Architects of Defense
I
‘WE HAVE just been awarded a contract for airplanes — which means we’ll need 400,000 to 500,000 square feet of additional floor space within three months. Can it be done?’ came a telephone message from the Glenn L. Martin Company in Baltimore.
‘It can,’ was our reply. ‘We’ll be in your office tomorrow morning.’
Four of us tackled the problem the morning of our arrival in Baltimore, and within six hours several studies were ready to submit. They were approved by the owners that day. Within another twenty-four hours the structural steel drawings were ready, and with these in hand bids were called on a pound price. The contract was placed immediately for five weeks’ delivery — actually the steel came through in four. Meantime, further work on the plans was carried on at our home office in Detroit. One contract after another was placed, and in just eleven weeks from the day of that phone call the building was turned over to the owners ready for occupancy.
That, however, was in 1939 when building materials were plentiful, contractors were hungry for work, and labor was easily available. In the emergency of 1942 even greater speed is demanded in spite of priority rulings, union regulations, and the scarcity of skilled labor and materials. This means work night and day — it means racing against time. Never in the history of the country has so vast an amount of industrial building been under way. The government-established forty-hour week has gone by the boards. It is now the sixty-hour week with time and one-half for all work over forty hours and, in many instances, double time. And still jobs are undermanned. At that, the impossible is being accomplished. Within a few more months, millions and millions of additional square feet of floor space will be available for turning out material.
It should be remembered that much of the work to be done is new to the manufacturer: automobile manufacturers undertake the building of tanks, guns, or airplanes; rubber and paint companies, munitions; chemical concerns, the manufacture of shells. The first thing to be determined is the process: tentative layouts are discussed and a definite scheme is agreed upon. When the process and machinery layouts are established, the architect is called in. He determines the type of building best suited to the problem, the plan, the proper column spacings, the clearances necessary for conveyers, cranes, and the like, whether the daylighted or windowless plant is to be adopted, how and where raw materials are to enter, and where the completed product is to emerge for shipment. At the same time, study is given to the employees’ facilities — locker rooms, lunch rooms, cafeterias, toilet rooms, first aid and employment departments.
Even without a definite knowledge of the site, sketch plans can be prepared of the railway sidings, employees’ entrances, the administration building, heating plant, garage, foundry, forge shop, oil storage, and parking lot. During the period of negotiations the structural problems are given a preliminary test, careful consideration being given to what materials are available and can best be employed. Many structural steel shapes are difficult to obtain at present. To await special rollings would mean months of delay. Therefore the stock lists are scanned for material which is at hand.
While fabrication of the structural steel is proceeding, the architectural as well as the mechanical working drawings and specifications are developed. Contracts for the general excavation, and sometimes for the foundations up to grade as well, are next placed, so that all may be ready for the erection of steel the moment it arrives. Contracts for the balance of the work follow, preferably placed under one general contract, though frequently the contracts for the mechanical trades, such as plumbing, heating, electrical work, and others, are let separately. Finally, a construction time schedule is drawn up in consultation with the contractors. All such preliminary work is well along when the final ‘go ahead’ is received from Washington.
II
Now begins the race against time. The structural steel contract is the first to be placed, for this is the bottleneck in most building projects today. It is often let within a few days on a pound price basis.
Let me give you one example of speedy work — the new Buick plant for the manufacture of airplane motors in Melrose Park, Illinois. The general contract was placed on March 15 last year, a Saturday. On Monday morning, with the ground still covered with snow and frost several feet deep, excavating machines began operations. The main building has a ground floor area of approximately 1,000,000 square feet and a basement of 320,000 square feet. Attached to the main factory is a threestory and basement office building with a total of 56,400 square feet. In the rear of the plant are forty-five dynamometer test cells, one for propeller tests, all of exceedingly difficult construction. In addition there are the personnel building, the heating plant, a master substation, a parking lot, and other adjuncts. The excavation began on March 17,1941, and the building was substantially complete by the end of September — that is, six months from the day the contract was placed. An ordinary eight-room residence usually takes that long to build!
Here is a case where figures will talk: It required 10,000 tons of structural steel, 5,500,000 cubic feet of excavation, 1,200,000 cubic feet of reinforced concrete, 2500 tons of reinforcing steel, 145,000 panes of glass in 186,000 square feet of steel sash. There are 79,000 lineal feet, or nearly 15 miles, of heating pipes, 575 motor-driven fans for ventilation; 75 miles of electric conduit; 250 miles of electric wire and cable; 9500 fluorescent light fixtures, each four to five feet long. Three hundred thousand pounds of copper were required for power wiring alone. Ten transformer substations and a master substation supply 30,000 kw. for power and light. There are 38 toilet rooms, 172 wash fountains, and 60 drinking fountains. Eight thousand lineal feet of railroad siding had to be constructed. There are 13,000 lockers for men and women, for three shifts have been installed; also a cafeteria to seat 2000 at one sitting, and additional lunch rooms for 1200. A paved parking area for 3500 cars has been built. The necessary concrete roads constructed around the plant are equivalent to a twenty-foot strip, six miles long.
This is but one of the new buildings for aviation; many of them are much larger. Not less than 40,000,000 square feet, or over 900 acres, of additional floor space are under construction or have been completed for this industry alone.
A government project, the Chrysler Tank Arsenal, went up in record time. In September 1940 this company was awarded a contract for one thousand 28-ton tanks. A new plant was necessary. The site selected was a cornfield some twelve miles from the centre of Detroit. The structure decided upon was 500 feet by 1300 feet, approximately three blocks long. Work on the foundations was begun late in September 1940. The winter weather was a handicap; yet the main structure, heating plant, administration, personnel building, garage and parking lot were ready for occupancy in April 1941, again within six months’ time. Today tanks are rolling out of this plant in large numbers, with production increasing daily.
III
The opportunity to build from scratch is bound to produce innovations. New, for instance, is the trend today to erect plants in outlying districts where ample land is available and future expansion possible. New also are the so-called windowless plants. With fluorescent lighting recently developed and air conditioning now quite reliable, certain advantages are rightfully claimed for them. They make for simpler and speedier construction and provide a uniformity of light and temperature scarcely possible in the daylighted plants. With manufacturing carried on twenty-four hours a day as at present, the cost of operation is probably no higher. When we return to the normal eight-hour day, however, this is likely to prove otherwise. Accordingly manufacturers who are building their own plants and expect to meet severe competition later adhere in the main to the older type. Many question the effect upon workers of being entirely shut off from daylight. This, however, only experience can determine. The Government is inclined to favor the windowless building because of possible blackouts.
An innovation lately employed in numerous plants is the placing of locker rooms, lunch rooms, and toilets in excavated basements off wide passageways from which workers enter and leave the plant. Numerous stairways lead to the factory floor above. This arrangement avoids much objectionable travel in the work aisles of the main plant, affords lounging space for the different shifts and, what is particularly important, places these utilities where they will never interfere with future expansion. Furthermore, these excavated basements of heavy reinforced concrete construction will serve as bomb shelters if needed. Where this is not feasible the Government requires that provision be made for connections with underground shelters.
We are likely to forget that the modern plant is the product of only forty years. Prior to 1900, what were most of our manufacturing plants? Groups of isolated buildings with little relation to one another, no farseeing general plan, each structure built for a certain particular work with little if any arrangement for expansion. The so-called New England mill type, consisting of uniformly spaced masonry piers with windows between and heavy timber construction inside, had served as an early model. Protected by the sprinkler system, an invaluable American invention, this construction proved to be a great advance over the earlier buildings of heavy masonry walls and few windows, wood or cast iron columns, wood joists and floors — a highly inflammable combination.
Then came the automobile. The automobile industry required larger floor areas, free of columns, than were possible in standard mill construction. The builder turned to the use of steel columns and girders with heavy plank floors. But this meant increased cost and heavier insurance rates because unprotected steel is more easily destroyed by fire than heavy timber. At just the right moment reinforced concrete came to the rescue. It had been in use in Europe where labor was cheap. It had been tried in this country — with little encouragement at first because it was slow to construct and required greater care in building. Furthermore, reinforced concrete met with stiff opposition from the steel industry, which feared the appearance of a formidable rival.
The automobile manufacturers quickly saw the advantages of the new construction. It was very rigid, free from vibration, capable of carrying heavy loads; it provided maximum glass areas with a minimum of masonry; above all, it was as nearly fireproof as possible. Furthermore, it was easy of maintenance, reasonable in cost, and attractive in appearance. Presently other manufacturers followed. Most manufacturing buildings of the kind were from four to six stories high, seventy-five or eighty feet wide, with usually sixty-foot courts between. To make use of the full ground floor area — always the most valuable space — these courts were often covered with glass.
An important change took place about 1920. It was introduced by Henry Ford, who is responsible for so many innovations in factory design and operation. After erecting innumerable multiplestory buildings throughout the country, Ford came to the conclusion that they were uneconomical, that the time wasted in raising and lowering materials was a mistake. He promptly abandoned his multiple-story buildings, erecting in their place one-story steel structures with occasional portions two stories high, and putting as many departments as possible under one roof. With greatly enlarged floor areas, free of columns, operations were more economical, supervision was more efficient, and the expansion of departments, when needed, much simpler.
Mr. Ford has never hesitated to do the unusual. Consider his new Press Shop at River Rouge, Michigan, a twostory structure with the ground floor used for the storage of materials. Presses, some of them weighing 500 tons, were placed on the second floor, which is reserved entirely for manufacture. I know of no one else who would have dared this plan. The second-floor construction is of three-quarter-inch solid steel plates secured to steel girders; this support was essential if the presses were to be moved as the new operations demanded. The building is approximately 3000 feet long and required some 27,000 tons of structural steel. Erected on poor soil, it required another 25,000 tons of steel piling to carry, in addition to the loads of the building itself, a three-foot concrete mat over a large area which in turn supported the heavy presses.
Multiple-story manufacturing buildings are now rare except in urban districts where land areas are proscribed, or where special processes require them. Most of the new emergency plants are of the one-story type. In industrial planning it is important that the building be as far as possible uniform in construction, so that departments may be easily moved from one place to another. Adjuncts such as powerhouses, foundries, forge shops, and the like must be placed so as not to interfere with future growth.
An important New England tool manufacturing company recently abandoned a plant of some thirty-two buildings, built at different times and scattered over an enormous area; scarcely two floors were on the same level; bridges connected some, others were quite isolated. Today this company operates all departments in a new building, all under one roof, and produces more than double the former output in the same floor area. Needless to say, the cost of manufacture is considerably reduced, for the company now has an orderly arrangement. Raw materials are delivered at the proper place by both rail and truck, and travel a carefully planned route for machining, sub-assembly, and final assembly, to the point where the finished product is boxed and shipped.
IV
Structural steel permits of large spans and makes possible column spacings limited only by the cost involved. Every manufacturer will agree that the fewer the supporting columns the more serviceable the plant, the easier the placing of machinery and production lines. Every column wastes (counting necessary clearances) not loss than eight or ten square feet of floor space — a considerable total in a large plant. Probably the widest area under one roof, without a column in it, is that in the Glenn L. Martin plant at Baltimore for the assembly of giant planes. It is 300 by 700 feet. The room would house four football fields. Trusses 30 feet high, placed 40 feet above the floor, span from one side to the other. Ample daylight is introduced through the roof monitors. Two-hundred-foot spans are common today.
In some of our new plants we have used the so-called monitor beam construction. In this, the supporting beams follow the outline of the roof monitors. The beams are notched with a burner, removing one flange and the web of the beam. The beam is then bent to shape, stiffened by inserted transverse plates at the points of bend when necessary, and welded according to the calculated stresses. This construction makes for an attractive interior, since it avoids the many-membered trusses ordinarily used, increases overhead daylight, and simplifies upkeep and maintenance. The scheme is applicable up to certain spans, beyond which any beam construction would be uneconomical.
To keep the roof loads as light as possible, steel decking, gypsum plank, and cement tile are largely used; for the floors, concrete which is often covered with wood blocks laid in mastic. Except in windowless buildings, glass areas as large as possible are generally employed with provisions both inside and out for easy cleaning. To avoid glare, and also to absorb much of the sun’s heat, special glass is largely used.
Heating and artificial lighting present problems susceptible of different solutions. Low-pressure steam, hot water, hot air, or a combination may supply the heat. For the factory portion we generally rely on so-called unit heaters, and for the office section on steam and hot water radiation. The factory portion is usually heated to 60°, with the offices 70° in zero weather. Proper ventilation is equally imperative. While artificial air cooling is on the increase, it is as yet used only in a limited way. In windowless plants, and in certain departments where uniformity of temperature and humidity is essential, air cooling and heating are automatically controlled.
Today fluorescent lighting is widely employed because it closely resembles daylight. From 40 to 50 foot-candles per square foot are easily possible. Ample power wiring must be provided and must be so designed to permit quick changes when departmental rearrangements require them.
Parking facilities are a necessary adjunct to modern factory buildings. With many of these in outlying districts, the workers use motorcars to reach them, four or five men joining in the use of one car. This will be increasingly true with tire restrictions. Provision for five or six thousand cars is common in large plants. Since approximately 200 square feet per car are required, a parking area of 1,000,000 square feet is not infrequent.
Last but not least, we come to the external appearance of the modern plant. Strictest economy must prevail in manufacturing buildings, especially in National Defense projects. Therefore elimination of non-essentials and of everything not purely utilitarian is imperative. The very observance of this requirement, however, often makes for successful design. As a rule, the most direct and straightforward solution produces the best-looking structure. More buildings suffer from too much ornamentation than from too little. Just as the mere clothing of the skeleton of a modern airplane by designers with an eye for line and a sense of fitness produces an object of beauty, so the frank expression of the functional, the structural, element of the industrial building makes for success. External beauty — at least in industry — is the result of good planning, grouping, and proportion. None of these need add to the cost of the structure. Size in itself is an important element in design fully recognized by the architect. Occasionally a client is particularly solicitous about the appearance of his factory, and occasionally it proves difficult to dissuade him from building a classic temple.
V
What is to become of these vast projects after the emergency? This is a question frequently asked. The answer, in the writer’s opinion, is this: With the emergency past, these plants will be called upon to carry on. The country will not again make the mistake it did after the past war, dropping all defense work. We shall no doubt continue to have a standing army. This will require replacements and new equipment continuously. The Government may decide to operate many of the new plants, probably not on a twenty-four-hour but on the normal eight-hour basis, or it may employ those now operating them to continue. Very wisely these new plants are of the most modern type and of permanent construction — quite different from the temporary structures erected during the First World War and since destroyed or replaced. Those not used by the Government will probably be sold to private concerns. There is little doubt that with the return to normal conditions this country must supply many goods to the devastated countries abroad. Not only the plants erected during this emergency, but many new ones, will be required. This may seem an overoptimistic view, but the writer feels very sanguine on this point.
The present emergency is teaching the industrial architect and engineer how to plan swiftly, exactly, and with foresight. It has demonstrated beyond question the advantages of building in such a way that expansion is easily possible, of placing as many departments as practical under one roof, of eliminating dividing walls, and of keeping the construction uniform.
New materials and new processes have been speedily developed — various types of glass for heat resistance and the prevention of glare; plastics; new forms of clay tile which make for speedier and more economical wall construction; acoustic materials for deadening noise; various insulating materials which conserve heat; and more economical methods of ventilation and air conditioning. It is heartening to see the eagerness with which these new materials have been adopted. We also give thanks for the more lenient building codes, for earlier codes have needlessly increased building costs and delayed construction.
A sizable problem was met and fairly dealt with in the selection of contractors. By pooling the personnel and equipment of several large firms, results have been achieved which were never before possible. This was first attempted in the construction of Boulder Dam, where six companies joined forces and completed the work two years ahead of schedule. It was later adopted by the Bureau of Yards and Docks in building the many naval bases in the Atlantic and Pacific, and has since been used in many other projects. This plan has produced a closer coöperation between the designing engineer and the contractors. Here, then, are the innovations and the coöperation which will surely play an important part in the blueprint of the future.