What is a construction system in terms of used materials?
Well, before everything else, a short recap: In part 1, I have talked about the wall as a constructions system and have looked at it according to its mass.
So what type of materials are used to build our walls?
To make it simple, let’s breast it down into four categories: solid walls, stud walls, glass walls, and composite walls.
In this article, we will look at solid walls, what are they and what materials are used to make one.
Solid walls
As the name suggests, solid walls are made out of heavy, dense materials, and are more or less the same as high mass walls.
So high mass walls are made out of concrete blocks, concrete, insulated concrete forms, masonry cavity, brick other than brick veneer, earth and solid timber or logs.
It’s easy to see here that the most used materials for solid walls are concrete, bricks, solid timber and earth.
Concrete
Concrete walls come in all shapes and sizes and if you don’t believe me, just check out the Soviet concrete architecture.
But seriously now, concrete is widely used in the construction industry, coming second after water. This is because concrete is the main ingredient in making durable, long-lasting buildings and structures.
If you are wondering about the life span of concrete, you should know that there’s no definite answer to this. There are concrete structures that can last for 100 years, while there are others that start crumbling down in a matter of a few years. This depends on the quality and strength of the initial concrete placement as well as the environment.
And as technology advances, so does production methods for building materials. Concrete is no exception to this. Of the top of my head, the most known forms of concrete used in buildings today include: in situ cast, prefabricated and blocks. Each one with its own set of traits, but here are some of its advantages:
- Concrete can be more economical than other building materials.
- It has high compressive strength.
- Concrete has a good fire, rot and weather resistance.
- Concrete can be cast in any required shape both on- and off-site.
- Concrete has a little maintenance cost.
Bricks
Alongside concrete, bricks are the oldest and most enduring of mankind’s building materials.
Because of the versatility of the raw material, which can easily be moulded into a great range of shapes and sizes, and the flexibility that this gives to design and construction, building in brick has remained cost-effective.
Until relatively recently the clay was dug, the bricks were made, and the kilns set or drawn by manual labour with help from animal power. After about 1885, the first effective machines for brick production appeared, and the trend towards mechanization of clay winning, making and handling operations has continued at an increasing pace.
During the Victorian era in London, bright red bricks were the preferred choice because of their visibility through the dense smog. Nowadays, however, bricks come in a variety of colours, but red seems to remain a classic to this day.
Apart from colour, bricks also have a range of features that make them a good choice for construction:
- They come in standard size and appearance.
- Bricks are hard, durable, and low maintenance.
- They have high compressive strength.
- They are fire, rot and weather resistant.
- Reusable and Recyclable
Mass timber
First off, mass timber is a broad term that refers to structures made out of engineered wood that includes, for example, cross-laminated timber (CLT), glue-laminated timber (glulam) and even log walls.
Ever since we figured out how to create our own shelter, wood has been one of the first materials we used. Solid timber construction has been a traditional method in parts of the northern hemisphere in the form of log construction or timber frame, especially in densely forested areas.
Today, mass timber is returning to the spotlight as a more sustainable alternative to concrete and steel, with little to no compromise on structural strength. Most of the modern wood construction is characterised by prefabrication of high quality and precision structures.
Here are some other reasons you should consider wood:
- It’s easy and fast to install.
- It’s cleaner to construct and it reduces waste.
- Smaller carbon footprint and sequesters carbon.
- Harvested from a renewable source — trees!
Earth
Rammed earth is a traditional method of building walls by packing moist earth into formwork and then compacting it, with either a machine or manually.
It’s a complex method to master being very dependant on the material mix as well as on the environment. That is why you don’t see many of these structures in colder climates nowadays. But they do perform well in warmer climates due to their thermal mass.
Although these walls are beautiful, they are more limited than their modern alternatives, especially in multi-storey buildings and can be labour intensive.
However, rammed earth walls have an upper hand when it comes to sustainability:
- They have low embodied energy.
- Durable and have a long life span.
- Are recyclable.
- Need minimal materials treatment process.
These are a few of the most used materials in a construction system and it’s really interesting to read about them and how they’re used (I could honestly go on and on). But to not make this article unecessarily long, we will stop here and come back to the rest in Part 3.
