| Author |
Message |
Steven Bruneel, AIA, CSI-CDT, LEED-AP, EDAC
Senior Member
Username: redseca2
Post Number: 407
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, August 29, 2013 - 04:04 pm: |    |
For an airport project I have to develop specifications for some artisan fabrications that will include onyx stone.
One will be round spheres of onyx, the size will range from 1-foot to 3-foot diameter. These will be placed on top of partial height walls in random groupings.
Another will be sheets of onyx set into metal frames to form enclosures for wall mounted uplights.
The stone will come from a known single source selected by the design architects, so I would like to keep them in one Spec Section.
As we head into this long weekend, what creative Section making would you employ? |
Robert E. Woodburn
Senior Member
Username: bob_woodburn
Post Number: 61
Registered: 11-2010
| | Posted on Thursday, August 29, 2013 - 04:35 pm: | |
12 14 14 - Random Onyx Spheres
(12 14 13 is Carved Sculpture)
04 42 44 - Stone Panels for Lighting Enclosures
(04 42 43 is Stone Panels for Curtain Walls) |
Robert E. Woodburn
Senior Member
Username: bob_woodburn
Post Number: 62
Registered: 11-2010
| | Posted on Thursday, August 29, 2013 - 04:54 pm: | |
Since onyx is a semi-precious stone used mostly in very small sizes in jewelry, this is likely going to be expensive, so I assume it's not a municipal airport in the US. Dubai, perhaps? Abu Dhabi?
For value engineering the lighting panels, you might investigate alabaster, since it too is translucent...and I believe there's at least one stone fabricator that specializes in large marble and granite spheres of the sizes you mention. Don't recall a name.
I know of only one extensive installation of onyx panels - the 3-story-high lobby walls and grand stairs in an auditorium in Pasadena, CA. Onyx from Turkey, I believe.
It exhausted the quarry (I hate when that happens...). |
Steven Bruneel, AIA, CSI-CDT, LEED-AP, EDAC
Senior Member
Username: redseca2
Post Number: 408
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, August 29, 2013 - 06:32 pm: | |
Robert,
My last spec challenge before a 4 day weekend!
This airport is actually in the US, but very close to Mexico. The design architect is a very well known Mexico City firm and the Onyx supplier is someone they work with often.
For the Onyx panels, we are looking at water jet cutting thin sheets and bonding them to tempered glass, much like laminated glass. There are several fabricators that can do this. |
Robert E. Woodburn
Senior Member
Username: bob_woodburn
Post Number: 63
Registered: 11-2010
| | Posted on Friday, August 30, 2013 - 09:56 am: | |
The glass-laminated panel scenario seems reasonable (it could mean the onyx is extremely thin, i.e., 3-4mm, like the Stone Panels product laminated to aluminum honeycomb. But the 3-foot spheres? They would each take at least a cubic yard! |
J. Peter Jordan
Senior Member
Username: jpjordan
Post Number: 608
Registered: 05-2004
| | Posted on Friday, August 30, 2013 - 11:48 am: | |
When I was doing more traveling in Mexico (or at least on the border), onyx was widely used as a craft material. From that experience, I have a bit of a problem viewing it as "semi precious" stone, but could see how you could characterize it as such. My impression is that it is widely available in Mexico and a common medium for art pieces. The piece of raw material would have to be carefully selected to exclude those with veining that could cause fractures, but I don't think this will be a problem. |
Robert E. Woodburn
Senior Member
Username: bob_woodburn
Post Number: 64
Registered: 11-2010
| | Posted on Friday, August 30, 2013 - 12:05 pm: | |
Come to think of it, in my "semi-precious stone" comment yesterday I was thinking of opal, another 4-letter word for a mineral starting with "o". Not onyx. I sit corrected... |
George A. Everding, AIA, CSI, CCS, CCCA
Senior Member
Username: geverding
Post Number: 677
Registered: 11-2004
| | Posted on Friday, August 30, 2013 - 01:39 pm: | |
My fellow unrepentant Modernists out there will remember that Mies famously used onyx in the Barcelona Pavilion. For the rest of you, Google it.
George A. Everding AIA CSI CCS CCCA
Ingersoll Rand Security Technologies
St. Louis, MO |
Lynn Javoroski FCSI CCS LEEDŽ AP SCIP Affiliate
Senior Member
Username: lynn_javoroski
Post Number: 1687
Registered: 07-2002
| | Posted on Friday, August 30, 2013 - 02:09 pm: | |
Actually, natural onyx is classified as a precious stone. A lot of what's used today is "man-made" in the sense that it's artificially colored from related minerals.
And see this related thread: http://discus.4specs.com/discus/messages/4403/2789.html?1162497611
Tugendhat Villa was created by Mies van der Rohe, too. The back wall of the living area is made of onyx panels. Don't know which came first. |
Dave Metzger
Senior Member
Username: davemetzger
Post Number: 471
Registered: 07-2001
| | Posted on Friday, August 30, 2013 - 02:37 pm: | |
They were built about the same time. The Barcelona Pavilion was the German Pavilion for the 1929 International Exposition in Barcelona; the Villa Tugendhat, in Brno, Czech Republic, was constructed between 1929 and 1930.
I visited the Villa Tugendhat in 2006 when I was in Prague and Budapest. It was showing its age at that time but still had the spare beauty and fine proportions of the original design; I understand it was renovated a few years ago. |
Anne Whitacre, FCSI CCS
Senior Member
Username: awhitacre
Post Number: 1372
Registered: 07-2002
| | Posted on Friday, August 30, 2013 - 02:38 pm: | |
I've used onyx in cocktail bars once or twice -- you can put lighting behind it and its beautiful because it glows. In this case, since it sounds like the onyx is going to be a selected subcontractor, I would invent a section called "Onyx Fabrications" and put it in Division 04 with other stone items. the example would be if you had cubic marble shapes and incidentally, had flat sheets used in another part of the project. Specify the sole source, specify the selected fabricator, and call out the fabrication standards.
on my projects, the onyx was 1" thick, and "glazed" into frames, and I actually covered it as part of the casework section for all the rest of the bar casework. |
Steven Bruneel, AIA, CSI-CDT, LEED-AP, EDAC
Senior Member
Username: redseca2
Post Number: 409
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Friday, August 30, 2013 - 05:27 pm: | |
Taking a cue from 05 50 00 - Metal Fabrications, I decided to create a Section 04 40 00 - Stone Fabrications.
There is a lot of stone on this project. In DIV 04 I already have "Dry Placed Stone" and "Veneer Stone Assemblies". In DIV 09 there is "Stone Tile" and "Stone Pavers".
Also, I was pleased to discover that the spheres will be fabricated in pieces and will not be solid. This is good, because a minute of Googling gave me a weight of 2400 pounds for the 3-foot diameter sphere.
Backlighting Onyx can be beautiful, but these fabrications are going in the public spaces of an airport, and the general lighting level will simply be too high to get a good effect.
A new addition to 04 40 00 is the spout for a reflecting pool fountain, dutifully noted on the Drawings as "Granite Gargoyle". |
Lynn Javoroski FCSI CCS LEEDŽ AP SCIP Affiliate
Senior Member
Username: lynn_javoroski
Post Number: 1688
Registered: 07-2002
| | Posted on Friday, August 30, 2013 - 05:30 pm: | |
I did a term paper in college on gargoyles...interesting elements. |
John Bunzick, CCS, CCCA, LEED AP
Senior Member
Username: bunzick
Post Number: 1529
Registered: 03-2002
| | Posted on Friday, August 30, 2013 - 05:55 pm: | |
The Barcelona Pavilion, which I have had the good fortune to see, is quite breathtaking. Really, still, it is the ultimate icon of modernism. It is actually a reconstruction, as the original was disassembled after the expo. I had heard that the parts were lost over time, but can't corroborate that. It was rebuilt in the '80s. It's worth going all the way to Spain just to see this, IMHO, although while there you can't miss the work of Gaudi. |
Brett Scarfino (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 04, 2013 - 02:24 pm: | |
For what its worth, there was extensive "honey" onyx used on the lobby of the Israel Foreign Ministry building (see link below or google it). From my digging, 30 mm slabs were glazed into the curtain wall...no need to worry about issues that might arise when laminating to glass.
Onyx is essentially an ancient cave where stalagmites/tites all grew together to form a solid mass - back lighting brings out this 3D structure.
One other thought - the finish is easily damaged by acids, similar to marble. Think cleaning, lotions (if people can touch it)...etc.
http://www.topboxdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Foreign-Ministry-of-Israel-interior-hallway-public-building.jpg |
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