Interior Finishes
3009 Post Oak Building is one of two class A office buildings to be built in Houston’s Uptown/Galleria area in the last 20 years. One of the main elements of the building is the two story transparent lobby that features 5,400 sq. ft. of 3 cm flamed Chinese Luna Pearl granite floors with 1” wide stainless steel inserts abutting the art glass wall. The elevator lobbies also feature 1300 sq. ft. of 3 cm polished Turkish Bianco Dolomite marble walls, 600 sq. ft. of 3 cm polished Chinese Luna Pearl granite floors and 300 sq. ft. of 2 cm chiseled Vietnamese pure Crystal White marble at the feature walls.
Camarata Masonry Systems, Ltd. (CMS) was responsible for all stone shop drawings and the supply and installation of the interior and exterior stone. The interior stone was inclusive of the upper elevator lobby’s 1 cm polished Turkish Dolomite marble walls and floors and the 3 cm polished Chinese Luna Pearl granite lavatory tops in the core restrooms on 20 floors. The tops had a “knife edge” front treatment and were “floating” (not touching the adjacent walls). The 12” x 24” Blane Linen and 2” x 24” Noir Linen ceramic tile core restroom walls and floors were supplied and installed by CMS. In addition, CMS engineered, supplied and installed the exterior stone consisting of the 6” thick steps weighing approximately 20,000 pounds, the 3” thick benches and 6,600 sq. ft. of 3 cm walls, cap and paving; all fabricated from flamed Chinese Luna Pearl granite.
CMS faced many challenges on the project. One of the most significant was the fact that all of the interior lobby and exterior plaza paving joints had to align and the interior elevator lobbies’ paving joints and wall joints had to align. Another challenge was the design of the paver and wall pattern for the stone and ceramic tile. All were installed in a running bond (one half bond) pattern with large dimension pieces (the interior stone pavers measured 1’6” wide x 4’6” long). This requires a great deal of fabrication and installation precision since any warped or out of plane surfaces will magnify themselves in the form of surface lips. Even with a tremendous amount of natural and artificial light the surfaces are remarkably flat. Attention to detail was further demonstrated by the requirement to “dry lay” onsite the interior elevator lobby walls, paving and feature walls. Additional material was imported to accommodate this effort. Finally, although it is never noticed unless it is not done, CMS floated the bathroom walls in the lavatory top alcoves to ensure that the 2” gap around the floating top remained consistent.
The end result is a visually stunning building with a main lobby, elevator lobbies and core restrooms whose clean lines belie their complexity.