Load Bearing Masonry Construction
understandconstruction.com
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| A modern example of load bearing masonry construction for a residential building. Note the absence of concrete columns and beams. The walls are the main load carrying elements. |
Load bearing masonry construction was the
most widely used form of construction for large buildings from the 1700s to the
mid-1900s.
It is very rarely used today for large
buildings, but smaller residential-scale structures are being built.
It essentially consists of thick, heavy
masonry walls of brick or stone that support the entire structure, including
the horizontal floor slabs, which could be made of reinforced concrete, wood,
or steel members.
In contrast, most construction today is not
load-bearing masonry but frame structures of light but strong materials, that
support floor slabs and have very thin and light internal and external walls.
The key idea with this construction is that
every wall acts as a load carrying element.
In a load bearing structure, you cannot punch
holes in a wall to connect two rooms - you would damage the structure if you
did so.
The immense weight of the walls actually
helps to hold the building together and stabilise it against external forces
such as wind and earthquake.
In traditional European loadbearing masonry
structures, the floor slabs were made of horizontal wooden beams, joists, and
planks.
A joist is a smaller wooden beam that rests
on two larger beams.
The buildings were covered with sloping
wooden roofs, that could be finished with clay tile, wood or stone shingles, or
metal plating such as thin sheets of copper.
Other such buildings had flat terraces, that
were built by pouring a concrete layer over a wooden floor, and then finishing
with some form of tile or stone to provide a strong, waterproof finish.
Every wall had a simple continuous strip
foundation below it.
Most classic buildings in Europe are built
with load bearing masonry construction.
The American architect Louis Kahn famously
used load bearing construction for the Indian Institute of Management,
Ahmedabad.
His structures clearly express the
construction system rather than conceal it under decorative skins.
In this structure, concrete is used
exclusively for members in tension, which are ties that tie together the two
ends of the brick arches.
WHY IS LOAD BEARING WALL CONSTRUCTION NOT
USED TODAY?
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| IIM Ahmedabad, India, by architect Louis Kahn |
Load bearing masonry construction is not used
today for a number of reasons:
It does not perform very well in earthquakes.
Most deaths in earthquakes around the world
have occurred in load bearing masonry buildings.
Earthquakes love heavy buildings, because
that is where they can wreak the greatest havoc.
It is extremely labor-intensive, as it is
built mainly of masonry, which is made by hand.
Humans have still not developed a machine
that produces masonry!
This also makes for very slow construction
speeds in comparision with modern methods that are far more mechanised.
It is extremely material-intensive. These
buildings consume a lot of bricks, and are very heavy.
This means that they are not green, as all
this material has to be trucked around from where it is produced to the site.
THE HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT
OF LOAD BEARING MASONRY BUILDINGS
Load Bearing Structures
Load bearing construction has a very long,
bright and interesting history.
To start with, masonry structures were large
and solid, like the pyramids.
With the development of the arch, openings
were created in these structures, and large structures like the colosseum in
Rome were built.
The arch was first developed in Mesopotamia
(modern-day Iran-Iraq-Turkey-Syria) and was then picked up by the Romans.
Load Bearing Buildings
Taj is an example of load bearing
construction
In India, builders started using horizontal
slabs of stone to construct floor plates. This is called trabeate construction.
The Taj is built of red sandstone masonry
walls faced with white marble. Its walls are 6ft (1.8m) thick in some places.
Europeans built fine stone walled buildings
with floor slabs made of wood beams and planks.
The buildings had elaborate arched openings
and very finely crafted domes.
These buildings have lasted hundreds of
years, with limited repair in many cases, testifying to the quality of the
craftsmanship and the brilliance of the design.
Load Bearing Wall Construction
High-rise load bearing masonry construction.
And then, the Americans came in and super-sized
things.
It was made of brick walls 6 feet thick at
the base and about 18" thick at the top. It still exists - you can rent an
office space in it by clicking here.
It was built to be the world's largest office
building at the time by architects Burnham & Root.
They said their design was inspired by an
Egyptian pylon, which is a kind of monumental gateway to a temple, built with
massive sloping masonry walls.
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Written by architects and engineers, the content on the site is actually a
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