HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2013-10-24, Page 22PAGE 22. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2013.
Continued from page 21
broken, Rutledge said, he did
duplicate the original building’s
brickwork for the addition. He had
the bricks specially made to match
the building.
Rutledge said was careful not to
use reclaimed brick. It’s getting to
the point now, he says, that he feels
reclaimed brick should be saved and
not used in new buildings, but only
to repair buildings that already use
reclaimed brick.
“They’re in such short supply,”
Rutledge said. “We shouldn’t be
building new with reclaimed brick.”
For the building’s windows,
Rutledge says, he brought in double-
glazed, energy efficient windows
made by Kolbe, which are made in
the U.S.
It was important, Rutledge says, to
get the right windows for the project,
because a heritage project lives and
dies with its windows.
“Making sure the windows are
done correctly in heritage projects is
the most important thing to do,”
Rutledge said. “I can’t emphasize
that enough.”
If the windows don’t look right, he
said, the end result of the project will
be “weak” adding that in many ways
the windows are the “eyes” of the
building and what everyone looks to.
“The windows are sort of make-it-
or-break-it,” he says. “That’s where
you want to spend the money.”
Another important factor of the
project was improving the building’s
energy efficiency.
While improving energy
efficiency has become a “buzz”
topic lately, Rutledge says that
major changes can come from small
measures and that often home
owners do too much when trying to
improve efficiency.
Rutledge only improved theinsulation in the current building’sroof and installed energy efficientwindows to help improve energyconsumption. Both measures,however, will make a hugedifference he says.“Often-times people do too muchand they spend too much money onit,” Rutledge said about efficiencyimprovements. “They take it too
far.”
For the addition, however, it is
now insulated to fit today’s building
standards and will be heated through
in-floor concrete heating, which he
said is very efficient.
That type of heating came as the
result of a request from the Huron
East Building Committee, Rutledge
said, adding that it was a “good”
request.
In addition, Rutledge said, the
windows for the addition are much
taller than some in the original
building, allowing much more
natural light, allowing the sun to
bring in heat in the winter, and
breeze in the summer.
In order to make the building
accessible, the first goal of the
renovation, Rutledge had to install a
60-foot ramp. One of the tougher
changes he had to make, Rutledge
says, was to abandon the corner
entrance to the library. There
was just no feasible way to install a
ramp to the corner entrance and
make it “fit” within the looks of the
building.
In some of the earlier drafts of
plans for the addition, Rutledge
says, he “toyed” with the idea of an
interior ramp, but abandoned those
plans soon after.
The part of the building near the
corner entrance, that used to be the
library’s foyer, has now been turned
into a corner reading room, which
Rutledge hopes will attract a lot of
attention once the project is finished.
While Rutledge says he feels he
was brought in due to his heritage
building expertise and his work on
the Wingham Library, he says the
Brussels Library was a completely
different project from the one hetook on in Wingham.“The Wingham Library had satvacant for over 40 years,” Rutledge said. “It was in very, very roughcondition.”He basically started from scratch
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Continued on page 23Windows most important heritage aspect; Rutledge
Bring in the light
“Spider” transoms have helped to connect the windows of
the Brussels Library, says architect John Rutledge, who
has placed the transoms on the windows in the library and
on its new addition. The idea came to him when old
transoms from the library were discovered in the building’s
walls. (Shawn Loughlin photo)