Reviving History: Building Stone Technology Aids Restoration Projects
So many communities in Canada strive to maintain their historical landmarks and buildings, often in older, core districts, and sometimes at great cost. In addition to economic challenges, our civil responsibility to preserve the past is met with very real feasibility issues as well.
When the decision is made to restore or add-on to an existing historical building, architects are faced with the issue of sourcing building materials which deliver both historical aesthetics and today’s structural requisites. In particular, matching building stone is a tremendous challenge. Over several decades, masonry materials change for good: quarries are closed or colour runs are depleted making the original natural stone unavailable, and even manufactured products are discontinued over time.
On a number of recent restoration projects, all in the Ottawa-Gatineau region, architects found a solution with Arriscraft building stone, an all-natural product with remarkable authenticity and custom colour capabilities. Having first attempted to source a natural (quarried) stone, each architect selected an Arriscraft building stone that provided a seamless match to their historical building in terms of colour, format and finish.
Jason Nieman, Director of Quality and Development at Arriscraft, explains the process of colour development for historical restoration stone matching. “A sales representative investigates the existing stone to first determine which of our standard product line offers the best sizing and texture match to the original building. Then a photo or actual stone piece is acquired to determine the desired colour; in the lab, we develop small samples for colour approval.”
Arriscraft’s custom capabilities are unique in the industry, according to Mr. Nieman. “The lab samples are created by adding stable iron oxide pigments into our sand/lime mix to produce matching colours and then autoclaved to get the final colour and strength. Our unique process allows us to blend multiple colours into the units creating a striation similar to what one would find in the natural stone. We can have colours blend so that they “come and go” to create a range of colour as well, if needed.”
Once the lab sample is approved for colour match, larger production samples are built into a site panel for on-site review and approval. Critically important, this technical process of colour matching is only one part of the equation, however. The innate nature of Arriscraft building stone lends the historical quality: its fine-grained, through-body matrix mimics the appearance of the natural limestones and sandstones originally used to construct historical buildings.
This ‘through-body’ or ‘full-bed’ characteristic means that the colour is blended throughout the entire stone, enabling masons to manipulate the material on-site to create corners where they need to. Other manufactured stone can also have a fine-grained appearance, but once split during installation, the larger aggregate particles are exposed.
Steve Lacelle, an Ottawa-area sales representative for Arriscraft, has extensive experience with historical restoration projects, some of which are profiled in this article. While visual matching is key, he comments on further advantages to using Arriscraft stone, versus natural, quarried stone. “Our stone is almost ready to be laid when it arrives on-site. Natural stone masons have to cut to size and dress quarried products, which takes a great deal of time. Our clients realize significant savings in labour costs; as well, the material cost of Arriscraft stone is much less than purchasing natural quarried stone.”
Mr. Lacelle shared his experiences on three recent historical restorations.
 Project 1:McPhail Memorial Baptist Church 249 Bronson Street, Ottawa ON Located in the heart of historical Ottawa and named after the well-known Scottish missionary, Daniel McPhail, the McPhail Memorial Baptist Church was built in 1888. The architectural firm Farrow Dreesen Architects originally specified Arriscraft’s Adair limestone for a small building addition, including an entrance. After visiting the church, Mr. Lacelle (of Arriscraft) specified a custom colour of Everest building stone for the knee wall; this selection was almost a perfect match to the 125-year old existing knee wall on the remainder of the building. |
 Project 2:Office Building 85 rue Victoria, Gatineau PQ Ann-Lynn St-Cyr (architect) was hired for a complete recommissioning of the historical building at 85 rue Victoria into a multiple office complex. Having difficulty finding a natural stone that would complement the existing building, Ms. St-Cyr opted for Arriscraft Everest building stone. The facade had to maintain the heritage of the building and required intricate matching of new building stone amongst existing 19th century stone. The finished project includes restoration of window and door detailing, as well as a substantial addition. |
Project 3: Also located in historic Gatineau, the Chateau de L’Ile retirement home required a substantial addition. The original building features a rocked block-style stone for which Arriscraft’s Renaissance® rocked face was an ideal match. In addition to expanding the historical section of the retirement home, the Renaissance® stone was easily incorporated into a new multi-residential building that is a part of the complex, providing continuity with the historic building. |