Penn State Students Visit Masonry Lab
Pennsylvania College of Technology's School of Construction and Design Technologies hosted architecture students from The Pennsylvania State University on Monday, as masonry students schooled the University Park contingent in the hands-on consequences of building design. Spending much of the day in the college's Carl Building Technologies Center, the Penn Staters picked up their trowels
– and more than a few pointers
– as they learned a variety of hands-on techniques necessary to breathe life into their blueprints. Richard R. Motter and Glenn R. Luse, instructors of building construction, also worked with students, who were encouraged to remember the high quality and low maintenance of masonry work when developing their eventual construction plans. The informal exchange (which will move to new laboratory space across campus next year) has become a spring tradition at the college, which enjoys major support from industrial partners that include Watsontown Brick, Glen Gery Corp., Beavertown Block and the Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers Union Local #5.
— Photos by Tom Wilson, news bureau writer/editor
All eyes are on Fred Fischer, of Caretti Inc., Camp Hill (and father of Jeffrey W. Fischer, a part-time architectural technology faculty member at Penn College), as he displays his craftsmanship.
Anthony Mirachi, from the Harrisburg-based Bricklayers & Allied Craftworkers Local Union No. 5 of Pennsylvania, shows a Penn State student how to correctly "butter" a brick for maximum adhesion and minimal waste of materials.
Penn College masonry student Benjamin J. Johnson hammers home the importance of the keystone in construction of an arch ...
... to successful effect for these ecstatic Penn State visitors, whose creation still stands after removal of the wooden template on which it was fashioned
Penn College President Davie Jane Gilmour assesses a guest's hands-on experience ...
... and gets a closer look at another student's quick study on a course of bricks
Penn State students get an abbreviated lesson in block-laying from Penn College's Zachary T. Bartlett.
Richard R. Motter, instructor of building construction at Penn College, elicits a smile from a fast-learning architecture student.
Framed by a masonry-lab exercise, students affix mountain stone to the wall.
