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Walk in the Construction Research Laboratory Medley, and you feel that you have more on a film. Mock-up glass and steel skyscrapers are in rows, two or three floors. The water shot dozens of sprinkler, cascades down walls.

But Sylvester Stallone is not producing another action movie. The models of buildings from around the world, constructed under consideration for air and water tightness, structural performance and resistance to earthquakes and extreme temperatures.

Construction Research is the largest factory of verification for the construction of the outside, is known in the industry as curtainwalls. Here, generations of high house fronts - from New York’s World Trade Center Hong Kong’s Bank of China - are stamped “certified” before the first glass is installed.

In the economy of 27 years, the company verwitterten 1990, a decrease of higher domestic production through a reorientation of the construction on the international market. Foreign building now includes 20 to 25 per cent of their construction activity in the Far East to the head.

An example: a construction of research recent tests was 88-for the twin towers of the history of downtown Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the promise of two of the highest office buildings on earth.

Customers are subcontractors or architects, designs and specifications describe levels of performance. They send their own materials and teams Iron Workers, glazers, insulators and installers to replicate a piece of future building, said John Ely, senior test engineer.

The Mock-up of up to 70 metres high, you go to one of the tests, more than 40 rooms. According to the specifications of architects, they are so high that winds 311 km / h, precipitation equal to eight centimetres per hour and the temperature varies from 20 degrees below zero to a stifling 180 degrees.

“The tests we do, not for disaster,” said Ely. “It is for the daily performance criteria.”

Water and air infiltration are common failures: Up to 90 per cent of curtainwalls is not the first water test because of processing or design, he said. Changes are made, until the Mock-up arrived.

The company has tested more than 4000 tall buildings, the Chicago Beach Resort Hotel in Dubai on the Sears Tower in Chicago, said Richard Sembello, Principal and Vice President. Locally, companies are signatories to the nation on Bank Tower (Tower of the former CenTrust) and First Union Financial Center, both in downtown Miami.

Construction of the research responsibility stops after the sample tested. “We can not control the quality of the facility,” said Sembello. “A small percentage of buildings tested unconditioned. They do not follow the same procedure as we did here.”

If that happens, staff check the structure, conduct limited inspections and remediation fight.

Most testing is done with the help of models, but also carry out checks on the ground. Its principal and chairman, A.A. “Sak” Sakhnovsky, will visit the World, which is independent reports on curtainwalls.

Sakhnovsky, founded the company in 1968, taumelte in testing business 40 years, as has been professor of chemistry at the University of Miami. Question of part-time work at the University of housing laboratory in south-Dade, until it is finished, it runs for 13 years. If FOR decided to disengage from this activity, the device Sakhnovsky purchased for $ 3000.

“The university was not interested in what we did, though profitable,” he said. “I have a ridiculous offer, and it has taken.”

In 1976, he was accompanied Sembello was a designer and manufacturer of curtainwalls and a client. Around the same time, purchased the company from its 1.15 hectares of land at Medley.

Business has been cyclical, following the ups and downs of world construction.

Mark Barron, a partner Ducker Research, a Bloomfield, Mich., industry market research the company, said construction of skyscrapers highest point during the year 1989 the USA. A decrease occurred, but now things are in the abduction and Mid-Low rise buildings (three to nine stories) that use curtainwalls. And the Far East takes a long recession in the building construction.

“Curtain Wall business and has recovered quite well from a volume,” said Barron.

Construction Research, revenue peak in 1989 to $ 2.4 million if the company had 75 people and tested more than 200 buildings.

This year, the company test more than 100 buildings, revenues are expected to reach $ 1.5 million, said Sembello. The staff is limited to 25

The company bid for their projects, and has over competitors in the world (including the two major laboratories in the USA) its capacity and sales volume rank much higher than its competitors, “said Sembello .

“We received the commandments on the basis of reputation and ability of people to help,” he said, “because we have a lot more volume and offers of employment or sanitation measures.”

Baker Metals Dallas, designs and makes curtainwalls, used, Construction research for more than 15 years to test the walls of buildings in New Jersey to California, said President Bob Baker. There have recently been testing for the 10-story International Center office in Dallas.

“There are a number of institutions across the country, including one in Dallas,” said Baker. “But we choose, as in Miami, because we believe it is the best way for the test in the country.”

Miami’s fun and location of the sun will also help Sakhnovsky said, especially if it is cool to another organization:

“People test, as in winter, when it benefits the sunny Florida to test - and perhaps leave.”