Backfill: Nail-Banging 101: Final Exam

Impossible, you say? The Barrow Street Building in Anchorage, Alaska, is just such a building and demonstrates what can be done with some wood and nails. It’s not quite as simple as that, but close. The grade-level story actually is an above-grade basement with masonry walls, and the first-floor and mezzanine levels use 2×8 studs. The floor joists are all 2×10, though spacing varies at 12, 16 or 24 inches o.c. Designed and built by the architectural firm of Lane Knorr Plunkett with engineering assistance from SCHR-Barkshire, Inc., the building was completed in October 1982 at a cost of $67 a square foot. The firm chose wood for the structure because steel and masonry couldn’t meet