The Challenge of Unknown Substrate Capacities for the Re-cladding of the Houston Chronicle Building

The Houston Chronicle Building is a 10-story office and administration tower representing a landmark building of the city of Houston, Texas. The building is sited on a city block bounded by Texas Avenue, Travis Street, Prairie Avenue and Milam Street. The current façade of this building consists of 7/8" thick marble panels that are currently experiencing bowing and dishing as a result of the "hysteresis" of the marble panels. In addition, seasonal volumetric changes have created dysfunctional conditions with respect to the behavior of the expansion joints. Once the owner became aware of the problem, a proactive initiative was taken, and a decision to re-clad the building was made. A design team composed of engineers, architects, and contractors was put together with the purpose of generating a new façade meeting aesthetics and functional requirements. One of the biggest challenges in this re-cladding project was the unknown substrates of the building. The Houston Chronicle Building is a composite of four structures — the original Houston Chronicle Building built in 1909, the Palace Theater built in 1910, the Milam Building built in 1922, and the four-story addition built north of the original Chronicle building in 1937. Each building has its own distinctive architecture and design. In 1967, the Chronicle owners initiated a major step in the history of the building by attempting to create one single building; the culmination of this effort is the current façade. Unfortunately not enough records exist that document the critical changes during the early additions between 1910 and 1939, including the major renovation that occurred in 1967. This paper presents the methodology utilized by the design team to determine strategies to investigate a building, containing different substrates which is intended to receive a new façade that meets current building code demands (i.e. wind loads), state-of-the-art anchorages, and other miscellaneous requirements under very stringent deadlines imposed by the demands of this project.