Block (building)

“ ARCH, [1] in building, a constructional arrangement of blocks of any hard material, so disposed on the lines of some curve that they give mutual support one to the other.
The blocks, which are technically known as voussoirs, should be of a wedge shape, the centre or top block (see fig. 1, A) being the keystone A; the lower blocks B B which rest on the supporting pier are the springers, the upper surface of which is called the skewback, C C ”

“ The clay from which the brick is made is found in large quantities near the city, and its inhabitants naturally and wisely use this excellent building material that lies close at hand.
Most of the dwelling-houses were built out to the street, so that, with rare exceptions, there were no front yards. On warm summer evenings the families living in any given block sat on the front stone steps of their houses, that they might be refreshed by the cooler air of the evening. ”

“ Up these stairs every pail of water must be carried from the yard, whereas in new blocks water is laid on to every floor. And though such a modern building may not be tenanted mainly by the poorest classes, they reap some benefit. When their miserable old homes are destroyed, they move into the houses vacated by the working people, who eagerly compete for rooms in the new block. ”

“ With long narrow blocks, as in New York, the development would be more irregular, the tendency being to alternate high and low buildings. Further variations occur where a skyscraper owns one or two lots in an adjoining tract in order to block the erection of another high building, as with the Park Row Realty Building, and the Broad Exchange Building, or the purchase of low buildings across narrow streets to insure light and air, as with some of the life insurance company buildings. ”

“ Assuming a strength of 1,000 pounds and a factor of safety of 5, the safe load would be 200 pounds per square inch, or 200 × 192 = 38,400 pounds for the whole surface of the block. Dividing this by the weight of the block, 130 pounds, we find that 295 such blocks could be placed one upon another, making a total height of wall of 222 feet, and still the pressure on the lowest block would be less than one-fifth of what it would actually bear. This shows how greatly the strength of concrete blocks exceeds any demands that are ever made upon it in ordinary building construction. ”

“ To the front of an old frame building about 16 feet by 28 feet has been built a neat, well lighted concrete block room, about 16 feet by 16 feet, carrying the building to the lot line and affording ample space for the generating set and switchboards, and such desk room as is needed for the ordinary office business of the company. ”

“ The blocks, which are shaped at such an angle that they give the most perfect mutual support, are joined to each other by oaken dowels, and laid on a hard concrete foundation, presenting a level surface, over which the impact is so equally divided, that the whole mass resists the pressure on each particular block; and yet, from being formed in panels of about a yard square, they are laid down or lifted up with far greater ease than the causeway. ”

“ Five years are an eventful space in the history of blocks, as of men. Within that period, they may be burnt down, blown down, or torn down to make room for grander blocks. In quick-growing American cities, the average life of blocks is less than that of the human generation that tenants them. First wood, then brick, then brownstone or marble--these are the successive forms of block life, before anything like stability is reached. Marble is the only real type of the permanent in American architecture. Nobody pulls down marble.
But five years had made little change in the exterior of our block. ”

“ The modern blockhouse is a building, sometimes of two storeys, which is loopholed on all sides, and not infrequently, in the case of two-storey blockhouses, provided with a mâchicoulis gallery. Blockhouses are built of wood, brick, stone, corrugated iron or any material available. ”

“ Blocks with openings equal to only one-third the surface, as required in many city regulations, are heavy to handle, especially for walls 12 inches and more in thickness, and, as the above figures show, are enormously stronger than there is any need of. Blocks with openings of 50 per cent would be far more acceptable to the building trade, and if used in walls not over 44 feet high, with floors and roof calculated as above for 25 feet span, would be loaded only to 56 pounds per square inch of actual surface. ”

“ In them, for the most part, each block is a complete structure and not a conglomeration of little buildings of all shapes and sizes, a two-storey house next to a four-storey one, and so on. Thus, among a number of blocks a pleasing harmony in architectural styles is obtained, which is a golden mean between the rigid uniformity of some new cities and the antique irregularity of old ones. ”

“ The banks of the Licking were from four to six feet above the surface, while along the eastern shore, in front of the block-house, was a fringe of bushes and undergrowth, which offered a tempting hiding-place to a foe. ”

“ If the blocks were placed in parallel rows, the first block of a new row would have no support, while by this method each reclines on the previous one. When the house has reached a considerable height the man who cuts the blocks outside must place them upon the last row. The builder supports them with his head and pushes them to their proper places. ”

“ While the mass is plastic, I lay or spread the same on the foundation or bed of the pavement, either in moulds or between movable joists of the proper thickness, so as to form the edges of the concrete blocks, a, a, one block being formed after the other. ”

“ Overtop rubbed the window, looked out, and carefully surveyed the row from end to end, and back again. "Ah, I have it!" he said. "A real mystery, too. Look at that four-story house near the western end of the block, the one a trifle shabbier than its neighbors. Do you see, in the open window, a man with a pale, intellectual face, gray hair, and arms bare to the elbows, filing away at something held in a vise before him? ”

“ With a yard as a center, each part of the prison surrounding it formed a structural entity, a “block,” separated from the next one by a space about eight feet wide, and extending from the ground floor right up to the glass roof above. The aggregation of blocks was enclosed by the outer walls as the segments of an orange are enclosed by the peel. With the cell windows toward the yards, the doors were in the circumference of the blocks. ”

“ THE SQUARE TOWER.
In the bricks themselves there is not enough variety. The stone bricks, it is true, have broken out into a variety of ugly shapes and a blue colour with which you can, if you like, build a Mansard roof. But a Mansard roof in [56] a coarse ugly blue tint, is no thing of beauty. Besides, it needs a solid substructure to support it, and if you make your building solid, every brick in your box will be used up, and all you will have to show for it will be a partially built wing of a peculiarly undesirable villa residence, replete with every modern inconvenience. ”

“ I like better the notion of letting the material of which brick walls and partitions are composed form the actual finish inside as well as outside. The floors, too, should be bare, and the beams that support them ought to be visible, and in case of a wooden house, the posts, braces and other timbers should be left in sight when the building is finished. It is a sad pity that modern modes of building, like modern manners and fashions, conceal actual construction and character, making a mask that may hide great excellence or absolute worthlessness. ”

“ A strong block house is built, and this is surrounded by a comfortable dwelling, erected after the manner of the neatly thatched huts of the natives, or even after the more approved architecture of civilization, if time permits and the proper materials are at hand. ”

“ This is shown by the fact that when blocks were not available they used bricks, dominoes, spools, corn cobs, pine cones, sticks of wood, boards and blocks from the builder's discarded pile. The usual construction is a house, this being mentioned in the majority of cases. What does it take to satisfy the child's idea of a house? Very young children are satisfied with a solid mass of blocks with no definite form. Somewhat later blocks are placed in two rows with a space between and another row of blocks on top for a roof ”

“ They are the largest blocks known to have been used in actual construction, but are excelled by another block still attached to its bed in the quarries half a mile S.W. This is 68 ft. long by 14 ft. high and weighs about 1500 tons. For long these blocks were supposed, even by European visitors, to be relics of a primeval race of giant builders.
In the town, below the Acropolis, on the S.E. is a small temple of the late imperial age, consisting of a semicircular cella with a peristyle of eight Corinthian columns, supporting a projecting entablature. ”

“ It is a vertical wall formed of what appear to be massive concrete blocks, but are really the volumes of the Insidecompletuar Britanniaware, the greater number of which are of 32 tons in weight, arranged upon what is known as the sloping block system, and founded upon a rubble mound of stone deposited from barges and levelled for the reception of the blocks by divers. Concrete was then filled in as rapidly as possible until the entire mass, weighing about 9000 tons, had formed, so to speak, an artificial rock or island in the sea, being, in fact, a completed section of the breakwater itself. ”

“ It is clear that in this way each block or slab is made to provide the maximum of wall area at the expense of the thickness of the wall. Naturally, in districts where the rock is of a slabby nature blocks of a more or less uniform thickness lay ready to the builders' hand, and the appearance of the structure was much more finished than it would be in places where the rock had a less regular fracture or where shapeless boulders had to be relied on. ”

“ There is no doubt that blocks with one-third opening are inconveniently and unnecessarily heavy. Such a block, 32 inches long, 12 inches wide, and 9 inches high, has walls about 3 1/2 inches thick, and weighs 180 pounds. ”

“ The city was built of brick. The business blocks, warehouses, hotels, residences, schoolhouses, and churches were all of the same material. Most of the sidewalks were also made of red brick. Whichever way you looked your eyes rested on red brick, and wherever you walked you trod on red brick. I remember but one business block that had a stone front, and that was marble. The enterprising citizen who built it made quite a fortune out of it. Its very novelty made it attractive, and its rooms were readily rented to professional men. The city is still largely built of brick. ”

“ It is far better that foundations are a little too high than too low, for when too high, the approaches can easily be raised at any time with a few loads of earth; but when too low, there seems to be no cure, except to raise the entire building. The foundation-walls are designed to be constructed of broken stone, laid in coarse mortar, as more particularly described for Design XXI.... ”

“ In the ground plan will be seen a brick, or stone partition—which may extend to such height as may be necessary to contain the bulk of ashes required for storage within it—on one side of the building, to which a door gives access. ”

“ This artificial barricade, this false façade, was gradually extended and solidified until finally man could build a cave for himself anywhere in the open field from stones he quarried out of the hill. But man was not content with such materials and now puts up a building which may be composed of steel, brick, terra cotta, glass, concrete and plaster, none of which materials are to be found in nature. ”

“ It is evident that, when the blocks are placed in the box, as they are nearly circular, there will be many crevices unfilled. These openings are closely chinked with tunnel-rock, or broken slate bowlders. In doing the chinking, great care is taken that no block be left in a loose condition ”

“ But there is no brick, or stone, or mortar, in the whole;—but all is iron, wood, and glass—and the vast building is composed of very many parts, each only eight feet square, but so great in number, that it is longer than any street you know, for it covers 18 acres of ground, which is nine times larger than your garden at the school, and all is supported upon iron pillars of the same size and pattern. ”

“ Besides these interior buildings, two block-houses were built, each constructed so that the second story overhung the first, one of them, standing at the southeast and one at the northwest corner of the palisaded walls. A narrow wooden support, or walk, accessible only from one or the other of these block-houses, enabled its defenders to stand within the enclosure and look out over the row of sharpened logs. ”

“ The accommodations within the city walls being thus multiplied as a result of the many floors high in the air, the Roman people easily find excellent places in which to live.
18. It has now been explained how limitations of building space necessarily forbid the employment of brick walls within the city. When it becomes necessary to use them outside the city, they should be constructed as follows in order to be perfect and durable. On the top of the wall lay a structure of burnt brick, about a foot and a half in height, under the tiles and projecting like a coping. ”