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Old Town Scotts­dale is a his­toric down­town area, once known for cowboy-Western shops and art gal­leries, that is now expe­ri­enc­ing a remod­ern­iza­tion and revi­tal­iza­tion. In a class of its own, this mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar, mod­ern two-home mas­ter­piece com­ple­ments the near­by down­town and arts dis­trict. These lux­u­ry walk-ups pay homage to ear­ly urban Mediter­ranean archi­tec­ture with all the sophis­ti­ca­tion of the 21^st cen­tu­ry.

This mas­sive home, an incred­i­ble mix of tra­di­tion­al styling and mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy, includes hand-carved mar­ble man­tles, a 1,500-bottle brick wine cel­lar, five wood-burn­ing fire­places, a real stone bar with a 4” thick wal­nut book­end bar­top, and a cus­tom pyra­mid sky­light in the roof above the mas­ter bed­room.

The steel rein­forced con­crete, which can cure stronger than nor­mal con­crete because of the foam insu­la­tion, can with­stand winds of over 200 MPH, and pro­jec­tile debris trav­el­ing over 100 MPH. There are dozens of eye wit­ness exam­ples of ICF homes tak­ing EF5 tor­na­does head on with the walls still stand­ing.

Research by Texas Tech Wind Sci­ence and Engi­neer­ing Research Cen­ter has demon­strat­ed that ICF walls bet­ter pro­tect occu­pants of hous­es from wind­blown debris, than frame walls. Being hit by wind­blown debris is the most com­mon cause of injury dur­ing tor­na­does.

How do you improve an Insu­lat­ed Con­crete Form wall that already out-per­forms most wall sys­tems in all cli­mates? You move the con­crete mass toward the liv­ing side of the wall.

I had a call this week from a con­trac­tor who want­ed to know if there was an easy way to build a two foot jog into a wall. This brought back flash­backs of when I used to attempt to inter­lock cor­ners think­ing the strength of the inter­lock was going to hold things togeth­er dur­ing con­crete place­ment.