If your Latin is rusty, Praemonitus Praemunitus means “forewarned is forearmed.” The Boy Scouts said it more succinctly with their motto, “Be Prepared.” Either way, it’s an ultimate expression of the value of research and preparation, and words that SUPERSTRUCTURES lives by.

Over the course of thousands of successful projects we’ve completed, this adage rings true; our innovative testing, assessment, and documentation methods are invaluable in finding the most appropriate and cost-effective restoration solutions.

Part of this approach happens in the studio, analyzing existing drawings and reports through the lens of our extensive experience with similar building types, materials, and issues. At the same time, tried and true methods such as visual analysis from scaffolding or lifts and sounding of concrete or terra cotta provide important evidence from the field.

When we need to see what’s beyond the surface of a building’s envelope, our robust capacity for Non-Destructive Testing and Evaluation (NDT&E) is instrumental. With an in-house NDT&E studio and experts in the use of tools like infrared imaging, electrical impedance scanning, and borescopes at our disposal, we have state-of-the-art capacity to diagnose building issues with empirical precision. In short, we’ve never seen a leak we haven’t been able to track.

We also employ custom software as a powerful preparation tool. Our Asset Information Management (AIM) system and SurfaceCapture technology allows us to inventory hundreds of thousands of locations to track building envelope conditions, a detailed “roadmap” to take the building from investigation to restoration design to completed restoration. We continue to refine AIM to make it more nimble as a documentation tool and design resource.

Ultimately, our focus on preparation yields another reward: each new project benefits from what we’ve learned through hundreds of predecessors. In that sense, our research is never complete, but our expertise is always growing.