Twentieth Century Building Materials

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Twentieth Century Building Materials
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History

• Michael Tomlin sees the development of American
  building practice as evolutionary, not
  revolutionary. The two major new compelling
  factors added to the historic scarcity and high
  cost of skilled labor he suggests are
• Lower costs.
• National distribution, broadening markets.
• New technology is largely developed as a
  substitute for existing technology. (Most
  products are market-oriented, developed for an
  established need)

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Changing manufacturing techniques

• Traditional manipulation of building materials by
  mechanical means.
• Sawn, planed, shaped, nailed.
• New materials were ground, mixed, heated, pressed
  largely working with a plastic media that could
  be molded.
• Depends much more on the adhesive binders.

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New materials standardized through product trade
organizations

• American Plywood Association, now retitled as the
  Engineered Wood Association.
• 1. Founded in 1933 as the Douglas Fir
  Association
• Gypsum Association
• 1. Founded in 1930.

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Standards and Testing

• Product Standards and mechanisms for testing were
  developed for new products and materials.
• American Society for Testing and Materials.
• Underwriters Laboratories.
• Consumer products testing since 1894.

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Universal Hydraulic Testing Machine
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Government interventions into manufacturing sector

• Recommendations in World War I
• Military applications create new materials and
  product lines with domestic applications.
• Phenolic resin laminate. (formica).
• Plywood.
• Problems of oversupply.
• Government financial backing in building trades
  created regulations that favored one product line
  over another.
• FHA. Home owners Loan Corporation preferred
  gypsum over fiberboard because of its fire
  resistance.

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Plastics and Synthetics

• Invented in 1930s, but mass use becomes important
  in post World War II.
• Polyvinyl Chlorides, and extruded products.
• 1960s sees the shift from poly-sulfides to
  urethanes and silicones.