.
Like, so why wouldn't I go there?

I, I don't, I think it is a Midwest thing, but you know,
I'm just gonna throw this out there.
There's another kind of bigbox door that I've only seen in
the Midwest called Menards, and

I've heard of that

they, and they, I.
They have everything.
They have things that youdon't even know you need

right.

or you know, and it's just like, oh, I, went in for a toilet
seat and then you can come out with,like not only the toilet seat you were
looking for, but probably one three timesbetter for probably about the same price
as like the cheap one at the big box.

Yeah.

I, I'm, I'm just floored at how like these smaller chains, like
you said, can compete against like thebig boys who are, probably buying things
in bulk to keep the Jeep discounts.

Yeah.
All right.
So here, here we go.
Are you ready?
Brace yourself because speaking ofthings you didn't know you need, and,
and again people, I'm gonna, I'm gonnajust preface this and say like, you
need to watch this part and maybe thepart where we started talking about
stores on the YouTube, so you can seethe images that we're talking about.
I will.
the images in the shownotes on our website.

(12:47):
So if you don't, if, if youdon't use the YouTube, go to the
website arc speak podcast.com
and click on this episodeand you'll see these images.
But here we go.
Cormack, you ready?
Hold, hold the, hold it down.

Should I.

Okay.
Can you see what we're looking at here?
What do you, what do you see?
What do you explain tothe listening audience

Can you zoom in a little bit?

Oh, let's zoom

That is awesome.
You need to, yeah.
Everybody needs to go and look at, Idon't even know if I wanna explain it.
I want people to go and look at this.

This

'cause this is,

This is, this

this is an incredible thing.

mascot for a hardware store.
Okay.

is this made?
Is this made in steel?

It is

Uh,

absolutely.

that

I've

is

close, a

tremendous.

version of it, and, and this is taken with a telephoto lens now.
Okay, so I'm just gonna saywhat we're looking at here.
The name of this ACE Hardware, andthere's actually, I think three
of them is Blackbird Ace Hardware.
Okay, so these

Nice.

the franchises, right?
Ace Hardware franchises.
And this is the local franchise.
They, they have one here in our locallittle town that they just built.
This is a brand new.
Statue of people do need togo look, but I need to say it.
This is like a 50 foot,40 foot tall blackbird

I'm, I'm, I'm looking at the, the people next to them and yeah,
we're probably in like the 40 foot range.

So there's, there's one of

Wow.

older store.
In the bigger city, Medford here inOregon, and it's even bigger than
this, and it's out in the parking lot.
All right, so it's thegreeter and it's freaky.
Like you see this thing driving downthe street and you're like, what?
I have to go, have to

I am must sharp there.
I mean there's

see

the, ah.

here.

The eyes are kind of mesmerizing, so it, it's probably
some like, backwoods Oregon Voodoo,

It

that's just like, you must shop here.

You have to spend money here.
Like it, it is a requirement.
Yeah, absolutely.
And

It's like,

like a nice little camping scene in

yeah.

with some.
Like a campfire ring, one of thesefancy stainless steel, you know, $400

solos.

with some, with some, you know, chairs.
And, uh, it's just like, like it

My gosh.

to camp underneath this blackbird.

Yeah.
Yeah.

Anyway, is,

that's tremendous.

of cool local, options for hardware stores, like again,
differentiating yourself from the big box.
You're not gonna find this giantblackbird in a big box, home Depot
or a Lowe's, that's for sure.
So cool.

Nope.

this out.
And this hardware store, this brandnew hardware store has a tap room.
Like

room.

Yes,

That's fantastic.

absolutely.
Anyway,

You know,

that was good stuff.

I wonder if ours has got a dispen.
What?
Nope, forget it.
I ain't gonna say it out loud.

I am not gonna say it out loud.

How I would not even dare to say dispensary,

Uh, I live in Oregon.
Uh, there.
I wouldn't be surprised.

but it's legal here in Michigan too.

All right.
So, okay, so let's get tothe meat of this episode.
I, I've been, I've been noticing atrend around here, and this is kind
of a, maybe this is a rural thing.
I don't know.
You can, you can let me know whatyou think, but I'm gonna share
some more pictures because thisis, this is one of those things

This is,

we, we have to talk about what's going on here,

so this is totally the episode that we push people to the video.

We have to push people to the video.
All

Ooh.

we're looking at a barn, right?
And this is just something I saw on theside of the road and I'm gonna, I'm gonna
zoom in on the part that I'm talkingabout here, which is check out these
giant, what What we're looking at isa barn that is definitely beyond, its.
It's a lifetime here.
That is, you can see there's a noticepinned up to the don't go in here.

(17:07):
There's a board over the door.
Don't go in this thing for some

like the big, like the big holes in the wall won't
prevent you from walking in there.

Look, check out the roof.
Like it.
This thing is seen better days.
And.

It seen some seriously better days.

And, and for some reason they're, they're still
trying to keep it upright.
I don't know why, but that's whatI wanna talk about is these, these
big blue tiedown straps, likethese are like those ratchet straps

Yep.

see on the back of a big rig going down the highway,

I.

everything down attached to these giant concrete barrier blocks for.
Weight displacement and they're,they're, my guess is they're kind of
going up and then wrapped around the,the top plate of this wall kind of a

Yeah.

Just to kind

Yeah,

this thing upright.
And so they've got four comealongs here that are attempting

that's,

this building staying up because obvious, and, and
I've noticed other buildings,which are right around this other

I.

really old barns that are all kind of.
Leaning in this general direction andit's like there, there's one that actually
is still being actively used and it'sseriously cocked to the side, so no good.

That's fantastic.

those are some blue, beautiful use of four tie down
straps to keep this barn standing.
So I mean this, if I was astructural engineer, right?
This is, this would be my solutionbecause this is how you do it on a farm.
You use what you have, right?

Yeah.
Yeah.

is exactly what happens.

It's

here's, here's a

at its finest.
I.

is a new steel building going up.
So I mean, I said this is like a trendthat I'm noticing and you'll see.
An extensive use of tie down straps.
Kind of

Hmm.

this building from racking.
And my guess is becausethere's no on it yet like

I, I, I would, I would say that those, you know,
probably the sheathing is what they'reintending to, kind of for this sheer.

And so this one has many going in many different directions.
You can see

Uh, although with all the purlin and everything
else in there, you'd think that,

would

you know,

maybe it's just like, maybe it's just like proactive, like they
don't want it to get out of square.
Some of them

go with that.
Sure.

I'm not sure they're kind of flapping in the wind.
And then on the same propertyhere, here's a wall that is

No

over a road and, and this wall has, and you can see that new
building kind of off in the background.
You can see that tiedaround this pine tree.
We have these straps going up andthen over these kind of turrets that
are on this wall, and you can see howbad that wall's leaning right there.
Not good and,

He

seem to, and so different properties.
I could probably find more straps ifI drove around a little more, right?
But this is

probably seems like a,

to, oh crap, like stuff's falling over.

yeah.

Anyway, I just thought.
You know, a fun architectural thing.
I, I bet most people don'teven notice this kind of thing
when they're driving around.
But this is one of those things whereit's just like, what do you do when
your, when your stuff's fallen over?
I mean, do you just let it fall over?
Like, like these aren'tgonna endanger anybody?
I mean, it could, if itwould surprise somebody if it

Right.

time, potentially.
But for the most part, likethe, you can't, I don't know.
Can you save these things?
I, I have no idea.
If you could like re straightenthat retaining wall that
is obviously compromised.

say a retaining wall looks a little, I mean, actually both
the, the first image of the barn, Imean, obviously that's beyond repair,

Right.

And replacement.
So that that's a, let nature take itscourse drop and, start over again.
And I,

probably not even, it's barely wood anymore.

was gonna say, it's not wood anymore.
It's exactly

or

Oof.

right?
It's like, it's like, yeah, it's just.
One of those things that, especiallyin this environment where we do get
more rain than, where I used to live inSouthern California where, where a wood
structure seemingly just lasts forever.
Not really, but, but for a long timeup here it's a little bit different.
We're not, we're not in, in the,the super, super Pacific Northwest
where things are actually andspongy when you push on 'em.

(21:32):
Right.
But, but here I, you know,it's definitely not, and

the super, super Pacific Northwest,

We're not,

so it.

the wet, the super wet Pacific Northwest.
So,

Ah, gotcha.
Okay.
So it's,

like, gimme, gimme your experience with Tiedown,
structural tiedown straps.
Str, I mean structural Velcro.
Structural caulking,structural tiedown straps.

is interesting that you bring this up

Okay.

and it might be because you were a recipient of one of my,
of, of one of my, uh, texts that

You're, you're, you're, this is, this was

I,

magically synergistic, like what serendipitous moment here.
And that, and you're giving away alittle too much information here.
Like, like I've

So, so it's, it's not that you've been prompted to, but it
was kind of actually fortuitous that,I, I send you this and you're like,
wow, that's, an interesting trendbecause I've, seen something else.
But, so what you showed is youshowed these really kind of
interesting and in somewhat ruralkind of solution to, a problem.

Bailing

Um.

twine and yeah, that's what

Y you know, it is kind of that, DIY and it's just
like whatever you have to kind ofhold stuff together is kind of like,
what you want to hold together.
Right.

Yep.

So let's say for instance, I don't know, you've got a, you know,
multi multimillion dollar project.
You don't expect to seethings like that, do you?

Mm-hmm.
No way.

Okay, well, let's, uh,

Especially

me, let me show you.

an engineer.

Yeah, let me show you a picture.
So this is the one of the main buildings,main focal point of a new campus
emerging Florida Polytechnic Institute.
You may look at this building andsay, wow, that looks familiar.
That seems to be.
Like a project I might have seen from,an architect maybe named Santiago Calva,

Like on

that

of something, right.
This is,

on the cover of multiple things.
Yes.

cravis structures for sure.

So, this is, it's a beautiful building, that has, that
really has an interesting kind oftake on Florida on that kind of.
protect yourself from the sun, butalmost this dappling effect like you
would get if you were sitting underneatha series of palm trees and stuff.

(24:06):
And let me, show you another photograph,

Yes.

zoom in and enhance.
So do we see,

You can see all that beautiful

so you can kind of see this like lattice work that
has got, all of the, it sort offeels like a palm tree, right?

like these

Yeah.

structures.
Very,

S

Ava.

Oh, yeah, yeah,

it's still in his color palette of white, right?
But.

yeah, exactly.
But it feels, pretty, it, it, it's a nicebuilding to be quite honest with you.
I walked around it, I walked, in thesecond floor and things and, and,
you know, you're just, it is a veryinterestingly immersive, building.
And so let me show you,another one, another building

You got another

another view.
So you know, when you're in, whenyou're in there and I gotta kind
of find all of my different, I do.
Alright, so you know, now we have,where you're inside the space and
you're walking around the space.
And so what's interesting is yousort of started this conversation

(25:15):
mentioning a thing, a few, a thing ortwo about ratchet straps and stuff.
So let me zoom in.

Mm-hmm.

Ratchet strap.
Ratchet strap.

Oh no.

Um, ratchet strap.

in the world is

Um,

on here?
Like

like all the way at the top.
Hold on.
There was one there.
Oh, you can sort of see it here.
Ratchet, strap.
You know, and so

we

you're like,

now

uh.

could actually be like, redlining this photo.

Yeah.
And you're like, well, that can't,it's just like, well, that may be like
an occurrence, you know, whatever.
Now this, this walkway goes allthe way around the building, 360,

right?

know,

this,

is.
And then if you were up on this upperplaza space, basically the same thing.

Mm-hmm.

let me, let me pull up another one.
And if you will, bear with me herewhile I, reshare my screen and bring
up a really, so here we are again.
Image

this one.
This

rich.
This one nails it.

Oh, we got a video.
Okay.
Yes.

a video, got a video.
Now as, as you can see, as I'm likewalking by more and more start to appear.
So, let's, let's see here.
Just in this view alone, you've got 1,2, 3, 4 that's basically holding this,

Trellis.

of millions of dollars worth of a building straight.

Yeah,

Very.

what is going on here?
Like, okay, 'cause I look atall the steel in this image.
There's a

Yeah.

in this

There.

steel doesn't like when it's all bolted together,
it doesn't really want to move.
What do you think isactually going on here?
Is the building settling?
Is it, is something weird?
Or is this

So

or was this hurricane?
What?

I, my, my first.
My first feeling is, is that, this isall an effect from the, the, the recent
hurricanes that came through that, madelandfall on the Gulf Coast and then
kind of made their way across the state.
And so, a lot of these areas wereaffected by, heavy gale force winds

(27:33):
heavy, tornado type, winds and stuff.
And that's understandable, right.
Buildings are intended to.
Like buildings, new buildings,however, are supposed to withstand
a lot of that because we've got alot of new regulations in Florida
that cover that, and of course, yes.

(27:53):
Let's be fair to everybody that youknow mother Nature certainly does do a
number on new old, and it doesn't matter.

care

So.

right?

It doesn't care about the codes.
However, this, this is somethingthat's new that's spent a lot.
So let me actually show you, 'cause

What year is this building,

this is, this is within the, this is not an old building.
I, I, I dare say maybe.
Maybe around 10 years, maybe less.

Okay.

But I do want to show you, if I can find it, they've got one
more photograph to, might be able toanswer your question and that is not it.
'cause I've already showed you that one.
And there we go.
Okay, so bear with me here one more time.
Everyone we are making this wholevideo share up as we go along.

You get to, you get

Uh,

you get to edit all this out.
It doesn't, doesn't even.
They're not even listening right now.

they're not, they, we've lost them.

I lost them.

So, so here's like the, this point connection
for, for all of this.

Super cool.

And, and so each of these, kinda like.
Let, let's just call 'em the,these palm esque type frons that,
interconnect together and, andmake this kind of like basket weave
all the way around the building.
And they come down and they make a,point connection here on this retaining
wall to the lake that has this,this one, one simple pin connection.

(29:24):
And I was looking at it pretty closely.
And so let's zoom in a little bit.
And the, the, the pin connectionitself, it's just one sim
simple bolt through here.
And and my assumption is, is that

bolt, but yeah.

it's a pretty big custom bolt.
Now, my assumption is, is that, because ofthe pin connection, it, it, it, there is
some built in flex and movement in here.
However, if you look at it and you lookat the way that it's some sitting somewhat
off center in the, in the plate that it.
It, there's too much play in thereand it's given, it's given way to

(30:03):
some racking under, heavy wind loads.
And and that's what basically becausethe entire basket all the way around,
and again, let's go, let's go back to,

was gonna say with like, the interesting thing about
this is like you have to lookat it like as these individual.
Pieces, but also as a whole,because the whole, it's, it's
like building a box beam, right?

Yes.

if you, if you like, I don't know if anybody
has this experience, right?
But if you.
If you have a floor with a bunch ofjoists in it, there's an amount of flex.
But as soon as you add the plywoodto the top and the bottom and

Right.

a box, oh man, like it stiffens up 10 x like way more.
And so if you

Yeah.

this building as a donut as a whole with all these pieces in all
these different directions, like lateralshould not be an issue here, it would

Yeah.
No.
And, and so, you've got, again, thisis, goes all the way around the building
in that big, donut, structural donutshape and, you've got these multiple
point connections at the base andlet's just call it the head 'cause
it kind of like, arches around andthen, they're interconnected together.

(31:14):
And so, you basically, you do have are reasonably rigid frame system here.

And these are all at diagonals.
Like there's

And there.

going on

Exactly.
Exactly.

Yeah.

And, and so then the question really is,
is sort of like what happened?

Is it

I.

Yeah.
Is this, is this totallyjust like they didn't

Is there, is there too, is there too much play within the actual,
where the, the point connection is madewhere you've got this pin connection,
you've got, this kind of u-shaped receiverwith your, your blade plate that comes in
there and they, you bolt them together.
I'm pretty sure, a lot of peopleare familiar with the, what I'm
talking about, but, you've gotthis, simple connection here.

(31:59):
I, I, I honestly feel there's way,there's way too much gapping in there

But there has to be some, right?
Like there

and there has to be some,

and,

If you, if if they do this, it's not supposed
to kinda like wave in the air.
Like you're, driving by ina, a motorcade in a parade,
hello, you know, kind of thing.
Maybe it's not supposed to do that

of

ex Exactly.

do we, we make be making a, a wrong assumption that it has

Totally could.

could this be that they were just

It is.

and didn't take the straps back down because
somebody left their position?
Like maybe this is leftover fromlast October's big hurricane.

It, it, it could very well be that, and a lot of this is,
is, and I really couldn't find anybodyother than a security guard who kind
of approached me making sure I wasn't,

You

There under nefarious needs, you know,
means or whatever, but like,

you did note that.
Like it, that, that one.
Foot that you were, that pin connectionthat you were focused in on was a little

yeah.

I

Right, right.

that could just be part of the natural play of
the structure as designed it.
It didn't look totally out of whack.
I mean, so.

It, it didn't.
But, again, now if you're, if we'relooking at this and, let's just
assume that there could literallybe like a couple hundred of these
connections that, together, theywould be, relatively rigid and

plenty.
It

that it really did.
Yeah.
And, and these, and, and unlike theexample that you showed of that one the
one structure, the, the metal buildingthat was going up, these were not
loose, these were tight as I'll get out.
They were like.
You, there was no flapping inthe breeze with these, and the

(33:52):
breeze was blowing pretty welland there was no movement in them.
So they currently right noware part of the structure?

Wow, that's really interesting.
I mean, so, okay, so the call hereis for our audience, if there's any
structural engineers in the audience, and

Yeah.
Yeah.

of this situation going on at, what's it called again?

Florida Polytechnic Institute, or sorry,
Florida Polytechnic University.

Okay.
So Florida Polytechnic University,the building by Santiago College, rva.

Right?

tie-down straps holding it.
And,

Yeah.

not just a couple, like

All the way around the donut.

all the way

All the way around.

So,

the way around.

this

We're, we're, it's, it's.

pre, pre solution to a hurricane or is this, is this
holding something together andand there's a lawsuit happening?
That's my question.

And I will say this as somebody who grew up in Florida, and you
know, I'll give you a good example likethe, the the tro Tropicana field where,
you know, the, the Tampa Bay Rays play.

Oh, yeah.

Um,

I totally know that place.

yes.
Well, they, it was a, itwas, it's a domed, um,

okay.

it's, a domed stadium where they had the, actual
dome itself was a, Tensile fabric.

Okay.

It, the hurricane came through, basically started ripping it
and it, it no longer has a roof anymore.

Oh wow.

And much like the ratchet strap solution, I really
honestly thought that, let's just callit cooler heads would've prevailed
and they would've just blue tarped it.
Because that is a thing that Floridadoes that if you, you drive, we drove, we
were driving through the, we were drivingthrough the beaches and like virtually
every roof had a blue tarp over it.

(35:42):
'cause you just the, bluetarp and is the, the,

and what's,

the temporary solution,

for?
Temporary solution for what?
Keeping water

temporary sol

from going under

keep.

and all that stuff.

Well, you know, probab probably missing shingles or some
roof damage or something like that.
So the, basically you cover overyour roof with the big blue tarp.
Um,

structural tarps.

I.
And what was, what was funny is thatwhen I was talking to people about
the, the Trop, I had said, they, we,like they could've, they missed the
opportunity to just blue tarp in it.
And of course everybody just kindof got a chuckle out of that because
the, the Florida architects thatI was talking to knows that's the
solution in Florida is blue Tarpon.

blue tar,

Blue tar pit,

the

or,

for everything.

but in this particular case, you know, this
is a ratchet strap kind of thing.
And, and, um,

There's

yeah, it's,

tarps on a kava building, but ratchet straps are acceptable.
Yes.

Well, you, you, what's interesting though was like when
you're walking around the buildingon the outside, they're strategically
placed where you can't see them.

of

Uh,

I mean,

yeah, they did, they.

There's all those shadow lines.
There's, and they're on the inside

Well that, that's why, that's why I was, when I first showed the
picture, I was sort of zoomed in, but Iwas even looking to see if I could find,

could find

you know, the,

Strategically

indication, the strategically place

to see here.

it, it's a, it's architect, architectural ratchet strapping.

Yep.
Oh my

Oh.

That's great.
I mean, so I'm glad.
I'm really happy to know thatit's not just a rural farm hand

Exactly.

Use what you've got.
This

You, you can go from

extravagant structures in the world as a solution, structural solution.

Yeah.
Yeah.
The, the, some of the most expensive,most well-engineered, beautifully designed
ratt trap, ratchet strap.
I mean,

like it.

yeah.
Ratt ratchet trap.
Yeah, exactly.

That building has trapped many ratchet straps.

Ex.
Exactly.
Exactly.
It's uh,

big net, that building, if you think about it.
All right.

yeah.
Yeah.

if, if you know the answer to what's going on with the college
travel building, I know the answer forwhat's going on with the buildings here.
It's just like, keep it from falling over.

Yeah.

Is this reactive?
Is this like what's going onwith the college R building?
Hit us up.
Arc could speak podcast.com.
And then there's afeedback link at the top.
I think it's arch speak.com/feedback.
you wanna just write into theshow and, and tell us what you
think or leave a comment on the

Or if you, or if, or if there's any architects from Florida or
structural engineers from Florida who knowthe real story, would love to hear it.

talk about

'cause we are 100% speculating.
It's just, enough.
I, I've experienced enough in mylife and seen enough in my life and
lived through, a hurricane or twoto see what it does to buildings.
And, this is very highly suspect that thiswas, either proactive or reactive to some,

Well,

know, wind damage.

50 chance, right?

50.
50.
50 chance there.
Yeah.

Pretty good.
Pretty good odds that it waseither proactive or reactive.
Yes.

Yeah.
I'm a hundred percent positive thatI don't know what I'm talking about.

Yeah, me too.
All right.
Well, that, that was fun.

I,

I hope people can check this out on YouTube, see the photos.
I'll again include them in the shownotes for this episode, but this isn't
something that we couldn't let just.

yeah.

We had,

Ex.

to talk about it on the show because, and, and another question I guess
is have, have you ever had anything likethis happen to a building that you've
worked on after the fact that you know of?
I mean, I don't even know if thisis something that we would know
of, but I can't think of anythingwhere, I mean, I've definitely done a

No.

there.
And you've done this too, right?
Where there's like kind of goingin and doing this, like structural
reinforcement of maybe un.
Mason Rebuildings, you know, way

Yeah.

fact, kind of a thing where, where they are saved in that manner from.
You know, again, being proactive

Oh yeah, yeah.

but still being able, you know, it, it, maybe it's keeping
the building from, like, there's tonsof buildings in Southern California
and Pasadena especially, wherethey went in and mandated after the
Northridge earthquake and they, they

Yeah.

Structural enhancements to go back into these old buildings
because they're all unreinforced masonry.
But then there's also thecircumstances where it's like, oh, it
literally is starting to fall over.
Like, we gotta take care of thisand they'll go in and do surgery.
On these buildings to add

Yeah.

a new skeleton inside the building and, and tie these
things together at great cost,

Oh yeah.
Yeah.
I mean.
As much adaptive reuse asI've done in my career.
And I know, and this was a conversationI was having with some students at, LTU
just a few days ago when we were talkingabout like, what should they focus on?
'cause they were asking about, like acouple of different, like, hey I gonna
take this seminar or that seminar.

(40:58):
Like, ooh, take that seminar.
And it was, about adaptivereuse and they're like, yeah,
yeah, I signed up for that one.
And it's because.
We've got such a huge inventory ofbuildings that it really is becoming more
cost prohibitive to demo and rebuild.
And so they are looking for,adaptive reuse solutions.

Mm-hmm.

And, it's all in the name Adaptive Reuse.
That means it's not beingused for the, its original its
original construction type.
And so very often you have to goback in and either, reup, support
the structure, floors, whatever.
And there's been many a case.
In fact the building that I was juston the job site a couple of days ago

(41:41):
is probably one of the largest adaptivereuse buildings that I've ever worked on.
Almost, almost a half a millionsquare feet worth of adaptive reuse.
And it's, you know, the, the original.

that a tenant improvement.
Seriously, adaptive.

that just, just a, this small LTI project?

project.

Yeah.
Well, I mean, they, they just,you know what was interesting that
they just asked Hey, we're thinkingabout doing this program here.
Can we, and, so doing a, an assessmenton what it was designed for originally,
what the original design of the floor.
Well, what the original floor wasbeen because all of this is under

(42:21):
the umbrella of the, adaptive reuseproject that we were, that we've,
that's under construction now.
And I wish I would've sentmyself that picture of.
Of that particular of the building andjust kind of like seeing some of the
the additional steel and everything elsethat we're putting onto this building.
So that, basically a building that wasnot just not designed to even support

(42:45):
the facade that we're putting on.
Now, we've gone back in and we've donea lot of structural enhancements to
add more structural steel so that wecan support the facade, support the
floor, in upgrade the floor loading.
So that we can have, ahigher capacity of live load.
But you know, so then the questionthat they had just recently asked
was, is, hey, could we, potentiallyput this particular program there?

(43:08):
I'm like, well, the bigger issueis, is that now you're introducing
a more dynamic load to it.
And so it's not designed for that.
There's like, and, and so, it's all ofthese like things that, go into place.
Yes, sir.

I know what you could do.
I

Yeah.

maybe,

Start over.

strap.

Ratchet strap.
Yeah, there you go.

I

Structural ratchet straps.

rashes, straps or, or some blue tarps I a

Yeah, there you go.

Yeah.

Exactly.
Because, it's just, yeah.
Like, and, and I think that thegrowing, the growing need for.
Architects and structural engineers tounderstand how to go back in and do all of
this work is, is, limitless in the future.
I mean, it, it's good that people arestarting to see that we should save and

(43:56):
protect our building inventory in the us.
I mean, 'cause we are, weare the slash and burn.
Kind of like, oh, it's only 30 years old.
Let's get rid of that and build a new one.
You're like, but, but, but,

I mean, what's in, if you, if you think back to the Deborah
Burke presentation at MDC where

oh, yeah.
Yeah.

it showed a lot of adaptive reuse projects.
That was really the theme of, of

Yeah.

and.
The floor to floor heights were lowand these, they were really dark.
There's only windows at theoutside edge and they're going in
and turning an old, whatever itwas, sewing machine factory into,

Yeah.

you know, something totally different.
Complete,

Yes.

the other side of the spectrum, different

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

you want

yeah,

know, shelter, women's shelter, I think was the,
the one that I'm thinking of.

yeah.

And,

remember.
I remember that project.

well, we want to cut giant holes in these waffle slabs.
Right?
to get a lot of daylight in.
We want to bring in a giant light.
Well, that cuts

Mm-hmm.

floors and we want to create these amazing spaces because
the floor to floor height's so low.
And it's like, well, yeah, conceptually.
Super cool.
Super

Yeah.

Structurally.
Like a serious design problem.
And I mean that in the best way.
Like, like this is one of thosethings where there will be people who
raise their hand immediately and belike, oh my God, we can't do that.
That costs way too much.
It's like, well, we don't know yet.
Right?
That usually that's the first responseand so let's try to find out, and
they were able to pull it off.
To great effect.
Like, I mean, it totally changes thecharacter of the building while still

(45:30):
utilizing the bones of the building

Yeah.

and really being surgical about it.
I mean, they, they had to do, doit very carefully, but they came
out with some incredible results.
And to your point about reusingthese old spaces, but still making
them actually work with whatever thenew program is for these buildings.
Is a really, really cool design problem.
And I mean, it's the, the benefits arelike, yeah, you get to keep that building.

(45:57):
You don't have to tear it down.
You don't like the sustainability,the carbon aspects, all of
those things about it are a win.
Those go in the win column, right.

Yeah.

but I mean, they, they take some serious, it's a serious challenge
too for the design team to be up to that.
And I mean, the, the engineeringof it is, is absolutely incredible.

All right.
So you, you just, sorry, I, I haveto pull this up just because I, and
I was just like, oh, man, I, I don'tthink that I, I have this picture
anymore, but a quick search on my phone.
Yes, I do.
So I gotta show you this justbecause and I kind of wish that we.
Would have, figured out a way, but I,I called it my waffle slab Parthenon.

(46:42):
Which is, it was an, it was abuilding that we were working on.
You can kind of see all theway around it, the waffle slab.
So we came in, we reinforcedit, we cut the waffle slab open.

Nice.

And then, so now you just have this like amazing,
like, shot through that, you know?
You know, unfortunately we filled it with,with plumbing and mechanical and all of
this other stuff because the floor tofloor height was so low on this, in such a
deep structure, and it was a lab building.

is just a shaft

I.
Yeah, unfortunately, unfortunatelyit ended up being just a,

this.

know, right?
And you look at this and you'rejust like, oh man, look at this.
And then of course, we, it didn't endup this way and it, and it hurt, but it
was just one of these, you were talkingabout that, and I was like, oh wait, that
reminds me of this one thing that we didthat unfortunately we never, we didn't.
Do it this way, but you know, what wasnot out out of you is the fact that we

(47:38):
completely removed all of the exteriorfacade and, and putting, went in and
putting glazing and all that other stuff.
So, we still got some light in there,

Nice,

you know,

Very cool.

but, uh,

who,

yeah,

thought, who would've thought some ratchet straps would
lead to this fun discussion, but,

I know, right?
They did.
And visit your local ACE hardware.

Yes, support your local ACE hardware for actually having
an aisle with drafting supplies.
That is

Yes.
Yeah.
Now guess what I'm gonna go do?
I'm gonna go look at my as hardware tosee if they've got some drafting supplies.

I, I am expecting a report.
Thank you very much, sir.

I will bet they've got some purple pens.
Purple pants.

It is like your gang sign right there.

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#368 - Architectural Ratchet Straps

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