ARCHITECTURE

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Chapter: INT | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13

C H A P T E R 3

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A R C H I T E C T U R E
The Art of Shelter

A R C H I T E C T U R E
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Dan Phillips' Reclaimed Houses

STRUCTURE

Post-and-lintel, arch, cantilever, bearing-wall, and skeleton frame.

POST-&-LINTEL

The Parthenon
Athens 432 BCE

England 1800-1400 BCE

COLUMNS

ARCH

The Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri is 630 feet wide and 630 feet tall.

Stone has very good compressive strength, but it lacks tensile strength; it cracks easily when spanning too great a distance. The arch allows you to span a greater distance because it distributes stress from the center keystone outward and downward.

Identify these arches:

Round Arch

Lancet

Pointed Arch

Horseshoe

Tudor Arch

The round arch is less efficient. It distributes stress more to the side, and requires that the sides be supported by buttresses. The pointed arch directs more stress downward.

Hoover Dam is an example of arches laying on their sides. These arches hold back the tremendous pressures of 9.2 trillion gallons of water, but it is the dept of the dam that is responsible for the pressure - not the with.

The dam is located in Black Canyon of the Colorado River. Over one hundred lives were lost in the building of this dam - the largest cement structure of its time.

BUTTRESS

A buttress is really half of a gothic arch that supports a wall, and prevents it from buckling under the stress.

Notre Dame France

ARCADE:

A row of arches - side by side.

TUNNEL VAULT

The tunnel vault, Also called barrel vault, is a row of connected arches back to back. This diagram of a pointed barrel vault shows the direction of the lateral forces.

Breakthrough! Giant drill smashes open world's longest tunnel under Swiss Alps

BRIDGES

Gateshead Millennium Bridge England

Juscelino Kubitschek bridge in Brasília, Brazil

Natchez Trace Parkway Bridge

There are no spandrels supporting this bridge.

The Falkirk Wheel is a rotating boat lift located in Scotland, UK, connecting the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal

GROIN VAULT

A groin vault consists of two tunnel vaults intersecting at right angles. See page 92. Click Here

RIB VAULT

The intersection of a groin vault.

DOME

The dome of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome was designed by Michelangelo. It was not completed in 1590.

A dome consists of arches joined at the top.

The Pantheon, Rome
Giovanni Paolo Pannini or Panini (1691–1765)

The coffers for the Pantheon's concrete dome were poured in molds to lighten the load. The oculus admits light in the center. See page 94. learn more

PENDENTIVE

Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom) 537 A.D. Istanbul, Turkey - Pendentive and Dome. The epitome of Byzantine architecture, it was the largest place of worship in the world - for nearly a thousand years until the completion of the Seville Cathedral in 1520.

A pendentive allows a circular dome to be placed over a square room - or an elliptical dome over a rectangular room. Pendentives are triangular segments of a sphere. They taper to points at the bottom, and spread at the top. The pendentives receive the weight of the dome, and concentrate it at the four corners where it can be received by the piers beneath.

CANTILEVER

The cantilevered floor of Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater House jets out, and overhangs. Cantilever construction allows for overhanging structures without external bracing.

Ministry of Transportation in Tbilisi

The wings of this B-25 Bomber are cantilevered.

LOAD-BEARING WALL

Walls that support floors and roofs are called load-bearing walls or bearing walls.

SKELETON FRAME

The building is supported by a framework while the external walls serve as a skin. When the frame is constructed out of metal, we call it steel-cage construction. When the skeleton is made of wood, as in a house, we call it balloon construction.

BUILDING MATERIALS

STONE

Masonry is stone, brick, concrete block, glass block, or tiles joined with mortar. As I said earlier, stone has great compressive strength, but it lacks tensile strength. It cracks easily when supported only by the sides - as in post-and-lintel construction

TYPES OF STONE

There are three types of rock: sedimentary, Metamorphic, and igneous.

Sedimentary rock is formed by minerals and organic material (sediment) in bodies of water. It carves easily, but doesn't last long. Examples are: limestone, chalk, and sandstone.

Metamorphic rock was previously rock (protolith). Then it's exposed to heat and pressure. Examples are slate and marble. Marble carves well, and lasts a long time.

Igneous rock is formed by molten rock (magma). There are over 700 types. Intrusive is below the Earth's surface. Extrusive is on the surface. Granite is an example of this type of rock. It's very hard; it lasts a long time, but it's difficult to carve.

Antelope Canyon - Arizona
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock.

CONCRETE

Concrete, like stone, has strong compression strength, but it's weak in tensile strength. The cement holding the aggregate in place easily cracks. Reinforced concrete has metal reinforcing rods or wires (Rebar), glass fibers, or plastic fibers pored into the concrete. This gives it the compressive strength of concrete - and the tensile strength of the reinforced material.

WOOD

STEEL

Steel is an alloy of iron and usually carbon (2%), but other alloys like tungsten, manganese, and chromium are used. Carbon hardens the steel. Increasing the carbon content will result in steel that is harder and more brittle.

SCALE (p112)

Skyscrapers were made possible by steel, welding, and the invention of the elevator. World's Tallest Buildings

CONTEXT

FALLINGWATER - Frank Lloyd Wright's