Julian Street Inn – Shelter for the Homeless: Lacework concrete trusses with curved members shot in the air

The dining hall of Julian street inn is the higher building volume of the complex; the hall, a sigle room, 30 feet wide and 50 feet long, was intended to seat about 100 people. When the shape of the volume and the roof slope had been finalized it was strongly felt that the use of concrete, not wood, in the trusses with wood on the floor, would make the room most harmonious, but with a real delicacy of feeling in the truss itself. So, five concrete trusses with curved members and complex floral configuration related to the forces, were made by shooting them in the air, in gunite, a high strength dry, air-shot concrete technique. It had already been perfected earlier in the Martinez building; the technique provides the ability to make very finely detailed designs in concrete, without the use of the expensive pressure-resistant forms needed for poured concrete, The dining hall trusses achieved an optimum design from the point of view of tracery in the truss, and made it delicate and strong at the same time.