Outbuilding

“ If we broadly define civil engineering as the art of construction, then the birth of the art is as old as the emergence of man from savagery. The savage who hollows out a log of wood in order to construct a canoe has taken the first step in the art of shipbuilding; and when he has constructed a hut, however rude, to take the place, as an abode, of the cave hollowed out by nature, he has moved one step nearer to those triumphs of building construction which satisfy man’s necessities, comforts, and æsthetic desires. ”

“ I have not said you must build your house without any regard to the exterior, or intimated that it would even be right to do so. I only protest against building for the sake of the exterior,—against sacrificing thoroughness and interior comfort to outside display,—against using labor and material in such fashion that they are worse than thrown away, their whole result being false and tasteless,—against every kind of ostentation and humbug. The truth is, we have all gone astray, literally, like sheep. ”

“ It would be worth the while to build still more deliberately than I did, considering, for instance, what foundation a door, a window, a cellar, a garret, have in the nature of man, and perchance never raising any superstructure until we found a better reason for it than our temporal necessities even. There is some of the same fitness in a man’s building his own house that there is in a bird’s building its own nest. ”

“ And here, too, we came suddenly upon an eccentricity of out-building that wrought upon our souls with wonder. For, penetrating to the rear through what might have been a cloak-closet or butler's pantry, we found a supplementary wing, or rather tail of rooms, loosely knocked together, to proceed from the back, forming a sort of skilling to the main building. These rooms led direct into one another, and, consisting of little more than timber and plaster, were in a woeful state of dilapidation. ”

“ To the most of mankind a single venture is sufficient; only architects build more than once for a pastime. For the sole office of the architect is to plan; the province of 10the builder to delay. The asylums teem with victims to the vexations of house-building. Having money to make and not to disburse, with no further care than to complete the work in hand with the utmost leisure, the architect and builder pass through the ordeal unscathed, and remain to lure new victims. ”

“ But among the Utopians all things are so regulated that men very seldom build upon a new piece of ground, and are not only very quick in repairing their houses, but show their foresight in preventing their decay, so that their buildings are preserved very long with but very little labour, and thus the builders, to whom that care belongs, are often without employment, except the hewing of timber and the squaring of stones, that the materials may be in readiness for raising a building very suddenly when there is any occasion for it. ”

“ You see then that it is their way of spurring themselves on to work. They talk, but they work, and as each builder's yard sets about building a house, in the end you find that the city has been re-builded. ”

“ Worth attention, however, and admiration too, is the solidity of construction by which the huge mass of building, doubly heavy from the ponderous machinery it contains, besides its clustering group of out-houses, megass-sheds, tall chimneys, store-places, and the rest, is enabled to support itself upright and unyielding on a soil so marshy and unstable. ”

“ It's a pity you live in a stone block, instead of a place like this, where there is out-doors enough to keep any one busy."
"It is a pity. I wish we lived on a farm like this. I'd like nothing better than trying my hand at scientific farming. If I'm going to be everlastingly handicapped by these eyes I might as well look round for an out-door job. You can't think how I wish now I'd put in my time studying civil engineering." ”

“ With barely a movement we come from the bleaker months to where the picture pans briefly, dissolves upon the softer ores of spring. Ah, but the Captains of Industry are wheeling! A building boom amongst the trees after the first few casual blossoms had fallen along suburban driveways. ”

“ Their plan as it finally grew into a workable fact was in reality nothing more than the renting of a large building formerly used as a warehouse for a brewery, reconstructing it and living in it themselves in the very heart of a territory where the saloon ruled with power, where the tenement was its filthiest, where vice and ignorance and shame and poverty were congested into hideous forms. ”

“ No matter what the weather may be, he is in the mud up to his knees; not a movement on the part of his workmen escapes him; he knows the why and how of everything, and is pushing forward the construction of an enormous mill, a dwelling-house, with garden and buildings, sheds, dams, roads and bridges—in a word, a magnificent establishment. ”

“ Our own youthfulness, and the social tone of the day and region, discouraged either. If I thought anything about it, I must have thought, as I think still, that it was a manly and satisfying matter to come to grips with the serviceable actualities of the building trades. Construction, in its various phases, still seems to me a more useful and more tonic concern than brokerage, for example, and similar forms of office life.
Johnny soon suggested that I go with him, some Saturday afternoon, to the "yard." I asked Raymond to join us. ”

“ In the city where so many thousands were idle there was no kind of work, and no kind of material that could not be found and bartered for services. An idle building was found, and the people piled into it and before long were actually working. ”

“ If we hold by our metaphor of the building, then in suppression, bricks which would not go well with [Pg 270] the rest are stacked quietly in the cellars; while in repression, part of the workmen want to build a different sort of building, and have to be forcibly held down by some of the rest to prevent their doing so. ”

“ After all, even if we could legitimately assume that individuals on a given construction site might be able to resume productive activity on their own, we cannot go on to assume that everything this implies would also resume 'on its own.' What this would imply is the resumption, in an �organizational vacuum,' not only of productive activity on an isolated construction site, but also the production and transportation of construction equipment and machinery; the production and delivery of construction materials such as steel, lumber and concrete ”

“ You fill with the dead matter of your construction the places where assimilation ought to have its perfect work, building by a life-process, self-extending, and subserving the whole. Small beginnings with slow growings have time to root themselves thoroughly—I do not mean in place nor yet in social regard, but in wisdom. ”

“ As the boom had fed upon itself, carrying prices to heights justifiable only to the most insane optimism, so did the subsequent depression bear down upon values until they reached depths justifiable only to the most abandoned despondency. Building operations came to a standstill. Carpenters, masons, brick-layers, painters, plumbers, labourers found themselves out of employment. ”

“ Builder realized, with a sinking heart, that he was much too old for the job he'd undertaken. Too late in life had he discovered these people. Almost all his energy since youth had been sapped just looking for a segment of humanity. ”

“ The couple in the branch above are the worst. Their plan of building is the most extravagant, the most absurd I ever heard of. They hoist up ten times as much material as they can possibly use; you might think they were going to build a block, and let it out in flats to the other rooks. Then what they don’t want they fling down again. Suppose we built on such a principle? Suppose a human husband and wife were to start erecting their house in Piccadilly Circus, let us say ”

“ Henceforth he would devote all the energy he possessed to construction—on however modest and private a one—to a building up, as personal protest against much lately witnessed wanton and chaotic pulling-down. ”

“ Overbuilding recognizes the construction of a plant too large for present needs, thereby making the capital investment too large for the business to be done, and sometimes resulting in the handicap of insufficient [12] monies for plant operation with all the difficulties entailed. Under building, failing to recognize the growth that might occur and failing to so arrange that the growth can be made in a way that keeps the plant in balance and makes for economical operation. ”

“ Without external prop or buttress, and artificial aid of iron clamp-work, the building would have crumbled to pieces on the first day; as it is, it undoes itself; we have to maintain on the spot a colony of masons continually to ward off the continual decay. But our sight grows dim in following the wavings and twistings of the endless fretwork ”

“ But when once the work is above ground, and construction begins, when the structure lifts itself, when it aspires,—the crow line dissolves and melts quite away. This, in a sense, is true of man in any of his operations. ”

“ A family living in an old house, on unhealthy ground, with water in the cellar, a crumbling foundation, the beams like sponge, the roof leaking, the chimney full of cracks, would not spend large sums of money year after year, generation after generation, in patching up the old house on the same old spot, but with ordinary wisdom and economy, they would build anew, on higher ground, with strong foundations, sound timber, substantial chimneys, and solid roofing. ”

“ The main problem has been posed by the initiation of building programs that exceed the capacity of the construction industry and the consequent scattering of limited resources. The situation has been aggravated by frequently poor project planning, inferior design, delays in the delivery of machinery and materials, poor organization of work, and slack discipline. ”

“ By continuing the project the ceiling would have come against the middle of the opposite ceiling instead of resting on its summit. Another ant passes, examines affairs with an intelligent air, and evidently considers that this sort of work is absurd. Without consideration for the amour-propre of its unskilful fellow-citizen, it demolishes its work, raises the wall that is too low, and re-makes the construction correctly in the presence of the observer. ”

“ The miners might, indeed, take temporary work on the new line in course of construction, but that meant a change of life from one that was regular, whilst living in settled homes, to a wandering existence, to makeshift housing, separation from their families, and to association with demoralising and lawless companions. ”

“ The new occupant will only have to build another homestead, and building is a serious matter where wood and the means of dressing stone are so very scarce as here. The ends achieved are small—simply an exhibition of power, and punishment which (if it be really necessary) could be otherwise inflicted; and the evils, as one sees them on the spot, are many and great. ”

“ Building and construction work.—Next to crop moving the building trades and construction jobs make the heaviest seasonal demands upon the labor market. Railroad construction, ditch digging, and similar occupations are generally discontinued during the winter. Carpentry, masonry, brick and concrete work are only carried on with reduced numbers of men through the cold months. ”

“ A much finer, indeed, than the same expence in an encampment could have produced. For what indeed is the best idea which the prospect of a number of huts can furnish to the mind, but of a number of men forming themselves into a society before the art of building more substantial houses was known? ”

“ It is only the sheds and workshops that must go," answered the Master Builder cheerily, and forthwith he and his men, who had come hurrying up, together with all the men and boys in the double Harmer household, commenced carrying within shop and houses all the valuables stored in the smaller buildings hard by. It was a work quickly accomplished, and whilst it was being carried out, the Master Builder himself was carefully making preparations for the demolition of the empty house opposite, which indeed was already in some danger of falling into decay, and was empty and desolate. ”

“ Having accomplished this, man would sit down complacently for long ages. Indeed, there are certain branches of the human family that have progressed no further and display no ambition to advance.
Only when the districts of chalk and limestone were overstocked would the overflow be constrained to look elsewhere for shelter. Then some daring innovators, driven from the favoured land, would construct habitations by grubbing into the soil, and covering them with a roof of turf. ”

“ But since the troubles began there has been little building, and men who can find no work here have moved away to seek for it in places less afflicted by these troubles. That is one of the reasons why the carpenters have not made a firmer stand against the butchers. ”

“ Thus the builder, considered as cause of the house which he builds, has been generated, i.e., he has acquired the art of building and the proper accessories; and he will be destroyed, i.e., he will lose his art, and its conditions of being exercised. ”

“ The site should be large enough for the eventual group of buildings, the building should be easily capable of extension with the least cost, and the same forethought should govern the lay-out of the machinery. ”

“ Hours and days turned into weeks and months as Builder taught his people what feeble knowledge he possessed in arithmetic, simple engineering--such as the dam--and most of all, instilling in them the will to want to learn and investigate and question anything they came in contact with--even the very thing he was asking them to do. ”