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Component Manufacturing dverti$er
Adverti$er
Don’t Forget! You Saw it in the
March 2018 #10224 Page #6
Part One: Wood Components in Multi-Family Housing 1960 to 1979
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arden style apartments have been good for the truss business, but have morphed into an almost unrecognizable beast. In making this transition, component manufacturers have built on 40+ years of experience, and have conquered this beast, but not without transforming design, manufacturing, and logistics. Here is a quick survey of this 50-year roller coaster ride. 1960’s: Those repetitive, rectangular apartment buildings of old provided an ideal venue for trusses, even in stick-framed markets, but not initially. The trend and the term, “garden style,” began in Southern California before wood trusses were popularized. The rapid population growth there and the ready acceptance of wood construction encouraged development of large complexes like the one shown in the photo. Boatloads of old-growth green Douglas Fir arrived in Long Beach, dried in the desert air, and rapidly transformed the landscape to accommodate tens of thousands of defense and oil industry workers. The open “garden-like” spaces of these so-named complexes had great appeal to young family-oriented transplants. The boxy buildings on concrete slabs with nearly flat roofs were easily framed by local carpenters. Even the arrival of components in the Sixties had little impact on these projects. In fact, solid sawn floor joists are still prevalent in new apartment construction in Southern California. Floor trusses didn’t enter the apartment arena until the Seventies, and not in California.
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