❖ 4* *J«
The scattered work itself can take a great variety of forms. It can occur in belts of industry, where it is essential for an industry to occupy an acre or more between subcultures—subculture boundary (13), industrial ribbon (42); it can occur in work communities, which are scattered among the neighborhoods— NEIGHBORHOOD BOUNDARY (15), WORK COMMUNITY (41); and it can occur in individual workshops, right among the houses— home workshop (I 57) - The size of each workplace is limited only by the nature of human groups and the process of self-governance. It is discussed in detail in self-governing workshops AND OFFICES (80). . . .
CONSTRUCTION
In traditional society there are few sheet materials. However, factory production tends to make sheets more easily than other forms of material. As we move into an age of mass production, sheet materials become plentiful and are naturally strong, light, and cheap. Gypsum board, plywood, cloth, vinyl, canvas, fiberglass, particle board, wood planks, corrugated metals, chicken wire, are all examples.
And sheet materials are the strongest for connections. Connections are the weak points in a structure. Sheet materials are easy to connect, because connections can join surfaces to one another. Anything made out of sheets is inherently stronger than something made of lumps or sticks.
2. Ultra-lightweight concrete is an excellent fill material— it has the density of wood, is strongs light, easy to cut, easy to refair, easy to nail into—and is available everywhere. This is discussed fully in good materials (207).
3. However, a?iy kind of concrete needs formwork; and the cost of formwork is e7LOrmous.
This makes it very expensive indeed to build any complex form; and within conventional building systems, it more or less rules out the kind of “organic” structure which we have described. Furthermore, in regular concrete work, the formwork is eventually wasted, thrown away.
We believe that the finishes in any sensible building system should be integral with the process of construction and the structure itself (as they are in almost all traditional buildings) — and that any building system in which finishes have to be “added” to the building are wasteful, and unnatural.
4. We therefore frofose that ultra-lightweight concrete be foured into forms which are made of the easily available sheet materials: and that these materials are the?i left in flace to form the fnish.
The sheet materials can be any combination of cloth, canvas, wood planks, gypsum boards, fiberboards, plywood, paper, plastered chickenwire, corrugated metals, and where it is possible, tile, brick, or stone—see good materials (207). For the ultra-lightweight concrete we recommend a perlite, expanded shale, or pumice aggregate. Tamped earth, adobe, nonchlorinated foams, may also do instead of the concrete, if loads allow it.
2,oB
graDuA
h STIFFENING
| -^v * • * - |
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One ‘version of gradual stiffening, tising one inc/i -planks, gypsum board and burlap as sheets, anith ultra-lig/it'weight
concrete as fill.
"The drawing above, shows one particular realisation of this kind of gradual stiffening. But the principle is far more general than this particular use of it. Indeed, it occurs, in one way or another, in almost all traditional forms of building. Eskimo igloo construction and African basket structures are both gradually stiffened structures, where each next step copes with the existing framework, adds to it, and stiffens it. The stone buildings of Alberobello in southern Italy are examples. So is Elizabethan half-timber construction.
967
CONSTRUCTION
Therefore:
Recognize that you are not assembling a building from components like an erector set, but that you are instead weaving a structure which starts out globally complete, but flimsy; then gradually making it stiffer but still rather flimsy; and only finally making it completely stiff and strong.
We believe that in our own time, the most natural version of this process is to put up a shell of sheet materials, and then make it fully strong by filling it with a compressive
fill.
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| soft skin formwork compressive fill |
Choose the most natural materials you can, for the outer shell itself—thin wood planks for columns, canvas or burlap for the vaults, plaster board or plank or bricks or hollow tiles for walls— GOOD MATERIALS (2O7),
Use ultra-lightweight 40 to 60 pounds perlite concrete for the compressive fill—it has the same density as wood and can be cut and nailed like wood, both during the construction and in later years when repairs become necessary—good materials (207).
Build up the columns first, then fill them with the ultralightweight concrete; then build up the beams and fill them; then the vaults, and cover them with a thin coat of concrete which hardens to form a shell; then fill that shell with even lighter weight materials to form the floors; then make the walls and window frames, and fill them; and finally, the roof, again a thin cloth vault covered with a coat of concrete to form a shell— BOX COLUMNS (2 I 6), PERIMETER BEAM (2 I 7), WALL MEMBRANE (218), FLOOR-CEILING VAULTS (2I9), ROOF VAULTS (220). . . .
within this fhilosofhy of structure) on the basis of the flans which you have madey work out the comflete structural layout; this is the last thing you do on fafer} before you actually start to build;
209. ROOF LAYOUT
210. FLOOR AND CEILING LAYOUT
21 I. THICKENING THE OUTER WALLS
212. COLUMNS AT THE CORNERS
213. FINAL COLUMN DISTRIBUTION
| 209 ROOF LAYOUT* |
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970
. . . assume now that you have a rough plan, to scale, for each floor of the building. In this case you already know roughly how the roofs will go, from cascade of roofs ( i i 6) and sheltering roof (117) ; and you know exactly where the roof is flat to form roof gardens next to rooms at different floors—roof garden (11 8). This pattern shows you how to get a detailed roof plan for the building, which helps those patterns come to life, for any plan which you have drawn.
V
What kind of roof plan is organically related to the nature of your building?
We know, from arguments presented in the shape of indoor space (191), that the majority of spaces in an organic building will have roughly—not necessarily perfectly—straight walls because it is only then that the space on both sides of the walls can be positive, or convex in shape.
And we know, from similar arguments, that the majority of the angles in the building will be roughly—again, not exactly— right angles, that is, in the general range of 80 to 100 degrees.
We know, therefore, that the class of natural plans may contain a variety of shapes like half circles, octagons, and so on—but that for the most part, it will be made of very rough, sloppy rectangles.