Construction: Construction, Also Called Building Construction, The

9/3/2019 Construction -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia
Construction
Construction, also called building construction, the
techniques and industry involved in the assembly and TABLE OF CONTENTS
erection of structures, primarily those used to provide
Introduction
shelter.
The history of construction
Construction is an Modern building practices
ancient human
activity. It began with
the purely functional need for a controlled
environment to moderate the effects of climate.
Constructed shelters were one means by which
human beings were able to adapt themselves to a
construction of apartment buildings

wide variety of climates and become a global species.
Apartment buildings under construction in

Human shelters were at rst very simple and perhaps
Cambridge, Eng.
Andrew Dunn
lasted only a few days or months. Over time, however,
even temporary structures evolved into such highly
re ned forms as the igloo. Gradually more durable structures began to appear,
particularly after the advent of agriculture, when people began to stay in one place for
long periods. The rst shelters were dwellings, but later other functions, such as food
storage and ceremony, were housed in separate buildings. Some structures began to have
symbolic as well as functional value, marking the beginning of the distinction between
architecture and building.
The history of building is marked by a number of trends. One is the increasing durability of
the materials used. Early building materials were perishable, such as leaves, branches, and
animal hides. Later, more durable natural materials—such as clay, stone, and timber—and,
nally, synthetic materials—such as brick, concrete, metals, and plastics—were used.
Another is a quest for buildings of ever greater height and span; this was made possible
by the development of stronger materials and by knowledge of how materials behave and
how to exploit them to greater advantage. A third major trend involves the degree of
control exercised over the interior environment of buildings: increasingly precise
regulation of air temperature, light and sound levels, humidity, odours, air speed, and
other factors that affect human comfort has been possible. Yet another trend is the
change in energy available to the construction process, starting with human muscle
power and developing toward the powerful machinery used today.
The present state of construction is complex. There is a wide range of building products
and systems which are aimed primarily at groups of building types or markets. The design
process for buildings is highly organized and draws upon research establishments that
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study material properties and performance, code of cials who adopt and enforce safety
standards, and design professionals who determine user needs and design a building to
meet those needs. The construction process is also highly organized; it includes the
manufacturers of building products and systems, the craftsmen who assemble them on
the building site, the contractors who employ and coordinate the work of the craftsmen,
and consultants who specialize in such aspects as construction management, quality
control, and insurance.
Construction today is a signi cant part of industrial culture, a manifestation of its diversity
and complexity and a measure of its mastery of natural forces, which can produce a
widely varied built environment to serve the diverse needs of society. This article rst
traces the history of construction, then surveys its development at the present time. For
treatment of the aesthetic considerations of building design, see architecture. For further
treatment of historical development, see art and architecture, Anatolian; art and
architecture, Arabian; art and architecture, Egyptian; art and architecture, Iranian; art and
architecture, Mesopotamian; art and architecture, Syro-Palestinian; architecture, African;
art and architecture, Oceanic; architecture, Western; arts, Central Asian; arts, East Asian;
arts, Islamic; arts, Native American; arts, South Asian; arts, Southeast Asian.
The history of construction

Primitive building: the Stone Age
The hunter-gatherers of the late Stone Age, who moved about a wide area in search of
food, built the earliest temporary shelters that appear in the archaeological record.
Excavations at a number of sites in Europe dated to before 12,000 BCE show circular rings
of stones that are believed to have formed part of such shelters. They may have braced
crude huts made of wooden poles or have weighted down the walls of tents made of
animal skins, presumably supported by central poles.
A tent illustrates the basic elements of environmental control that are the concern of
construction. The tent creates a membrane to shed rain and snow; cold water on the
human skin absorbs body heat. The membrane reduces wind speed as well; air over the
human skin also promotes heat loss. It controls heat transfer by keeping out the hot rays
of the sun and con ning heated air in cold weather. It also blocks out light and provides
visual privacy. The membrane must be supported against the forces of gravity and wind; a
structure is necessary. Membranes of hides are strong in tension (stresses imposed by
stretching forces), but poles must be added to take compression (stresses imposed by
compacting forces). Indeed, much of the history of construction is the search for more
sophisticated solutions to the same basic problems that the tent was set out to solve. The
tent has continued in use to the present. The Saudi Arabian goats’ hair tent, the
Mongolian yurt with its collapsible wooden frame and felt coverings, and the American
Indian tepee with its multiple pole supports and double membrane are more re ned and
elegant descendants of the crude shelters of the early hunter-gatherers.
The agricultural revolution, dated to about 10,000 BCE, gave a major impetus to
construction. People no longer traveled in search of game or followed their herds but
stayed in one place to tend their elds. Dwellings began to be more permanent.
Archaeological records are scanty, but in the Middle East are found the remains of whole
villages of round dwellings called tholoi, whose walls are made of packed clay; all traces of
roofs have disappeared. In Europe tholoi were built of dry-laid stone with domed roofs;
there are still surviving examples (of more recent construction) of these beehive
structures in the Alps. In later Middle Eastern tholoi a rectangular antechamber or
entrance hall appeared, attached to the main circular chamber—the rst examples of the
rectangular plan form in building. Still later the circular form was dropped in favour of the
rectangle as dwellings were divided into more rooms and more dwellings were placed
together in settlements. The tholoi marked an important step in the search for durability;
they were the beginning of masonry construction.
Evidence of composite construction of clay and wood, the so-called wattle-and-daub

method, is also found in Europe and the Middle East. The walls were made of small
saplings or reeds, which were easy to cut with stone tools. They were driven into the
ground, tied together laterally with vegetable bres, and then plastered over with wet clay
to give added rigidity and weatherproo ng. The roofs have not survived, but the
structures were probably covered with crude thatch or bundled reeds. Both round and
rectangular forms are found, usually with central hearths.
Heavier timber buildings also appeared in Neolithic (New Stone Age) cultures, although
the dif culties of cutting large trees with stone tools limited the use of sizable timbers to
frames. These frames were usually rectangular in plan, with a central row of columns to
support a ridgepole and matching rows of columns along the long walls; rafters were run
from the ridgepole to the wall beams. The lateral stability of the frame was achieved by
burying the columns deep in the ground; the ridgepole and rafters were then tied to the
columns with vegetable bres. The usual roo ng material was thatch: dried grasses or
reeds tied together in small bundles, which in turn were tied in an overlapping pattern to
the light wooden poles that spanned between the rafters. Horizontal thatched roofs leak
rain badly, but, if they are placed at the proper angle, the rainwater runs off before it has
time to soak through. Primitive builders soon determined the roof pitch that would shed
the water but not the thatch. Many types of in ll were used in the walls of these frame
houses, including clay, wattle and daub, tree bark (favoured by American Woodland
Indians), and thatch. In Polynesia and Indonesia, where such houses are still built, they are
raised above the ground on stilts for security and dryness; the roo ng is often made of
leaves and the walls are largely open to allow air movement for natural cooling. Another
variation of the frame was found in Egypt and the Middle East, where timbers were
substituted for bundles of reeds.
Bronze Age and early urban cultures
It was the cultures of the great river valleys—including the Nile, the Tigris and Euphrates,
the Indus, and the Huang Ho—with their intensive agriculture based on irrigation—that
developed the rst communities large enough to be called cities. These cities were built
with a new building technology, based on the clay available on the riverbanks. The packed
clay walls of earlier times were replaced by those constructed of prefabricated units: mud
bricks. This represented a major conceptual change from the free forms of packed clay to
the geometric modulation imposed by the rectangular brick, and the building plans too
became strictly rectangular.
Bricks were made from mud and straw formed in a four-sided wooden frame, which was
removed after evaporation had suf ciently hardened the contents. The bricks were then
thoroughly dried in the sun. The straw acted as reinforcing to hold the brick together
when the inevitable shrinkage cracks appeared during the drying process. The bricks
were laid in walls with wet mud mortar or sometimes bitumen to join them together;
openings were apparently supported by wooden lintels. In the warm, dry climates of the
river valleys, weathering action was not a major problem, and the mud bricks were left
exposed or covered with a layer of mud plaster. The roofs of these early urban buildings
have disappeared, but it seems likely that they were supported by timber beams and
were mostly at, since there is little rainfall in these areas. Such mud brick or adobe
construction is still widely used in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Later, about 3000 BCE in Mesopotamia, the rst red bricks appeared. Ceramic pottery
had been developing in these cultures for some time, and the techniques of kiln- ring
were applied to bricks, which were made of the same clay. Because of their cost in labour
and fuel, red bricks were used at rst only in areas of greater wear, such as pavements or
the tops of walls subject to weathering. They were used not only in buildings but also to
build sewers to drain wastewater from cities. It is in the roofs of these underground drains
that the rst surviving true arches in brick are found, a humble beginning for what would
become a major structural form. Corbel vaults and domes made of limestone rubble
appeared at about the same time in Mesopotamian tombs (Figure 1). Corbel vaults are
constructed of rows of masonry placed so that each row projects slightly beyond the one
below, the two opposite walls thus meeting at the top. The arch and the vault may have
been used in the roofs and oors of other buildings, but no examples have survived from
this period. The well-developed masonry technology of Mesopotamia was used to build
large structures of great masses of brick, such as the temple at Tepe Gawra and the
ziggurats at Ur and Borsippa (Birs Nimrud), which were up to 26 metres (87 feet) high.
These symbolic buildings marked the beginnings of architecture in this culture.
The development of bronze, and later iron, technology

in this period led to the making of metal tools for
working wood, such as axes and saws. Less effort was
thus required to fell and work large trees. This led in
turn to new developments in building technics;
timbers were cut and shaped extensively, hewed into
square posts, sawed into planks, and split into
shingles. Log cabin construction appeared in the
forested areas of Europe, and timber framing became
more sophisticated. Although the excavated remains
Brick walls and corbel vault at the entrance
are fragmentary, undoubtedly major advances were
to the tomb chamber of Ur-nammu in the
royal mausoleum at Ur, late 3rd millennium made in timber technology in this period; some of the
products, such as the sawed plank and the shingle,
BC
. are still used today.

Hirmer Fotoarchiv, Munich
Stone construction in Egypt
Like the other great river valley cultures, Egypt built its cities with mud brick; red brick
did not appear there until Roman times. Timber was used sparingly, for it was never
abundant. It was used mainly in roofs, where it was heavily supplemented by reeds. Only a
few royal buildings were built with full timber frames.
It was against this drab background of endless mud brick houses that a new technology
of cut-stone construction emerged in the temples and pyramids of the 4th dynasty (c.
2575–c. 2465 BCE). Egypt, unlike Mesopotamia or the Indus valley, had excellent deposits of
stone exposed above ground; limestone, sandstone, and granite were all available. But the
extracting, moving, and working of stone was a costly process, and the quarrying of stone
was a state monopoly. Stone emerged as an elite construction material used only for
important state buildings.
The Egyptians developed cut stone for use in royal mortuary buildings not only for its
strength but also for its durability. It seemed the best material to offer eternal protection
to the pharaoh’s ka, the vital force he derived from the sun-god and through which he
ruled. Thus stone had both a functional and symbolic signi cance.
Within the long tradition of brick masonry, stone construction appeared abruptly, with
little transition. The brick mastaba tombs of the early kings and nobles suddenly gave way
to the stone technics of King Djoser’s ceremonial complex at Ṣaqqārah, the construction
of which is associated with his adviser and builder Imhotep. It is a structure of somewhat
curious and uncertain forms but of great elegance in execution and detail. It consists
mostly of massive limestone walls that enclose a series of interior courtyards. The walls
have convoluted surfaces, which recall the mastaba tombs, with dummy doors, and there
are even whole dummy buildings of solid stone. The complex has a large entrance hall
with a roof supported by massive stone lintels that rest on rows of short wing walls
projecting from the enclosing walls. There are no free-standing columns, but incipient
3
uted columns appear at the ends of the wing walls and engaged / -columns project
4
from the walls of the courtyards. The complex also contains the rst pyramid, created
from successively smaller mastabas. All these elements are built of small stones, which
could be handled by one or two men. It represents a technology that was already highly
developed, involving elaborate methods of quarrying, transporting, and working stone.
The construction process began at the quarries. Most of them were open-faced, although
in some cases tunnels were extended several hundred metres into cliffs to reach the best
quality stone. For extracting sedimentary rock, the chief tool was the mason’s pick with a
2.5-kilogram metal head and a 45-centimetre haft. With these picks vertical channels as
wide as a man were cut around rectangular blocks, exposing ve faces. The nal
separation of the sixth face was accomplished by drilling rows of holes into the rock with
metal bow drills. Wooden wedges were driven into the holes to ll them completely. The
wedges were doused with water, which they absorbed and which caused them to
expand, breaking the stone free from its bed. In the extraction of igneous rock such as
granite, which is much harder and stronger than limestone, the mason’s pick was
supplemented by balls of dolerite weighing up to 5 kilograms, which were used to break
the rock by beating and pounding. Granite was also drilled and sawed with the help of
abrasives, and expanding wooden wedges were used in splitting.
The Egyptians were able to move blocks weighing up to 1,000,000 kilograms from
quarries to distant building sites. This was an amazing accomplishment, as their only
machinery was levers and crude wooden sledges worked by masses of men and draft
animals. There were no wheeled vehicles before 1500 BCE, and they were never widely
used in building. Most quarries were near the Nile, however, and boats were also
extensively used in transporting stone.
At the building site the rough stones were precisely nished to their nal forms, with
particular attention to their exposed faces. This was done with metal chisels and mallets;
squares, plumb bobs, and straightedges were used to check the accuracy of the work.
These tools remained standard until the 19th century. After the rst appearance of small
stones at Ṣaqqārah, their size began to increase until they attained the cyclopean scale
usually associated with Egyptian masonry at about the time of the building of the
pyramids. In spite of the heavy loads that stone structures created, foundations were of a
surprisingly shoddy and improvised character, made of small blocks of poor quality stone.
Not until the 25th dynasty (c. 750–656 BCE) were important buildings placed on a below-
grade (underground) platform of masonry several metres thick.
The Egyptians possessed no lifting machinery to raise stones vertically. It is generally

thought that the laying of successive courses of masonry was accomplished with earth or
mud brick ramps, over which the stones were dragged to their places in the walls by
animal and human muscle power. Later, as the ramps were removed, they served as
platforms for the masons to apply the nal nishes to the stone surfaces. The remains of
such ramps can still be seen at un nished temples that were begun in the Ptolemaic
period. The stones were usually laid with a bed of mortar made of gypsum, sand, and
water, which perhaps acted more as a lubricant to push the stone into place than as a
bonding agent. There was also limited use of metal dovetail anchors between blocks.
The great Pyramids of Giza, the tallest of which rose to a height of 147 metres (481 feet),
are a marvelous technological achievement, and their visual impact is stunning even
today; it was not until the 19th century that taller structures would be built. But they also
represent a dead end in massive stone construction, which soon moved in the direction of
lighter and more exible stone frames and the creation of larger interior spaces. The free-
standing stone column supporting stone beams appeared for the rst time in the royal
temples associated with the pyramids of about 2600 BCE. Square granite columns carrying
heavy granite lintels spanned 3 to 4 metres (10 to 13 feet); the spaces between the lintels
were roofed by massive granite slabs. In these structures the abstract notion of the timber
frames of the early royal buildings was translated into stone.
Although stone is more durable than timber, it is quite different in structural strength.
Stone is much stronger in compression than timber but is weaker in tension. For this
reason, stone works well for columns, which could be made very high—for example, 24
metres (80 feet) in the great temple of Amon-Re at Karnak. But stone lintels spanning
between columns are limited by the tension they develop on their bottom surfaces; their
maximum span is perhaps 5 metres (16 feet). Thus, for longer spans, another structural
form was needed to exploit the higher compressive strength of stone. But the arch, which
could span a longer distance in compression, remained con ned to the sewers and to the
underground roofs of the tombs of minor of cials. So, perhaps with the image of the
timber building frame still strong in their minds, the Egyptian masons were content to
explore the limitations of the analogous stone frame in a series of great temples built
during the New Kingdom (1539–1075 BCE) at Karnak and Luxor, culminating in the elegant
loggias of Queen Hatshepsut’s temple at Dayr al-Baḥrī. The paradigm of the stone-frame
temple that they established would endure to the end of the Classical world.
Greek and Hellenistic cultures
Use of the Egyptian stone frame diffused throughout the eastern Mediterranean after
1800 BCE, and the cultures of mainland Greece were particularly attracted to it. In the
Greek world of the Aegean and southern Italy, many stone-frame temples were built;
some have survived to the present day in various states of preservation. They were built
largely of local marble or limestone; there was no granite for huge monoliths. The basic
technology was little changed from that of Egypt; the major difference was in the labour
force. There were no state-mobilized masses of unskilled workers to move huge stones;
there were instead small groups of skilled masons who worked independently. The
building accounts of the Parthenon show that each column was built under a separate
contract with a master mason. There was certainly lifting machinery for handling the
blocks, although its precise description is unknown; the concealed faces of stones still
have grooves and holes that engaged the ropes used to lift them into place. Metal cramps
and dowels were introduced for joining stones together; mortar was almost never used.
There was some experimentation with iron beams to reinforce longer spans in stone, but
the maximum remained about 5 to 6 metres (16 to 20 feet). Longer spans were achieved
with timber beams supported by the stone frame; the solid stone roof slabs of the great
Egyptian temples could not be duplicated.
Much of the mason’s effort was concentrated on the re nements of detail and optical
corrections for which Greek architecture is justly famous. This same sense is also seen in
the rst surviving construction drawings, which were made on the un nished surfaces of
the stone walls of the Temple of Didyma. Such drawings would normally have been
erased during the nal nishing of the wall surfaces, and those at Didyma survived
because the temple was never completed. The drawings show how the masons
developed the nal pro les of columns and moldings—a rare glimpse of the design
processes of builders before the days of pencil and paper.
In contrast to stone technology, which remained largely unchanged from Egyptian

methods, clay masonry underwent considerable development. Although mud brick
remained standard for dwellings, red brick was more widely used and began to be laid
with lime mortar, a technique borrowed from stone construction. Glazed brick also
appeared in this period, particularly outside the Greek world among the Babylonians and
Persians, who made considerable use of it in royal palaces. A ne surviving example is the
Ishtar Gate of the Palace of Nebuchadrezzar at Babylon, with a true arch spanning 7.5
metres (25 feet) and dated to 575 BCE. Another major innovation was the red clay roof tile.
This was much more waterproof than thatch, and tile roofs could have the lower pitch
characteristic of Greek temples. Hollow terra-cotta blocks for wall ornaments also
appeared about this time, probably derived from the highly advanced pottery industry,
which routinely made red clay vessels more than one metre long.
Although stone technology remained con ned to the trabeated (column-and-beam, or

post-and-lintel) frame, there were a few structures that hinted at future developments.
Perhaps the most spectacular building achievement of the age was the Pharos of
Alexandria, the great lighthouse built for Ptolemy II in the 3rd century BCE. It was a huge
stone tower nearly as high as the Great Pyramid but much smaller at the base—perhaps
30 metres (100 feet) square. Within this mass of masonry was a complex system of ramps
over which pack animals carried fuel for the beacon at the top. The Pharos was the rst
high-rise building, but the limitations of masonry structures and the lack of a rapid way of
moving people vertically precluded any further development of tall buildings until the
19th century. The Pharos remained the only example of this type long after it was
demolished by the Arabs beginning in the 7th century CE.
Another example of a new stone technology that was tried but not pursued further by the
Greeks was the underground tombs of Mycenae, built about 1300 BCE. These tombs have
main chambers enclosed by pointed domes of corbeled stone construction, about 14
metres (47 feet) in diameter and 13 metres (43 feet) high. Crude versions of the corbel
dome had appeared earlier in Mesopotamian tombs and the tholoi of Neolithic Europe,
but in Mycenae the technics were re ned and enlarged in scale. A corbel dome or arch
does not develop the high compressive forces that characterize true arches and domes,
which are built of radial segments of stone or brick. Thus it does not take full advantage of
the great compressive strength of stone and cannot span long distances; 14 metres is
near the upper limit. Greek masons did not choose to explore this type of structure; their
buildings remained largely concerned with exterior forms. The Roman builders who
followed them, however, exploited masonry to its full potential and created the rst great
interior spaces.
Roman achievements
It was from the Etruscans, who lived in the northern part of Italy, that the Romans derived
much of their early building technology. The Etruscans, probably in uenced by a few rare
Greek examples in southern Italy, developed the true arch in stone. A late specimen of the
3rd century BCE is the Porta Marzia, an arched city gateway with a span of about 6 metres
(20 feet), in Perugia. The Etruscans also had a highly developed terra-cotta technology
and made excellent red bricks.
Masonry construction
The Romans adopted Etruscan stone construction based on the arch and built many
spectacular examples of what they called opus quadratum, or structures of cut stone
blocks laid in regular courses. Most of these were public works in conquered provinces,
such as the late 1st-century-BCE Pont du Gard, a many-arched bridge and aqueduct
spanning 22 metres (72 feet) near Nîmes, in France, or the ne bridge over the Tagus River
at Alcántara in Spain, with a span of almost 30 metres (100 feet), built about 110 CE. Oddly
enough, such long spans in stone were never applied to buildings. The surviving Roman
buildings with stone arches or vaults have typical spans of only 4 to 7 metres (15 to 25 feet);
small stone domes with diameters of 4 to 9 metres were built in Roman Syria. Such arches
and domes imply the existence of sophisticated timber formwork to support them during
construction, as well as advanced lifting machinery, but there are no extant records of
either. Many of these structures survived the fall of the empire, and they became models
for the revival of stone construction in medieval Europe, when masons again sought to
build “in the Roman manner.” The Romans also inherited the trabeated stone frame from
the Greeks of southern Italy and continued to build temples and other public buildings
with this type of construction into the 3rd century CE.
Brickmaking, particularly in the region of Rome itself, became a major industry and nally,
under the empire, a state monopoly. Brick construction was cheaper than stone due to
the economies of scale in mass production and the lower level of skill needed to put it in
place. The brick arch was adopted to span openings in walls, precluding the need for
lintels. Mortar was at rst the traditional mixture of sand, lime, and water, but, beginning
in the 2nd century BCE, a new ingredient was introduced. The Romans called it pulvis
puteoli after the town of Puteoli (modern Pozzuoli), near Naples, where it was rst found;
the material, formed in Mount Vesuvius and mined on its slopes, is now called pozzolana.
When mixed with lime, pozzolana forms a natural cement that is much stronger and
more weather-resistant than lime mortar alone and that will harden even under water.
Pozzolanic mortars were so strong and cheap, and could be placed by labourers of such
low skill, that the Romans began to substitute them for bricks in the interiors of walls; the
outer wythes of bricks were used mainly as forms to lay the pozzolana into place. Finally,
the mortar of lime, sand, water, and pozzolana was mixed with stones and broken brick to
form a true concrete, called opus caementicium. This concrete was still used with brick
forms in walls, but soon it began to be placed into wooden forms, which were removed
after the concrete had hardened.
Early concrete structures
One of the earliest surviving examples of this concrete construction is the Temple of the
Sybil (or Temple of Vesta) at Tivoli, built during the 1st century BCE. This temple has a
circular plan with a peristyle of stone columns and lintels around the outside, but the wall
of the circular cella, or sanctuary room, inside is built of concrete—an uneasy
confrontation of new and traditional forms of construction. An early large-scale example
in Rome itself of brick-faced concrete is the plain rectangular walls of the Camp of the
Praetorian Guard, built by Sejanus in 21–23 CE. But the possibilities of plastic form
suggested by this initially liquid material, which could easily assume curved shapes in
plan and section, soon led to the creation of a series of remarkable interior spaces,
spanned by domes or vaults and uncluttered by the columns required by trabeated stone
construction, that showed the power of the imperial state. The rst of these is the
octagonal domed fountain hall of Nero’s Golden House (64–68 CE), which is about 15
metres (50 feet) in diameter with a large circular opening, or oculus, in the top of the
dome. The domed form was rapidly developed in a series of imperial buildings that
culminated in the emperor Hadrian’s Pantheon of about 118–128 CE. This huge circular
structure was entered from a portico of stone columns and was surmounted by a dome
43.2 metres (142 feet) in diameter, lighted by an oculus at the top. The walls supporting
the dome are of brick-faced concrete 6 metres (20 feet) thick lightened at intervals by
internal recesses; the dome is of solid concrete 1.5 metres (5 feet) in average thickness and
rising 43.2 metres above the oor. This magni cent structure has survived in good
condition to modern times; the diameter of its circular dome remained unsurpassed until
the 19th century.
Two large fragments of great concrete cross-vault buildings still survive from the late
empire. The rst of these is a portion of the Baths of Diocletian (c. 298–306) with a span of
26 metres (85 feet); it was converted into the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli by
Michelangelo in the 16th century. The other is the Basilica of Constantine (307–312 CE), also
with a span of 26 metres. All of these buildings contained stone columns, but they were
purely ornamental and could have been removed at will. The brick-faced concrete walls
were left exposed on the exteriors, but the interiors were lavishly decorated with a veneer
of thin slabs of coloured stone held in place by metal fasteners that engaged slots cut in
the edges of the slabs, a technique still used in the 20th century. These and other great
Roman public spaces spanned by concrete domes and vaults made a major advance in
scale over the short spans of the stone frame.
In the late empire, concrete technology gradually

disappeared, and even brickmaking ceased in
western Europe. But signi cant developments in
brick technology continued in the eastern Roman
world, where the achievements of earlier periods in
concrete were now duplicated in brickwork. The tomb
of the emperor Galerius (now the Church of St.
The clerestory of the Basilica of George) of about 300 CE at Thessaloníki, in Greece, has
Constantine, Rome.
a brick dome 24 metres (80 feet) in diameter. It
© Leonid Andronov/Fotolia
probably was the model for the climactic example of
late Roman building, the great church of Hagia Sophia (532–537) in Constantinople, which
features a central dome spanning 32.6 metres (107 feet). Even Rome’s great enemies, the
Sāsānian Persians, built a large brick-vaulted hall in the palace at Ctesiphon (usually
identi ed with Khosrow I [mid-6th century] but probably a 4th-century structure) with a
span of 25 metres (82 feet) by borrowing Roman methods. These late brick structures
were the last triumphs of Roman building technology and would not be equaled for the
next 900 years.
Timber and metal construction
The Romans also made major advances in timber technology. Reliefs on Trajan’s Column
show the timber lattice truss bridges used by Roman armies to cross the Danube. The
truss, a hollowed-out beam with the forces concentrated in a triangulated network of
linear members, was apparently a Roman invention. No evidence of their theoretical

understanding of it exists, but nevertheless they were able to master the design of trusses
in a practical way. A ne example is the Basilica of Constantine at Trier (297–299 CE), where
timber king-post roof trusses (triangular frames with a vertical central strut) span a hall 23
metres (75 feet) wide; the present roof is a restoration, but the original must have been
similar.
The notion of the truss was extended from timber to metal. Bronze trusses, running over
three spans of about 9 metres (30 feet) each, supported the roof of the portico of the
Pantheon. The choice of bronze was probably made more for durability than strength,
because Pope Urban VIII was able to remove this bronze work in 1625 (to melt it down for
cannon) and replace it with timber trusses. The truss remained an isolated achievement
of Roman building that would not be equaled until the Renaissance.
Metals were used extensively in Roman buildings. In addition to bronze trusses, the
Pantheon had bronze doors and gilded bronze roof tiles. Lead was another material
introduced by the Romans for roo ng; it was waterproof and could be used with very low
pitches.
Building support systems
Perhaps the most important use of lead was for pipes to supply fresh water to buildings
and to remove wastewater from them (the word plumbing comes from the Latin
plumbum, which means lead). The Romans provided generous water supplies for their
cities; all of the supply systems worked by gravity and many of them used aqueducts and
syphons. Although most people had to carry their water from public fountains, there was
limited distribution of water to public buildings (particularly baths) and some private
residences and apartment houses; private and semiprivate baths and latrines became
fairly common. The wastewater drainage system was limited, with no treatment of
sewage, which was simply discharged into a nearby river. But even these fairly modest
applications of public sanitation far exceeded those of previous cultures and would not be
equaled until the 19th century.
Another material that the Romans applied to buildings was glass, which had been
developed by the Egyptians who used it only for jewelry and small ornamental vessels.
The Romans devised many kinds of coloured glass for use in mosaics to decorate interior
surfaces. They also made the rst clear window glass, produced by blowing glass cylinders
that were then cut and laid at. Seneca (c. 4 BCE–65 CE) described the sensation caused by
the appearance of glazed sun porches in the villas near Rome. Although no Roman glass
installations have survived, glass apparently became fairly common in public buildings
and was even used in middle-class apartment houses in the capital.
In most Roman buildings, the central open re remained the major source of heat—as
well as annoying smoke—although the use of charcoal braziers made some improvement.
A major innovation was the development of hypocaust, or indirect radiant, heating, by
conducting heated air through ues in oors and walls. The heated masonry radiated a
pleasantly uniform warmth, and smoke was eliminated from occupied spaces; the same
method was used to heat water for baths. The Basilica of Constantine at Trier has a well-
preserved example of hypocaust heating, where the stone slabs of the oor are supported
on short brick columns, creating a continuous heating plenum beneath it.
Romanesque and Gothic
The disappearance of Roman power in western Europe during the 5th century led to a
decline in building technology. Brickmaking became rare and was not revived until the
14th century. Pozzolanic concrete disappeared entirely, and it would not be until the 19th
century that man-made cements would equal it. The use of domes and vaults in stone
construction was also lost. Building technics fell to Iron Age levels, exempli ed by log
construction, packed clay walls, mud brick, and wattle and daub.
Advanced building technologies were developing in China in this same period, during the
Sui (581–618) and T’ang (618–907) dynasties. In the 3rd century BCE the completion of the
Great Wall, about 6,400 kilometres (4,000 miles) in length and following a sinuous path
along the contours of rugged terrain, had demonstrated remarkable achievements in
masonry technology, logistics, and surveying methods. The An-Chi Bridge, built about 610
CE in Hopei province, had a stone arch with a span of 37.5 metres (123 feet), that far
exceeded the spans of the arches of the Roman bridge at Alcántara. Extensive work was
also done in the development of heavy timber framing (primarily for temples), and stone
tower pagodas up to 60 metres (200 feet) high were built; red brick was also widely used.
These elements of Chinese building technology set a high standard of quality that would
be maintained until the 19th century.
Stone construction
Beginning in the 9th century, there were the rst stirrings of the revival of stone
construction in Europe. The Palatine Chapel of Charlemagne at Aachen (consecrated 805),
with its octagonal segmented dome spanning 14.5 metres (47 feet), is an early example of
this trend. But the Romanesque style, building “in the Roman manner” with stone arches,
vaults, and domes to span interior spaces, did not really begin until the later part of the
11th century. Vaults reappeared in such structures as the cathedral of Santiago de
Compostela in Spain (begun 1078) and Saint Sernin at Toulouse (begun 1080). The cross
vault raised on columns was seen again at Speyer Cathedral (1030–65, reconstructed c.
1082–1137) and Durham Cathedral (1093–1133), and the domes of St. Mark’s Basilica in
Venice (late 11th century) and the cathedral of Saint-Front in Périgueux (1120–1150) marked
the recovery of the complete range of Roman structural forms.
All these buildings were built by the Roman Catholic Church, which had spread its
in uence throughout western Europe in this period. One contemporary chronicler wrote
that the earth seemed to be “clothing itself with a white robe of churches,” white because
they were new and built of stone. From 1050 to 1350 more stone was quarried in France
alone than in the whole history of ancient Egypt—enough to build 80 cathedrals, 500
large churches, and tens of thousands of parish churches. The great building campaign of
medieval times has been called the “cathedral crusade,” an equally impassioned
counterpart of the great military adventures to recover the Holy Land.
This vast undertaking required many masons, who worked as free craftsmen, organizing
themselves into societies or guilds. They oversaw the quarrying of stone, supervised the
process of apprenticeship by which new members were trained, and did all the cutting
and placing of stone at the building site. The basic tools of the medieval masons were
little changed from those of Egypt, but they had large saws driven by waterwheels to cut
stone as well as considerable machinery for raising and moving materials. Their
knowledge of technics was a closely held secret; it included the rules of proportion for
overall planning and for determining the safe dimensions of structural members. One
extant sketchbook of drawings, from the master mason Villard de Honnecourt, shows a
keen sense of observation, a love of mechanical devices, and above all the notion of
geometric form that underlay the work, but it gives only tantalizing bits of information
about actual construction. Jean Mignot, one of the master masons of Milan Cathedral,
summed up their approach with the phrase ars sine scientia nihil est, “art without science
is nothing”; that is, skill in building derived from practical experience (ars) must be
tempered and guided by precise principles (scientia), which were seen as being
embodied in the theorems of geometry, the only science of medieval times. But with
these limited means the masons were able to realize great achievements.
Romanesque masons had two patrons, church and state. The state built mostly for
military purposes, and Roman stonework, once recovered, was adequate for castles and
forti cations. But the church had other interests that propelled the development of stone
construction in new and daring directions. St. Augustine had written that light is the most
direct manifestation of God. It was this idea that led the search for ways to introduce more
and more light into churches, opening ever larger windows in the walls until a new kind of
diaphanous stone skeleton evolved.
The Roman-inspired circular cross vaults and arches in stone were heavy and needed
heavy walls and piers to receive their thrusts; the windows they offered were small.
Medieval masons found that there was a more ef cient form for the arch than the
Classical circle. This form is a catenary curve—that is, one formed by a chain when it hangs
under its own weight. But the masons’ belief in geometry and the perfection of circular
forms led them to approximate the catenary shape with two circular segments that met
in a point at the top, the so-called Gothic arch. Such arches could be made thinner since
they more ef ciently channeled the compressive forces that owed through them and
allowed larger openings in the walls.
The heavy piers that took the lateral thrust of the roof vaults were soon hollowed out into
half arches or ying buttresses, which allowed even more light to enter the nave. To
absorb the forces owing down through the stone frame, massive foundations were
required; often the volume of stone below ground was greater than that above. To further
lighten the loads, the vaults themselves were made thinner by introducing ribs at the
intersections of their curved surfaces, called groins. The ribs were built with supporting
formwork or centring made of timber; close cooperation was needed between the
carpenters and the masons. The curved surfaces of stones between the ribs were probably
laid with little formwork, using only mortar; brick vaults are still built this way in the Middle
East. The mortar was used not only for adhesion as a construction device but also later to
check for tension cracks, which were signs of possible failure; the mortar thus served as a
means of quality control to help keep the structure in compression.
The naves of cathedrals were made higher to gather more light; Amiens Cathedral (begun
1220) was 42 metres (140 feet) high, and nally in 1347 Beauvais Cathedral reached the
maximum height of 48 metres (157 feet), but its vaults soon collapsed and had to be
rebuilt. The spans of the naves of Gothic churches remained fairly small, about 13 to 16
metres (45 to 55 feet); only a few late examples have longer spans, the greatest being 23
metres (74 feet) at Gerona Cathedral (completed 1458).
After the enthusiasm of the cathedral crusade ebbed in the 14th century and the basic
fabric of most cathedrals was completed, a new element appeared to further test the skill
of masons and carpenters: the spire. The spire was more a symbol of local pride than a
part of the theological quest for more light, but it raised interesting technical problems. At
Salisbury Cathedral the spire was built over the crossing of the nave and transept, which
had not been designed to accommodate it; the tall crossing piers began to buckle under
the added weight. Strainer arches had to be added between the piers to brace them
against buckling; this was apparently the rst time that stone columns were slender and
heavily loaded enough to be observed to bend or buckle—later, such action would be a
major concern in the design of metal columns. Salisbury’s spire is an ingenious composite
structure of stone cladding laid over a timber frame and tied together at the base with
iron bands to resist spreading; it rose to a total height of 123 metres (404 feet) when it was
nished in 1362. Strasbourg Cathedral added a 144-metre (475-foot) spire in 1439, and the
upper limit was reached at Beauvais Cathedral in 1569 when its 157-metre (516-foot) spire
was completed; the Beauvais spire collapsed in 1573 and was never rebuilt, a last sad
epilogue to the cathedral crusade.
Construction in timber and brick
Timber construction underwent slow development in this period. Scandinavian stave

churches of heavy timber were built from the 11th through the 14th century, prior to the
triumph of the stone church, and about 30 have survived to the present day. In western
Europe, particularly from the 14th century onward, half-timber construction emerged as a
new form of house building. The continental type had a frame of squared timbers, with
vertical posts spaced about one metre apart and horizontal girts spaced at the same
distance; diagonal braces were run through the outside walls for lateral stability. The roof
beams spanned between the ridgepole and the walls; oor beams were supported on the
walls and interior partitions. The English half-timber frame was similar, but it eliminated
the horizontal girts and diagonal bracing by using closely spaced verticals about one-half
metre apart. In both systems the space in the outside wall was lled with an enclosure
material to impart added rigidity to the frame; brick or wattle and daub were often used.
All the timbers of the frame were attached together by elaborate dovetail, or mortise-and-
tenon, joints. Half-timber framing would remain the standard way of building with wood
in Europe until the 19th century. There was also considerable use of heavy timber for the
roofs and oors of masonry buildings, which was in uenced by shipbuilding technology. A
particular instance of this is the English hammer-beam roof, which was a kind of corbeled
truss that could span quite long distances. The roof of King Richard II’s Westminster Hall
in London (1402), with a 21-metre (70-foot) span, is an excellent example of this type.
Fired brick began to be made again in Europe in the 14th century, preceded in many
areas by the use of salvaged Roman brick. The 14th-century bricks were not as precise as
the Roman and were often distorted in ring. Therefore, large lime-mortar joints were
needed for regular course lines. Bricks became nearly standardized at something close to
the present size, about 20.3 × 9.5 × 5.7 centimetres (8 × 3.75 × 2.25 inches), and bonding
systems based on this approximately 2:1 proportion were developed. These bonding
patterns reduced continuous vertical mortar joints, because the mortars were of
substantially lower strength than the bricks and vertical joints could form planes of
weakness in the walls where cracks might develop. The best bonding pattern was English
bond, in which all the bricks in each course overlapped the ones below and vertical joints
were entirely eliminated. Brick remained quite expensive because of the cost of the fuel
needed to re it, and it was used mainly where there was no readily available stone. In the
late medieval period and mostly in northern Europe, brick was adapted to Gothic stone
forms to build so-called hall churches, with naves and aisles of equal height.
Building services
Although Roman hypocaust heating disappeared with the empire, a new development in
interior heating appeared in western Europe at the beginning of the 12th century: the
masonry replace and chimney began to replace the central open re. The large roof
openings over central res let in wind and rain, so each house had only one and larger
buildings had as few as possible. Therefore, heated rooms tended to be large and
semipublic, where many persons could share the re’s warmth; the roof opening did not
effectively remove all the smoke, some of which remained to plague the room’s
occupants. The chimney did not let in much air or water and could remove most of the
smoke. Although much of the heat went up the ue, it was still a great improvement, and,
most signi cantly, it could be used to heat both small and large rooms and multistory
buildings as well. Houses, particularly large ones, were broken up into smaller, more
private spaces each heated by its own replace, a change that decisively altered the
communal lifestyle of early medieval times.
The Renaissance
Reintroduction of dome construction
The waning of the cathedral crusade in the late 14th century led to a decline in the
International Gothic style practiced by the master masons. In this period the emerging
nation-states of Europe began to compete with the church as centres of power. To these
new nations, the Roman Empire was the model nation-state, and it seemed appropriate
that they use Roman building forms as symbols of their power—particularly the round
arch, the vault, and, above all, the dome, following the powerful example of the Pantheon.
From 1350 until 1750 much of building technology was focused on the domed church,
which developed as a symbol not only of religious belief but also of national and urban
pride. There was a conscious rejection of Gothic forms in favour of the ideological appeal
of Rome. This attitude led to a split between the processes of design and construction and
to the appearance of the rst architects (a word derived from the Greek architekton,
meaning a chief craftsman), who conceived a building’s form, as opposed to the builder,
who executed it. The rst building in which the designer and the builder were separate
persons was the Campanile, or bell tower, of the cathedral of Florence. The design was
made by the painter Giotto and constructed by cathedral masons from 1334 to 1359.
The cathedral of Florence itself had been begun in the Gothic style by Arnolfo di Cambio
in 1296. But in 1366 the City of Florence, following the advice of certain painters and
sculptors, decided that the Gothic should no longer be used and that all new work should
follow Roman forms, including an octagonal dome 42 metres (138 feet) in span to be built
at the east end of the nave. The dome was not built until the early 15th century, when
Filippo Brunelleschi, a goldsmith and sculptor, began to make statues for the cathedral.
Gradually he became interested in the building itself and built some smaller parts of it. In
about 1415 he prepared a design for the dome that he daringly proposed to build without
the aid of formwork, which had been absolutely necessary in all previous Roman and
Gothic construction. He built a 1:12 model of the dome in brick to demonstrate his
method; the design was accepted and built under his supervision from 1420 to 1436.
Brunelleschi was thus the rst real architect to conceive the building’s form and the
methods to execute it and to guarantee its performance; he pointedly refused
membership in both the masons’ and carpenters’ guilds. Brunelleschi’s dome consists of
two layers, an inner dome spanning the diameter and a parallel outer shell to protect it
from the weather and give it a more pleasing external form. Both domes are supported by
24 stone half arches, or ribs, of circular form, 2.1 metres (7 feet) thick at the base and
tapering to 1.5 metres (5 feet), which meet at an open stone compression ring at the top.
To resist outward thrust, tie rings of stone held together with metal cramps run
horizontally between the ribs. There are also tie rings of oak timbers joined by metal
connectors. The spaces between the ribs and tie rings are spanned by the inner and outer
shells, which are of stone for the rst 7.1 metres (23 feet) and brick above. The entire
structure was built without formwork, the circular pro les of the ribs and rings being
maintained by a system of measuring wires xed at the centres of curvature. Brunelleschi
obviously understood enough about the structural behaviour of the dome to know that, if
it were built in horizontal layers, it would always be stable and not require timber centring.
He also designed elaborate wooden machines to move the needed building materials
both vertically and horizontally. Having all but equaled the span of the Pantheon in stone,
Brunelleschi was hailed as the man who “renewed Roman masonry work”; the dome was
established as the paragon of built form.
The next great dome of the Renaissance was that of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, begun by
Pope Julius II in 1506. The technology was very similar to that of Brunelleschi, and the
diameter is nearly the same. The dome’s design went through many changes and
extended over a period of nearly 80 years. The major contributors to the design were the
painter and sculptor Michelangelo, who served as architect from 1546 to 1564, and the
architects Giacomo della Porta and Domenico Fontana, under whose direction it was
nally built during the 1580s. The dome was considerably thinner than that of Florence
and was reinforced by three tie rings made of continuous iron chains. It developed
numerous cracks, and in the 1740s ve more chains were added to further stabilize it.
Since the dome used a proven technology, most of the design was done on paper with
drawings.
Another large dome of this period was that of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, which was
built from 1675 to 1710 by the English architect Sir Christopher Wren. In the early stages of
the design process only two physical models were used; later efforts included extensive
drawings and apparently also mathematical modeling with numerical calculations. Wren
had begun his career as a mathematician and physical scientist and was professor of
astronomy at Oxford from 1661 to 1673 before becoming a full-time architect. With this
background he was thus able to pro t from the rst theoretical determination of the
catenary curve as the most ef cient pro le of the arch and dome, which was published by
the Scottish mathematician David Gregory in 1697. Wren’s solution to the dome, which
has a diameter of 34.5 metres (113 feet), was a series of three nested shells, of which the
middle one is the true structure. This middle dome is built of brick in a nearly conical
catenary form, owing to the large concentrated load of the lantern on top, and
constrained by iron chains; it supports a triangularly braced timber framework to which is

attached the exterior surfacing of lead sheets. Within the middle dome is a shallower
catenary dome that carries only its own weight and serves as a ceiling for the interior
space. Wren’s concealed structure, to which were applied the desired internal and
external forms, has become a standard architectural technique.
Revival of Roman technics and materials
In addition to Roman forms in masonry, the Renaissance recovered other Roman

technologies, including timber trusses. Giorgio Vasari used king-post timber trusses for a
20-metre (66-foot) span in the roof of the Uf zi, or municipal of ce building, in Florence in
the mid-16th century. At the same time, the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio used a
fully triangulated timber truss for a bridge with a span of 30.5 metres (100 feet) over the
Cimone River. Palladio clearly understood the importance of the carefully detailed
diagonal members, for in his diagram of the truss in his Four Books on Architecture he
said that they “support the whole work.” The tension connections of the timber members
in the truss were joined with iron cramps and bolts.
Trussed spans in the range of 20–26 metres (65–85 feet) became fairly common in
building roofs. In 1664 Wren used timber trusses with a span of about 22 metres (73 feet)
in the roof of the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford. But a precise theoretical understanding of
the truss, and major use of it in buildings, would not come until the 19th century.
Another Roman material that was revived and much improved in the Renaissance was
clear glass. A new technique for making it was perfected in Venice in the 16th century. It
was known as the crown glass method and was originally used for making dinner plates.
Glassblowers spun the molten glass into at disks up to a metre in diameter; the disks
were polished after they had cooled and were cut into rectangular shapes. The rst record
of crown glass windows is their installation in double-hung counterweighted sliding-sash
frames, at Inigo Jones’s Banqueting House in London in 1685. Large areas of such glass
became common in the 1700s, pointing the way toward the great glass and iron buildings
of the 19th century.
The ef ciency of interior heating was improved by the introduction of cast-iron and clay-
tile stoves, which were placed in a free-standing position in the room. The radiant heat
they produced was uniformly distributed in the space, and they lent themselves to the
burning of coal—a new fuel that was rapidly replacing wood in western Europe. When
European builders had recovered the technology of the Classical world in brick, stone, and
timber, a stable plateau was reached in the development of the building arts; these
materials and technics were well suited to the churches, palaces, and forti cations that
their patrons required. The Industrial Revolution, however, brought new materials and the
demand for new building types that completely transformed building technology.
The rst industrial age
Development of iron technology
The last half of the 18th century saw the unfolding of a series of events, primarily in
England, that later historians would call the rst Industrial Revolution, which would have a
profound in uence on society as a whole as well as on building technology. Among the
rst of these events was the large-scale production of iron, beginning with the work of
Abraham Darby, who in 1709 was the rst to use coke as a fuel in the smelting process.
The ready availability of iron contributed to the development of machinery, notably James
Watt’s double-acting steam engine of 1769. Henry Cort developed the puddling process
for making wrought iron in 1784, and in the same year he built the rst rolling mill,
powered by a steam engine, to produce rolled lengths of wrought-iron bars, angles, and
other shapes. Cast iron, which has a higher carbon content than wrought iron but is more
brittle, was also produced on a large scale. Standard iron building elements soon
appeared, pointing the way to the development of metal buildings.
Early applications of iron in construction are found several centuries prior to the industrial
age. There are records of iron chain suspension bridges with timber decks in China from
the early Ming dynasty (1368–1644); some of them—such as the Liu-Tung Bridge, the
object of a famous battle on Mao Zedong’s Long March in 1935—have survived in a much-
restored condition. The iron tension chains in the domes of St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s
cathedrals are other examples. But the rst large cast-iron structure of the industrial age
was the bridge over the River Severn at Ironbridge. Built by the iron founder Abraham
Darby III between 1777 and 1779, it has a span of 30 metres (100 feet), using ve circular-
form arches that are reduced to a spidery web of slender iron ribs. Each arch was cast in
two pieces with a maximum dimension of 21 metres (70 feet), which were dif cult to
move from the foundry to the site and to set in place. Smaller, more easily handled pieces
characterized the rapid application of iron to buildings that followed. Solid cast-iron
columns were used in St. Anne’s Church in Liverpool as early as 1772, and hollow tubular
columns of increased ef ciency were developed in the 1790s. The rst use of wrought-iron
trusses, which were made of at bars riveted together, was in a 28-metre (92-foot) span for
the roof of the Théâtre-Français in Paris in 1786 by the architect Victor Louis. There iron
was used not so much for its strength as its noncombustibility, which, it was hoped, would
reduce the hazard of re. For the same reason, about 1800 the British textile industry
began to use partial metal framing in mill buildings up to seven stories high. Hollow cast-
iron cylindrical columns were spaced at about 3 metres (10 feet) on centre and supported
cast-iron tee beams spanning up to 4.5 metres (15 feet); the oors were bridged by brick
arches resting on the bottom anges of the tee beams; at the perimeter the beams rested
on masonry bearing walls, which gave the structure its lateral stability. This prototype of
the iron-frame building with exterior masonry walls soon set a standard that would
continue to the end of the century.
The completely independent iron frame without masonry adjuncts emerged slowly in a
series of special building types. The rst modest example was Hungerford Fish Market
(1835) in London. Timber was forbidden because of sanitation requirements; the cast-iron
beams spanned 9.7 metres (32 feet) with 3-metre (10-foot) cantilevers on either side, and
the hollow cast-iron columns also served as roof drains. All lateral stability was provided by
the rigid joints between columns and beams. The next type to use the full iron frame was
the greenhouse, which provided a controlled luminous and thermal environment for
exotic tropical plants in the cold climate of northern Europe. Among the rst of these was
the Palm House at Kew Gardens near London; it was built by the architect Decimus
Burton in the 1840s.
A spectacular series of iron and glass buildings for conservatories and exhibition halls
continued to the end of the century. The most important of these was the Crystal Palace,
built in London’s Hyde Park to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. This vast building, 564
metres (1,851 feet) long, was built entirely of standardized parts. Cast-iron columns carried
iron trusses of three different spans—7.3 metres (24 feet), 14.6 metres (48 feet), and 21.9
metres (72 feet)—in riveted wrought iron; spanning between the trusses were ingenious
“Paxton gutters” made of wooden compression members above iron tension rods that
prestressed the wood to reduce de ection. All these prefabricated elements were simply
bolted or clipped together on the site to enclose a space of 90,000 square metres
(1,000,000 square feet) in only six months. But the major triumph of the Crystal Palace
was its all-glass enclosure, made of standard panes 25 × 124 centimetres (10 × 49 inches) in
size; the huge space was ooded with light that was scarcely interrupted by the
diaphanous metal framing—it resembled a great secular cathedral realizing the ultimate
ambition of the medieval masons.
The French also produced a number of ne iron and glass exhibition halls, including one
with a 48-metre (160-foot) span in 1855. Others with somewhat smaller spans, but larger
enclosed areas than the Crystal Palace, followed in 1867 and 1878. Iron trusses with glazed
roofs were also used in the train sheds of railway stations that were built throughout
western Europe. The New Street Station in Birmingham, England (1854), had a train shed
with an iron truss roof spanning 64 metres (211 feet). It was apparently the rst building to
exceed the span of the Pantheon. One of the largest was St. Pancras Station (1873) in
London, which featured a glazed hall spanned by 74-metre (243-foot) trussed iron arches.
After the brilliant successes of mid-century, iron and glass construction was applied in a
more prosaic series of buildings that continued to be built until 1900.
Manufactured building materials
The production of brick was industrialized in the 19th century. The laborious process of
hand-molding, which had been used for 3,000 years, was superseded by “pressed” bricks.
These were mass-produced by a mechanical extrusion process in which clay was
squeezed through a rectangular die as a continuous column and sliced to size by a wire
cutter. There was also a proliferation of elaborately shaped and stamped masonry units.
Periodically red beehive kilns (stoked by coke) continued to be used, but the continuous
tunnel kiln, through which bricks were moved slowly on a conveyor belt, had appeared by
the end of the century. The new methods considerably reduced the cost of brick, and it
became one of the constituent building materials of the age.
Timber technology underwent rapid development in the 19th century in North America,
where there were large forests of softwood r and pine trees that could be harvested and
processed by industrial methods; steam- and water-powered sawmills began producing
standard-dimension timbers in quantity in the 1820s. The production of cheap machine-
made nails in the 1830s provided the other necessary ingredient that made possible a
major innovation in construction, the balloon frame; the rst example is thought to be a
warehouse erected in Chicago in 1832 by George W. Snow. There was a great demand for
small buildings of all types as the North American continent was settled, and the light
timber frame provided a quick, exible, and inexpensive solution to this problem. In the
balloon frame system, traditional heavy timbers and complex joinery were abandoned.
The building walls were framed with 5 × 10-centimetre (2 × 4-inch) vertical members, or
studs, placed at 40 centimetres (16 inches) on centre (that is, measured between the
centre points of each); these in turn supported the roof and oor joists, usually 5 × 25
centimetres (2 × 10 inches) also placed 40 centimetres (16 inches) apart and capable of
spanning up to 6 metres (20 feet). Lateral stability was achieved by light diagonal braces
let into the studs or, more commonly, by 2-centimetre- (0.75-inch-) thick diagonal boards
applied to all exterior walls and to oor and roof joists, creating a rigid, light box. Openings
were cut through the framing and sheathing as required. All connections were made with
machine-made nails, which were easily driven through the soft, thin timbers. A wide
variety of interior and exterior surfacing materials could be applied to the frame, including
timber siding, stucco, and brick veneer. The balloon frame building, made with
manufactured materials and requiring only a few hand tools and little skill to build, has
remained a popular and inexpensive form of construction to the present day.
Building science
A signi cant achievement of the rst industrial age was the emergence of building
science, particularly the elastic theory of structures. With it, mathematical models could
be used to predict structural performance with considerable accuracy, provided there was
adequate quality control of the materials used. Although some elements of the elastic
theory, such as the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler’s theory of column buckling
(1757), were worked out earlier, the real development began with the English scientist
Thomas Young’s modern de nition of the modulus of elasticity in 1807. Louis Navier
published the elastic theory of beams in 1826, and three methods of analyzing forces in
trusses were devised by Squire Whipple, A. Ritter, and James Clerk Maxwell between 1847
and 1864. The concept of a statically determinate structure—that is, a structure whose
forces could be determined from Newton’s laws of motion alone—was set forth by Otto
Mohr in 1874, after having been used intuitively for perhaps 40 years. Most 19th-century
structures were purposely designed and fabricated with pin joints to be statically
determinate; it was not until the 20th century that statically indeterminate structures
became readily solvable. The elastic theory formed the basis of structural analysis until
World War II, when bomb-damaged buildings were observed to behave in unpredicted
ways and the underlying assumptions of the theory were found to require modi cation.
Emergence of design professionals
The coming of the industrial age also marked a major change in the role of the architect.
The artist-architects of the Renaissance had the twin patrons of church and state upon
whom they could depend for commissions. In the rising industrial democracies the
market for large-scale buildings worthy of an architect’s attention widened, and the
different users asked for a bewildering range of new building types. The response of the
architect was to develop the new role of licensed professional on the model of professions
such as law and medicine. In addition, with the coming of building science, there was a
further division of labour in the design process; structural engineering appeared as a
separate discipline specializing in the application of mathematical models in building.
One of the rst buildings for which the architect and engineer were separate persons was
the Granary (1811) in Paris. Societies representing the building design professions were
founded, including the Institution of Civil Engineers (1818) and the Royal Institute of British
Architects (1834), both in London, and the American Institute of Architects (1857). Of cial
government licensing of architects and engineers, a goal of these societies, was not
realized until much later, beginning with the Illinois Architects Act of 1897. Concurrent
with the rise of professionalism was the development of government regulation, which
took the form of detailed municipal and national building codes specifying both
prescriptive and performance requirements for buildings.
Improvements in building services

Environmental control technologies began to develop dramatically in the rst industrial
age. The rst major advance was the use of coal gas for lighting. Coal gas was rst made
in the 1690s by heating coal in the presence of water to yield methane, and in 1792 William
Murdock developed the gas jet lighting xture. The rst large building to have gas
lighting (from a small gas plant on the site) was James Watt’s foundry in Birmingham in
1803. The Gas Light and Coke Company was founded in London in 1812 as the rst real
public utility, producing coal gas as a part of the coking process in large central plants and
distributing it through underground pipes to individual users; soon many major cities had
gasworks and distribution networks. Gas was expensive, however, and was used mainly for
lighting, not for heating or cooking; it also contained many impurities that produced
undesirable products of combustion (particularly carbon soot) in occupied spaces.

Relatively pure methane in the form of natural gas would not be available until the
exploitation of large oil elds in the 20th century.
The stove and replace continued as the major sources of space heating throughout this
period, but the development of the steam engine and its associated boilers led to a new
technology in the form of steam heating. James Watt heated his own of ce with steam
running through pipes as early as 1784. During the 19th century, systems of steam and
later hot-water heating were gradually developed; these used coal- red central boilers
connected to networks of pipes that distributed the heated uid to cast-iron radiators and
returned it to the boiler for reheating. Steam heat was a major improvement over stoves
and replaces because all combustion products were eliminated from occupied spaces,
but heat sources were still localized at the radiators.
Plumbing and sanitation systems in buildings advanced rapidly in this period. Public
water-distribution systems were the essential element; the rst large-scale example of a
mechanically pressurized water-supply system was the great array of waterwheels
installed by Louis XIV at Marley on the Marne River in France to pump water for the
fountains at Versailles, about 18 kilometres (10 miles) away. The widespread use of cast-
iron pipes in the late 18th century made higher pressures possible, and they were used by
Napoleon in the rst steam-powered municipal water supply for a section of Paris in 1812.
Gravity-powered underground drainage systems were installed along with water-
distribution networks in most large cities of the industrial world during the 19th century;
sewage-treatment plants were introduced in the 1860s. Permanent plumbing xtures
appeared in buildings with water supply and drainage, replacing portable basins, buckets,
and chamber pots. Joseph Bramah invented the metal valve-type water closet as early as
1778, and other early lavatories, sinks, and bathtubs were of metal also; lead, copper, and
zinc were all tried. The metal xtures proved dif cult to clean, however, and in England
during the 1870s Thomas Twyford developed the rst large one-piece ceramic lavatories
as well as the ceramic washdown water closet. At rst these ceramic xtures were very
expensive, but their prices declined until they became standard, and their forms remain
largely unchanged today. The bathtub proved to be too large for brittle ceramic
construction, and the porcelain-enamel cast-iron tub was devised about 1870; the double-
shell built-in type still common today appeared about 1915.
The second industrial age
Introduction of steel building technology
If the rst industrial age was one of iron and steam, the second industrial age, which
began in about 1880, could be called one of steel and electricity. Mass production of this
new material and of this new form of energy also transformed building technology. Steel
was rst made in large quantities for railroad rails. Rolling of steel rails (which was adapted
from wrought-iron rolling technology) and other shapes such as angles and channels
began about 1870; it made a much tougher, less brittle metal. Steel was chosen as the
principal building material for two structures built for the Paris Exposition of 1889: the
Eiffel Tower and the Gallery of Machines. Gustave Eiffel’s tower was 300 metres (1,000 feet)
high, and its familiar parabolic curved form has become a symbol of Paris itself; its height
was not exceeded until the topping off of the 318.8-metre- (1,046-foot-) tall Chrysler
Building in New York City in 1929. The Gallery of Machines was designed by the architect
C.-L.-F. Dutert and the engineer Victor Contamin with great three-hinged arches
spanning 114 metres (380 feet) and extending more than 420 metres (1,400 feet). Its glass-
enclosed clear span area of 48,727 square metres (536,000 square feet) has never been
equaled; in fact, it was so large that no regular use for it could be found after the
exposition closed, and this magni cent building was demolished in 1910.
Early steel-frame high-rises
While these prodigious structures were the centre of

attention, a new and more signi cant technology was
developing: the steel-framed high-rise building. It
began in Chicago, a city whose central business district
was growing rapidly. The pressure of land values in the
early 1880s led owners to demand taller buildings. The
architect-engineer William Le Baron Jenney responded
to this challenge with the 10-story Home Insurance
Company Building (1885), which had a nearly
completely all-metal structure. The frame consisted of
cast-iron columns supporting wrought-iron beams,
together with two oors of rolled-steel beams that were
substituted during construction; this was the rst large-
Eiffel Tower
scale use of steel in a building. The metal framing was
Eiffel Tower, Paris.
completely encased in brick or clay-tile cladding for re
© Corbis
protection, since iron and steel begin to lose strength if
they are heated above about 400 °C (750 °F). Jenney’s
Manhattan Building (1891) had the rst vertical truss bracing to resist wind forces; rigid
frame or portal wind bracing was rst used in the neighbouring Old Colony Building
(1893) by the architects William Holabird and Martin Roche. The all-steel frame nally
appeared in Jenney’s Ludington Building (1891) and the Fair Store (1892).
The foundations of these high-rise buildings posed a major problem, given the soft clay
soil of central Chicago. Traditional spread footings, which dated back to the Egyptians,
proved to be inadequate to resist settlement due to the heavy loads of the many oors,
and timber piles (a Roman invention) were driven down to bedrock. For the 13-story Stock
Exchange Building (1892), the engineer Dankmar Adler employed the caisson foundation
used in bridge construction. A cylindrical shaft braced with board sheathing was hand-
dug to bedrock and lled with concrete to create a solid pier to receive the heavy loads of
the steel columns.
By 1895 a mature high-rise building technology had been developed: the frame of rolled
steel I beams with bolted or riveted connections, diagonal or portal wind bracing, clay-tile
reproo ng, and caisson foundations. The electric-powered elevator provided vertical
transportation, but other environmental technologies were still fairly simple. Interior
lighting was still largely from daylight, although supplemented by electric light. There was
steam heating but no cooling, and ventilation was dependent on operating windows; thus
these buildings needed narrow oor spaces to give adequate access to light and air. Of
equal importance in high-rise construction was the introduction of the internal-
combustion engine (which had been invented by Nikolaus Otto in 1876) at the building
site; it replaced the horse and human muscle power for the heaviest tasks of lifting. Over
the next 35 years, higher steel-frame buildings were built; in Chicago the Masonic Temple
(1892) of Daniel Burnham and John Root reached 22 stories (91 metres or 302 feet), but
then the leadership shifted to New York City with the 26-story Manhattan Life Building
(1894). The Singer Building (1907) by the architect Ernest Flagg rose to 47 stories (184
metres or 612 feet), Cass Gilbert’s Woolworth Building (1913) attained a height of 238
metres (792 feet) at 55 stories, and Shreve, Lamb & Harmon’s 102-story Empire State
Building (1931) touched 381 metres (1,250 feet). The race for higher buildings came to an
abrupt halt with the Great Depression and World War II, and high-rise construction was
not resumed until the late 1940s.
Steel long-span construction
Long-span structures in steel developed more slowly than the high-rise in the years from
1895 to 1945, and none exceeded the span of the Gallery of Machines. Two-hinge (made of
a single member hinged at each end) and three-hinge (made of two members hinged at
each end and at the meeting point at the crown) trussed arches were widely used, the
largest examples being two great airship hangars for the U.S. Navy in New Jersey—the
rst built in 1922 with a span of 79 metres (262 feet), the second in 1942 with a span of 100
metres (328 feet). The at truss was used also, reaching a maximum span of 91 metres
(300 feet) in the Glenn L. Martin Co. Aircraft Assembly Building (1937) in Baltimore. Electric
arc welding, another important steel technology, was applied to construction at this time,
although the principle had been developed in the 1880s. The rst all-welded multistory
buildings were a series of factories for the Westinghouse Company, beginning in 1920. The
welded rigid frame became a new structural type for medium spans, reaching a length of
23 metres (77 feet) in the Cincinnati Union Terminal (1932), but widespread use of welding
did not come until after 1945.
Reintroduction of concrete
The second industrial age also saw the reemergence of concrete in a new composite
relationship with steel, creating a technology that would rapidly assume a major role in
construction. The rst step in this process was the creation of higher-strength arti cial
cements. Lime mortar—made of lime, sand, and water—had been known since ancient
times. It was improved in the late 18th century by the British engineer John Smeaton, who
added powdered brick to the mix and made the rst modern concrete by adding pebbles
as coarse aggregate. Joseph Aspdin patented the rst true arti cial cement, which he
called Portland Cement, in 1824; the name implied that it was of the same high quality as
Portland stone. To make portland cement, Aspdin burned limestone and clay together in
a kiln; the clay provided silicon compounds, which when combined with water formed
stronger bonds than the calcium compounds of limestone. In the 1830s Charles Johnson,
another British cement manufacturer, saw the importance of high-temperature burning
of the clay and limestone to a white heat, at which point they begin to fuse. In this period,
plain concrete was used for walls, and it sometimes replaced brick in oor arches that
spanned between wrought-iron beams in iron-framed factories. Precast concrete blocks
also were manufactured, although they did not effectively compete with brick until the
20th century.
The invention of reinforced concrete
The rst use of iron-reinforced concrete was by the French builder François Coignet in
Paris in the 1850s. Coignet’s own all-concrete house in Paris (1862), the roofs and oors
reinforced with small wrought-iron I beams, still stands. But reinforced concrete
development began with the French gardener Joseph Monier’s 1867 patent for large
concrete owerpots reinforced with a cage of iron wires. The French builder François
Hennebique applied Monier’s ideas to oors, using iron rods to reinforce concrete beams
and slabs; Hennebique was the rst to realize that the rods had to be bent upward to take
negative moment near supports. In 1892 he closed his construction business and became
a consulting engineer, building many structures with concrete frames composed of
columns, beams, and slabs. In the United States Ernest Ransome paralleled Hennebique’s
work, constructing factory buildings in concrete. High-rise structures in concrete followed
the paradigm of the steel frame. Examples include the 16-story Ingalls Building (1903) in
Cincinnati, which was 54 metres (180 feet) tall, and the 11-story Royal Liver Building (1909),
built in Liverpool by Hennebique’s English representative, Louis Mouchel. The latter
structure was Europe’s rst skyscraper, its clock tower reaching a height of 95 metres (316
feet). Attainment of height in concrete buildings progressed slowly owing to the much
lower strength and stiffness of concrete as compared with steel.
Between 1900 and 1910 the elastic theory of structures was at last applied to reinforced
concrete in a scienti c way. Emil Morsch, the chief engineer of the German rm of Wayss
and Freitag, formulated the theory, which was veri ed by detailed experimental testing at
the Technical University of Stuttgart. These tests established the need for deformed bars
for good bonding with concrete and demonstrated that the amount of steel in any
member should be limited to about 8 percent of the area; this assures the slow elastic
failure of the steel, as opposed to the abrupt brittle failure of the concrete, in case of
accidental overloading. In 1930 the American engineer Hardy Cross introduced relaxation
methods for the approximate analysis of rigid frames, which greatly simpli ed the design
of concrete structures. In the Johnson-Bovey Building (1905) in Minneapolis, Minnesota,
the American engineer C.A.P. Turner employed concrete oor slabs without beams (called
at slabs or at plates) that used diagonal and orthogonal patterns of reinforcing bars. The
system still used today—which divides the bays between columns into column strips and
middle strips and uses only an orthogonal arrangement of bars—was devised in 1912 by
the Swiss engineer Robert Maillart.
The concrete dome
Concrete was also applied to long-span buildings, an early example being the Centennial
Hall (1913) at Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland), by the architect Max Berg and the
engineers Dyckerhoff & Widmann; its ribbed dome spanned 65 metres (216 feet),
exceeding the span of the Pantheon. More spectacular were the great airship hangars at
Orly constructed by the French engineer Eugène Freyssinet in 1916; they were made with
9-centimetre- (3.5-inch-) thick corrugated parabolic vaults spanning 80 metres (266 feet)
and pierced by windows. In the 1920s Freyssinet made a major contribution to concrete
technology with the introduction of pretensioning. In this process, the reinforcing wires
were stretched in tension, and the concrete was poured around them; when the concrete
hardened, the wires were released, and the member acquired an upward de ection and
was entirely in compression. When the service load was applied, the member de ected
downward to a at position, remaining entirely in compression, and it did not develop the
tension cracks that plague ordinary reinforced concrete. Widespread application of
pretensioning was not made until after 1945.
Shell construction in concrete also began in the 1920s; the rst example was a very thin (6
centimetres) hemispherical shell for a planetarium (1924) in Jena, Germany, spanning 25
metres (82 feet). In 1927 an octagonal ribbed shell dome with a span of 66 metres (220
feet) was built to house a market hall in Leipzig. Many variations of thin shells were
devised for use in industrial buildings. The shell emerged as a major form of long-span
concrete structure after World War II.
Development of building service and support systems
Vertical transportation
Elisha Graves Otis developed the rst safe steam-powered roped elevators with toothed
guide rails and catches in the late 1850s. The steam-powered hydraulic elevator, which
was limited to buildings of about 15 stories, was developed in 1867 by the French engineer
Léon Édoux. The development of the electric motor by George Westinghouse in 1887
made possible the invention of the high-speed electric-powered roped elevator (called
“lightning” elevators in comparison to the slower hydraulics) in 1889 and the electric-
powered moving staircase, or escalator, in the 1890s.
Lighting
In the second industrial age, environmental technologies developed rapidly. Most of these
technologies involved the use of electric power, which declined in cost during this period.
The carbon-arc electric light was demonstrated as early as 1808, and the British physicist
Michael Faraday devised the rst steam-powered electric generator to operate a large
carbon-arc lamp for the South Foreland Lighthouse in 1858. But the carbon-arc lamp was
so bright and required so much power that it was never widely used and was rapidly
superseded by the simultaneous invention of the carbon- lament bulb by Thomas Edison
and Joseph Swan in 1879. The carbon- lament bulb was highly inef cient, but it banished
the soot and re hazards of coal-gas jets and soon gained wide acceptance. It was
succeeded by the more ef cient tungsten- lament incandescent bulb, developed by
George Coolidge of the General Electric Company, which rst appeared in 1908; the
double-coiled lament used today was introduced about 1930.
Edison experimented with gas-discharge light tubes in 1896, and Georges Claude in
France and Moore in England produced the rst practical discharge tubes using noble
gases such as neon and argon; these tubes were rst used to outline the facade of the
West End Cinema in London in 1913 and were rapidly exploited for signs and other
decorative purposes. In 1938 General Electric and Westinghouse produced the rst
commercial uorescent discharge lamps using mercury vapour and phosphor-coated
tubes to enhance visible light output. Fluorescent tubes had roughly double the
ef ciency of tungsten lamps and were rapidly adopted for commercial and of ce use.
Light intensity increased in all buildings as electric costs decreased, reaching a peak in
about 1970. Gaseous-discharge lamps using high-pressure mercury and sodium vapour
were developed in the 1960s but found only limited application in buildings; they are of
such high intensity and marked colour that they are used mostly in high-ceilinged spaces
and for exterior lighting.
Heating and cooling systems
Steam and hot-water heating systems of the late 19th century provided a reasonable
means for winter heating, but no practical methods existed for arti cial cooling,
ventilating, or humidity control. In the forced-air system of heating, air replaced steam or
water as the uid medium of heat transfer, but this was dependent on the development
of powered fans to move the air. Although large, crude fans for industrial applications in
the ventilation of ships and mines had appeared by the 1860s, and the Johns Hopkins
Hospital in Baltimore had a successful steam-powered forced-air system installed in 1873,
the widespread application of this system to buildings only followed the development of
electric-powered fans in the 1890s.
Important innovations in cooling technology followed. The development of refrigeration

machines for food storage played a role, but the key element was Willis Carrier’s 1906
patent that solved the problem of humidity removal by condensing the water vapour on
droplets of cold water sprayed into an airstream. Starting with humidity control in tobacco
and textile factories, Carrier slowly developed his system of “man-made weather,” nally
applying it together with heating, cooling, and control devices as a complete system in
Grauman’s Metropolitan Theatre, Los Angeles, in 1922. The rst of ce building air-
conditioned by Carrier was the 21-story Milam Building (1928) in San Antonio, Texas. It had
a central refrigeration plant in the basement that supplied cold water to small air-
handling units on every other oor; these supplied conditioned air to each of ce space
through ducts in the ceiling; the air was returned through grills in doors to the corridors
and then back to the air-handling units. A somewhat different system was adopted by
Carrier for the 32-story Philadelphia Savings Fund Society Building (1932). The central air-
handling units were placed with the refrigeration plant on the 20th oor, and conditioned
air was distributed through vertical ducts to the occupied oors and horizontally to each
room and returned through the corridors to vertical exhaust ducts that carried it back to
the central plant. Both systems of air handling, local and central, are still used in high-rise
buildings. The Great Depression and World War II reduced the demand for air-
conditioning systems, and it was not until the building of the United Nations Secretariat in
New York City in 1949 that Carrier produced a method of air conditioning that could deal
effectively with the large heat loads imposed by the building’s all-glass curtain walls. The
conditioned air was delivered not only from the ceiling but also through pipe coil
convector units just inside the glass wall. The pipe coil convectors contained centrally
supplied warm or cold water to further temper the heat loss or gain at the perimeter;
conditioned air and water were centrally supplied from four mechanical oors spaced
within the building’s 39-story height.
Carrier’s “Weathermaster” system was energy-intensive, appropriate to the declining

energy costs of the time, and it was adopted for most of the all-glass skyscrapers that
followed in the next 25 years. In the 1960s the so-called dual-duct system appeared; both
warm and cold air were centrally supplied to every part of the building and combined in
mixing boxes to provide the appropriate atmosphere. The dual-duct system also
consumed much energy, and, when energy prices began to rise in the 1970s, both it and
the Weathermaster system were supplanted by the variable air volume (VAV) system,
which supplies conditioned air at a single temperature, the volume varying according to
the heat loss or gain in the occupied spaces. The VAV system requires much less energy
and is widely used.
In the early 1950s, air-conditioning systems were reduced to very small electric-powered
units capable of cooling single rooms. These were usually mounted in windows to take in
fresh air and to remove heat to the atmosphere. These units found widespread
application in the retro tting of existing buildings—particularly houses and apartment
buildings—and have since found considerable application in new residential buildings.
The relatively high energy costs of the 1970s also prompted interest in various forms of
solar heating, both for interior spaces and for domestic hot water, but, except for
residential passive solar heating, the relative decline in energy prices in the 1980s made
such systems unattractive.
The study of thermodynamics in the late 19th century included the heat-transfer
properties of materials and led to the concept of thermal insulation—that is, a material
that has a relatively low rate of heat transfer. As building atmospheres became more
carefully controlled after 1900, more attention was given to the thermal insulation of
building enclosures (envelopes). One of the best insulators is air, and materials that trap
air in small units have low heat-transfer rates; wool and foam are excellent examples. The
rst commercial insulations, in the 1920s, were mineral wools and vegetable- breboards;
breglass wool appeared in 1938. Foam glass, the rst rigid insulating foam, was marketed
in the 1930s, and after 1945 a wide variety of plastic foam insulations was developed. Since
the 1970s most building codes have set minimum requirements for insulation of building
envelopes, and these have proved to be very cost-effective in saving energy.
Glass as a building material
Glass underwent considerable development in the second industrial age. The making of
clear plate glass was perfected in the late 19th century, as were techniques of
sandblasting and etching it. In the United States in 1905 the Libbey Owens Glass
Company began making sheet glass by a continuous drawing process from a reservoir of
molten glass; its surface was somewhat distorted, but it was much cheaper than plate
glass. Prefabricated panels of double glazing about 2.5 centimetres (1 inch) thick were rst
made in the 1940s, although the insulating principle of air trapped between two layers of
glass had been recognized much earlier. Hollow glass blocks were introduced by the
Corning Company in 1935. In 1952 the Pilkington Brothers in England developed the oat
glass process, in which a continuous 3.4-metre- (11-foot-) wide ribbon of glass oated over
molten tin and both sides were re nished, avoiding all polishing and grinding; this
became the standard method of production. Pilkington also pioneered the development
of structural glass mullions in the 1960s. In the 1950s the rise of air conditioning led to the
marketing of tinted glass that would absorb and reduce solar gain, and in the 1960s
re ective glass with thin metallic coatings applied by the vacuum plating process was
introduced, also to reduce solar gain. Heat-mirror glass, which has a transparent coating
that admits the short-wavelength radiation from the sun but tends to re ect the longer-
wavelength radiation from within occupied spaces, was introduced in 1984; when
combined with double glazing, its insulating value approaches that of a wall.
High-rise construction since 1945
Use of steel and other metals
The second great age of high-rise buildings began after the end of World War II, when the
world economy and population again expanded. It was an optimistic time with declining
energy costs, and architects embraced the concept of the tall building as a glass prism.
This idea had been put forward by the architects Le Corbusier and Ludwig Mies van der
Rohe in their visionary projects of the 1920s. These designs employed the glass curtain
wall, a non-load-bearing “skin” attached to the exterior structural components of the
building. The earliest all-glass curtain wall, which was only on a single street facade, was
that of the Hallidie Building (1918) in San Francisco. The rst multistory structure with a full
glass curtain wall was the A.O. Smith Research Building (1928) in Milwaukee by Holabird
and Root; in it the glass was held by aluminum frames, an early use of this metal in
buildings. But these were rare examples, and it was not until the development of air
conditioning, uorescent lighting, and synthetic rubber sealants after 1945 that the glass
prism could be realized.
The paradigm of the glass tower was de ned by the United Nations Secretariat Building
(1949) in New York City; Wallace Harrison was the executive architect, but Le Corbusier also
played a major role in the design. The UN building, which featured a Weathermaster air-
conditioning system and green-tinted glass walls, helped set the standard for tall
buildings around the world. Several other in uential buildings—such as Mies van der
Rohe’s 26-story 860–880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments (1951) in Chicago and Skidmore,
Owings & Merrill’s 21-story Lever House (1952) in New York City—helped to further establish
the technology of curtain walls. Perhaps the most important element was the
development of extruded-aluminum mullion and muntin shapes to support the glass.
Aluminum began to be produced in quantity in the United States by the Hall process in
1886; this process for separating the metal from the ore required large amounts of
electricity, and declining energy costs after World War II in uenced the development of
this building technology. Aluminum forms a coating of transparent oxide that protects it
against corrosion; this oxide layer can be arti cially thickened and coloured through a
process called anodizing. Anodized aluminum was rst used in the windows of the
Cambridge University Library in England in 1934. Aluminum became the principal
material of curtain-wall framing because of its corrosion resistance and ease of forming by
means of the extrusion process, in which the metal is forced through a series of dies to
create complex cross-sectional shapes. Formed sheet aluminum is also used for opaque
curtain-wall panels. Other metals used in curtain walls are stainless steel (a compound of
82 percent iron and 18 percent chromium) and so-called weathering steel, copper-bearing
steel alloys that form an adherent oxide layer. The bronze curtain wall of Mies van der
Rohe’s Seagram Building (1954–58) in New York City proved to be an isolated example.
Probably of equal importance in curtain-wall construction was the development of cold-
setting rubbers during World War II; these form the elastic sealants that successfully seal
the joints between glass and metal and between metal and metal against wind and rain.
In the late 1970s the development of arti cial diamonds made possible cutting tools that
slice stone wafer-thin, and it became an important component of curtain walls.
Following the development of the curtain wall, new forms of structure appeared in high-
rise buildings. As environmental control systems increased in cost, economic pressures
worked to produce more ef cient structures. In 1961 the 60-story Chase Manhattan Bank
Building, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, had a standard steel frame with rigid
portal wind bracing, which required 275 kilograms of steel per square metre (55 pounds of
steel per square foot), nearly the same as the Empire State Building of 30 years earlier.
Economy of structure in tall buildings was demonstrated by the same rm only nine years
later in the John Hancock Building in Chicago. It used a system of exterior diagonal
bracing to form a rigid tube devised by the engineer Fazlur Khan; although the Hancock
building is 100 stories, or 343 metres (1,127 feet), high, its structure is so ef cient that it
required only 145 kilograms of steel per square metre (29 pounds per square foot). The
framed tube, which Khan developed for concrete structures, was applied to other tall steel
buildings. Khan used a steel system of nine bundled tubes of different heights—each 22.5
metres (75 feet) square with columns spaced at 4.5 metres (15 feet)—to form the structure
of the 110-story, 442-metre (1,450-foot) Sears (now Willis) Tower (1973), also in Chicago. (See
Researcher’s Note: Height of the Willis Tower.) Considerably taller buildings are possible
with current technology, but their erection also depends on general economic
considerations and the resulting marketability of oor space.
Use of reinforced concrete
Parallel to the development of tall steel structures, substantial advancements in high-rise

structural systems of reinforced concrete have been made since 1945. The rst of these
was the introduction of the shear wall as a means of stiffening concrete frames against
lateral de ection, such as results from wind or earthquake loads; the shear wall acts as a
narrow deep cantilever beam to resist lateral forces. In 1958 the architect Milton Schwartz
and engineer Henry Miller used shear walls to build the 39-story Executive House in
Chicago to a height of 111 metres (371 feet).
Of equal importance was the introduction of the perimeter-framed tube form in concrete
by Fazlur Khan in the DeWitt–Chestnut Apartments (1963) in Chicago; the building rises
43 stories (116 metres, or 387 feet). Lateral stability was achieved by closely spaced
columns placed around the building perimeter and connected together by deep beams.
The next step in concrete high-rise construction was the combination of the perimeter-
framed tube with a largely solid-walled interior tube or shear walls to give further lateral
stability. This was employed by Eero Saarinen and Kevin Roche in the 35-story CBS
Building (1964) in New York City, and the system was further developed by Khan in the
221-metre (725-foot) Shell Oil Building (1967) in Houston.
Another new structural form in concrete was introduced by Khan in the 174-metre (570-
foot) 780 Third Avenue Of ce Building (1983) in New York City. This is a framed tube with
diagonal bracing achieved by lling in diagonal rows of window openings to create
exterior bracing members; this is a very ef cient system and may lead to yet taller
buildings of this type.
Three further innovations helped the rapid rise in height of concrete buildings. One was
the development of lightweight concrete, using blast-furnace slag in place of stone as
aggregate for oor construction; this reduced the density of the concrete by 25 percent,
with a corresponding reduction in the loads the building columns needed to carry. The
second was the increase in the ultimate strength of concrete used for columns. Third, the
use of pumps to move liquid concrete to the upper oors of tall buildings substantially
reduced the cost of placement.
Another important technique developed for concrete high-rise construction is

slipforming. In this process, a continuous vertical element of planar or tubular form is
continuously cast using a short section of formwork that is moved upward with the
pouring process. Slipforming has been used to build a number of very tall structures in
Canada, including several industrial chimneys 366 metres (1,200 feet) high and the CN
Tower in Toronto, which contains an observation deck and a massive television antenna
and has a total height of 553 metres (1,815 feet). Concrete has shown itself to be a serious
competitor with steel in high-rise structures; it is now used for the great majority of tall
residential buildings and for a substantial number of tall of ce buildings.
Postwar developments in long-span construction
After 1945 the dome and the shell vault continued to be the major forms of long-span
structures. One innovation was the geodesic dome, which was devised by the architect
and engineer R. Buckminster Fuller in the 1940s; in this form the ribs are placed in a
triangular or hexagonal pattern and lie on the geodesic lines, or great circles, of a sphere.
A very shallow spherical form with aluminum trussed members was used by Freeman Fox
& Partners for the Dome Discovery built in London in 1951. Fuller’s own patented forms
were used in 1958 to build two large hemispheric domes 115.3 metres (384 feet) in
diameter using steel tube members. These are used as workshops for the Union Tank Car
Company in Wood River, Illinois, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The largest geodesic dome
is the Poliedro de Caracas, in Venezuela, built of aluminum tubes spanning 143 metres
(469 feet).
Another form of steel trussed dome is the lamella dome, which is made of intersecting
arches hinged together at their midpoints to form an interlocking network in a diamond
pattern. It was used for the rst two examples of the great covered sports stadiums built
in the United States since the 1960s: the Harris County Stadium, or Astrodome, built in
Houston, Texas, in 1962–64 with a span of 196 metres (642 feet) and the 207-metre- (678-
foot-) diameter Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana, designed by Sverdrup and Parcel
and completed in 1973. The steel truss continued to be used and was extended to three
dimensions to form space trusses. The longest span of this type was the Narita Hangar at
Tokyo International Airport, which used a tied portal truss to span 190 metres (623 feet)
supporting a space-truss roof spanning 90 metres (295 feet).
The concrete dome or shell developed rapidly in the

1950s. The St. Louis Lambert Airport Terminal (1954),
designed by Hellmuth, Yamasaki and Leinweber, has
a large hall 36.6 metres (120 feet) square, spanned by
four intersecting thin-shell concrete barrel vaults
supported at the four corners; the thickness of the
shell varies from 20 centimetres (8 inches) at the
The Astrodome in Houston, Texas, 1965.
supports to 11.3 centimetres (4.5 inches) at the centre.
Courtesy of Astrodome USA
Another example is the King Dome, in Seattle,
Washington, which covers a sports stadium with a thin single shell concrete parabolic
dome stiffened with ribs 201 metres (661 feet) in diameter.
New forms of the long-span roof appeared in the 1950s based on the steel cables that had
long been used in suspension bridges. One example was the U.S. Pavilion at the 1958
Brussels World’s Fair, designed by the architect Edward Durell Stone. It was based on the
familiar principle of the bicycle wheel; its roof had a diameter of 100 metres (330 feet), with
a steel tension ring at the perimeter from which two layers of radial cables were tightly
stretched to a small tension ring in the middle—the double layer of cables gave the roof
stability against vertical movement. The Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum (1967), by
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, extended this system to 126 metres (420 feet) in diameter, but
only a single layer of cables, stiffened by encasing ribs of concrete, connects the inner and
outer rings.
Another system derived from bridge construction is the cable-stayed roof. An early
example is the TWA Hangar (1956) at Kansas City, Missouri, which shelters large aircraft
under a double cantilever roof made of semicylindrical shells that reach out 48 meters
(160 feet); de ection is reduced and the shells kept in compression by cables that run
down from central shear walls to beams in the valleys between the shells. Another
example of the cable-stayed roof is the McCormick Place West Exhibition Hall (1987) in
Chicago, by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Two rows of large concrete masts rise above the
roof, supporting steel trusses that span 72 metres (240 feet) between the masts and
cantilever 36 metres (120 feet) to either side; the trusses are also supported by sets of
parallel diagonal cables that run back to the masts.
A third form of long-span roof structures in tension are air-supported plastic membranes,
which were devised by Walter Bird of Cornell University in the late 1940s and were soon in
use for swimming pools, temporary warehouses, and exhibition buildings. The Ōsaka
World’s Fair of 1970 included many air-supported structures, the largest of which was the
U.S. Pavilion designed by the engineers Geiger Berger Associates; it had an oval plan 138 ×
79 metres (460 × 262 feet), and the in ated domed roof of vinyl-coated fabric was
restrained by a diagonally intersecting network of steel cables attached to a concrete
compression ring at the perimeter. The Ōsaka pavilion system was later adapted for such
large sports stadiums as the Silverdome (1975) in Pontiac, Michigan, and the Hubert H.
Humphrey Metrodome (1982) in Minneapolis. Air-supported structures are perhaps the
most cost-effective type of structure for very long spans.
Construction has settled into a period of relative calm after the explosive innovations of
the 19th century. Steel, concrete, and timber have become fairly mature technologies, but
there are other materials—such as bre composites—that may yet play a major role in
building.
Modern building practices

The economic context of building construction
Buildings, like all economic products, command a range of unit prices based on their cost
of production and their value to the consumer. In aggregate, the total annual value of
building construction in the various national economies is substantial. In 1987 in the
United States, for example, it was about 10 percent of the gross domestic product, a
proportion that is roughly applicable for the world economy as a whole. In spite of these
large aggregate values, the unit cost of buildings is quite low when compared to other
products. In the United States in 1987, new building cost ranged from about $0.50 to $2.50
per pound. The lowest costs are for simple pre-engineered metal buildings, and the
highest represent functionally complex buildings with many mechanical and electrical
services, such as hospitals and laboratories. These unit costs are at the low end of the scale
of manufactures, ranking with inexpensive foodstuffs, and are lower than those of most
other familiar consumer products. This scale of cost is a rough index of the value or utility
of the commodity to society. Food, although essential, is relatively easy to produce;
aircraft, at the high end of the scale, perform a desirable function but do so with complex
and expensive mechanisms that command much higher unit prices which re ect not
only the materials and labour required to produce them but also substantial capital and
research investments. Buildings fall nearer to food in value; they are ubiquitous and
essential, yet the services consumers expect them to provide can be supplied with
relatively unsophisticated technology and inexpensive materials. Thus there has been a
tendency for building construction to remain in the realm of low technology, for there has
been relatively little incentive to invest in research given consumer expectations.
Within this general economic context, there are a number of speci c parameters that
affect the cost of buildings. First are government building codes, which are enacted to
protect public health and safety; these take the form of both prescriptive and
performance requirements. Structural requirements include description of the loads
buildings must support, beginning with the constant everyday loads of building contents
imposed by gravity and extending to the less frequent but more extreme loadings of wind
and earthquake forces. These are speci ed on a statistical basis, usually the maximum
expected to occur with a 100-year frequency. Safety factors for materials are speci ed to
allow for accidental overloading and lapses of quality control. Economic considerations
are also re ected; for example, buildings must perform well under normal gravity loads,
but no code requires a building to resist direct exposure to the wind and low-pressure
effects of a tornado, for its cost would be prohibitive.
Planning and zoning requirements provide for height and oor area limitations and
building setbacks from lot lines to ensure adequate light and air to adjoining properties.
Zoning regulations also establish requirements for permitted building usages, parking
spaces, and landscaping and even set standards for the visual appearance of buildings.
Another example is requirements for building atmosphere conditions; these include
minimum (but not maximum) temperatures and rates of air change to dilute odours and
provide an adequate oxygen supply. Life-safety requirements include adequate stairways
for emergency exits, emergency lighting, smoke detection and control systems, and re-
resistant building materials. Sanitation requirements include adequate numbers of
plumbing xtures and proper pipe sizes. Electrical requirements include wire sizes,
construction requirements for safety, and location of outlets.
Beyond the government standards there are market standards, which re ect user
expectations for buildings. One example is elevator systems; elevators are not required by
building codes, but in the United States, for example, the number of elevators in of ce
buildings is calculated based on a maximum waiting period of 30 seconds. Cooling of
building atmospheres is also not required by code but is provided in climates and
building types where the marketplace has shown it to be cost-effective.
Building systems and components are perceived as having two dimensions of value. One
is the purely functional dimension: the structure is expected to resist loads, the roof must
keep out rain. The other is the aesthetic or psychic dimension: stone is perceived as more
durable than wood; an elevator system with a waiting time of 30 seconds is preferable to
one with a waiting time of two minutes. For these perceived differences many users are
willing to pay more. When symbolic buildings such as temples, cathedrals, and palaces
play an important role in society, the aesthetic dimension is important in valuing

buildings; for example, the Parthenon of Athens or Chartres Cathedral commanded a
level of investment in their economies that might be roughly compared to the U.S. Apollo
space program. But in most buildings the functional dimension of value is dominant.
Because of its relatively low level of technology, wide geographic distribution, highly
variable demand, and wide variety of building products, the building industry in
industrialized countries is subdivided into many small enterprises. This lack of
centralization tends to discourage research and keeps building components sturdy and
simple, following well-tried formulas. Within this diversity there are a number of fairly well-
de ned markets based on building types; these include low-rise residential buildings, low-
rise commercial, institutional, and industrial buildings, high-rise buildings, and long-span
buildings.
A somewhat similar pattern is found in eastern Europe, although the building industry
there is more centralized. There is also a much smaller low-rise residential market, with
most new housing being provided in high-rise buildings.
In developing countries the major market is for low-rise residential buildings to house
rapidly growing populations. Much of the construction is undertaken by local craftsmen
using simple building products. Local timber is widely used, and masonry materials still
include the ancient mud brick. More sophisticated long-span and high-rise technologies
are found only in major cities.
Building design and construction
Design programming
The design of a building begins with its future user or owner, who has in mind a perceived
need for the structure, as well as a speci c site and a general idea of its projected cost. The
user, or client, brings these facts to a team of design professionals composed of architects
and engineers, who can develop from them a set of construction documents that de ne
the proposed building exactly and from which it can be constructed.
Building design professionals include those licensed by the state—such as architects and
structural, mechanical, and electrical engineers—who must formally certify that the
building they design will conform to all governmental codes and regulations. Architects
are the primary design professionals; they orchestrate and direct the work of engineers, as
well as many other consultants in such specialized areas as lighting, acoustics, and vertical
transportation.
The design professionals draw upon a number of sources in preparing their design. The
most fundamental of these is building science, which has been gradually built up over the
past 300 years. This includes the parts of physical theory that relate to building, such as
the elastic theory of structures and theories of light, electricity, and uid ow. There is a
large compendium of information on the speci c properties of building materials that
can be applied in mathematical models to reliably project building performance. There is
also a large body of data on criteria for human comfort in such matters as thermal
environment, lighting levels, and sound levels that in uence building design.
In addition to general knowledge of building science, the design team collects speci c
data related to the proposed building site. These include topographic and boundary
surveys, investigations of subsoil conditions for foundation and water-exclusion design,
and climate data and other local elements.
Concurrently with the collection of the site data, the design team works with the client to
better de ne the often vague notions of building function into more precise and concrete
terms. These de nitions are summarized in a building space program, which gives a
detailed written description of each required space in terms of oor area, equipment, and
functional performance criteria. This document forms an agreement between the client
and the design team as to expected building size and performance.
Design development
The process by which building science, site data, and the building space program are
used by the design team is the art of building design. It is a complex process involving the
selection of standard building systems, and their adaptation and integration, to produce a
building that meets the client’s needs within the limitations of government regulations
and market standards. These systems have become divided into a number of clear sectors
by the building type for which they are intended. The design process involves the
selection of systems for foundations, structure, atmosphere, enclosure, space division,
electrical distribution, water supply and drainage, and other building functions. These
systems are made from a limited range of manufactured components but permit a wide
range of variation in the nal product. Once the systems and components have been
selected, the design team prepares a set of contract documents, consisting of a written
text and conventionalized drawings, to describe completely the desired building
con guration in terms of the speci ed building systems and their expected performance.
When the contract documents have been completed, the nal costs of the building can
usually be accurately estimated and the construction process can begin.
Construction
Construction of a building is usually executed by a specialized construction team; it is
normally separate from the design team, although some large organizations may
combine both functions. The construction team is headed by a coordinating organization,
often called a general contractor, which takes the primary responsibility for executing the
building and signs a contract to do so with the building user. The cost of the contract is
usually an agreed lump sum, although cost-plus-fee contracts are sometimes used on
large projects for which construction begins before the contract documents are complete
and the building scope is not fully de ned. The general contractor may do some of the
actual work on the building in addition to its coordinating role; the remainder of the work
is done by a group of specialty subcontractors who are under contract to the general
contractor. Each subcontractor provides and installs one or more of the building systems
—e.g., the structural or electrical system. The subcontractors in turn buy the system
components from the manufacturers. During the construction process the design team
continues to act as the owner’s representative, making sure that the executed building
conforms to the contract documents and that the systems and components meet the
speci ed standards of quality and performance.
Low-rise residential buildings
Low-rise residential buildings include the smallest buildings produced in large quantities.
Single-family detached houses, for example, are in the walk-up range of one to three
stories and typically meet their users’ needs with about 90 to 180 square metres (about
1,000 to 2,000 square feet) of enclosed oor space. Other examples include the urban row
house and walk-up apartment buildings. Typically these forms have relatively low unit
costs because of the limited purchasing power of their owners. The demand for this type
of housing has a wide geographic distribution, and therefore most are built by small local
contractors using relatively few large machines (mostly for earth moving) and large
amounts of manual labour at the building site. The demand for these buildings can have
large local variations from year to year, and small builders can absorb these economic
swings better than large organizations. The building systems developed for this market
re ect its emphasis on manual labour and its low unit costs. A proportion of single-family
detached houses are “factory-built”; that is, large pieces of the building are prefabricated
and then transported to the site, where considerable additional work is required to
complete the nished product.
Foundations
All foundations must transmit the building loads to a stable stratum of earth. There are
two criteria for stability: rst, the soil under the foundations should be able to receive the
imposed load without more than about 2.5 centimetres (one inch) of settlement and,
second, the settlement should be uniform under the entire building. It is also important
that the bottom of the foundation be below the maximum winter frost level. Wet soil
expands as it freezes, and repeated freeze–thaw cycles can move the building up and
down, leading to possible displacement and damage. Maximum frost depth varies with
climate and topography. It can be as deep as 1.5 metres ( ve feet) in cold continental
climates and is zero in tropical and some subtropical areas. The foundation systems for
low-rise residential buildings are suitable for their light loads; nearly all are supported on
spread footings, which are of two types—continuous footings that support walls and
isolated pad footings that support concentrated loads. The footings themselves are
usually made of concrete poured directly on undisturbed soil to a minimum depth of
about 30 centimetres (12 inches). If typical continuous concrete footings are used, they
usually support a foundation wall that acts either as a retaining wall to form a basement
or as a frost wall with earth on both sides. Foundation walls can be built of reinforced
concrete or masonry, particularly concrete block. Concrete blocks are of a standard size
larger than bricks and are hollow, forming a grid of vertical planes. They are the least
expensive form of masonry—using cheap but strong material—and their large size
economizes on the labour required to lay them. Their appearance and weathering
properties are inferior to those of red masonry, but they are satisfactory for foundation
walls. In some places timber foundation walls and spread footings are used. Excavation for
foundations is the most highly mechanized operation in this building type; it is done
almost entirely with bulldozers and backhoes.
Structural systems
Timber frames
In these small buildings the ancient materials of timber and masonry are still
predominant in the structural systems. In North America, which has abundant softwood
forests, light timber frames descended from the 19th-century balloon frame are widely
used. These present-day “platform” frames are made of standard-dimension timbers,
usually two or four centimetres (0.75 or 1.5 inch) thick, which are joined together by
machine-made nails and other metal fasteners using hand tools.
The rst step is to construct a oor, which rests on the

foundation wall. A heavy timber sill is attached to the
wall with anchor bolts, and on top of it are nailed the
oor joists, typically 4 × 28 centimetres (1.5 × 11.25
inches) and spaced 40 centimetres (16 inches) apart.
The span of the oor joists is usually about 3.6 metres
(12 feet), which is the common maximum length of
Timber frame construction
available timbers. The oor may need intermediate
The completed frame of a modern timber-
supports in the form of interior foundation walls or, if
frame house.
there is a basement, intermediate beams of wood or
© David Lee/Shutterstock.com
steel supported by the foundation walls and columns.
For longer spans, oor trusses can be made, with members joined by nail grids or nailed
plywood gussets or with wood chords and diagonal metal web members. On top of the
joists is nailed plywood sub ooring, which forms the deck and gives lateral stability to the
oor plane.
The exterior bearing walls are made of 4 × 9-centimetre (1.5 × 3.5-inch; “2 × 4”) timber
verticals, or studs, spaced 40 or 60 centimetres (16 or 24 inches) apart, which rest on a
horizontal timber, or plate, nailed to the oor platform and support a double plate at the
top. The walls are sheathed on the outside with panels of plywood or particleboard to
provide a surface to attach the exterior cladding and for lateral stability against wind.
Plywood and particleboard are fabricated in panels of standard sizes. Plywood is made of
thin layers of wood, rotary-cut from logs and glued together with the wood grain running
perpendicularly in adjoining layers. Particleboard consists of ne wood chips mixed
together in an adhesive matrix and allowed to harden under pressure. On top of the wall
plate is placed either a second oor or the roof.
Since most of the roo ng materials used in these buildings are not fully watertight, the
roofs must have sloped surfaces to rapidly drain off rainwater. Sloped forms are created by
two methods. The traditional method uses joists similar to those of oor construction to
span between exterior walls. Rafters are nailed to the ends of each joist and the rafters
meet at a central ridge member, forming a triangular attic space. Where no attic space is
needed, it has proved more economical to span the roof with triangular trusses with
interior web members. These roof trusses are usually made of narrow timbers joined by
nails, glue, or metal connectors, and they are often prefabricated in a workshop. Plywood
or particleboard sheathing is then nailed to the roof surfaces to receive the roo ng and to
provide lateral stability, making the entire frame into a rigid box.
Light timber frames are quite ammable, but small one- or two-story buildings are easy to
evacuate in case of a re, and building codes permit the use of these frames with such
features as re-resistant gypsum board on the interiors and re-stops (short wooden
members) between the studs. Timber structures are attacked by certain species of insects
—such as termites and carpenter ants—as well as certain fungi, particularly in warm,
moist climates. Wood can be chemically treated to discourage these attacks; other
precautions include raising the timber above the ground and keeping it dry.
Masonry walls
Structural masonry walls are also used in this building type, primarily in multistory
buildings, where they offer greater load-bearing capacity and re resistance. Brick and
concrete block are the major materials, brick being favoured for exterior surfaces because
of its appearance and durability. Solid brick walls are rarely used, due to the higher labour
and material costs; composite walls of brick and block or block alone are common. Cavity
walls are used in colder climates; in these, two wythes (vertical layers) of masonry are built
on either side of a layer of rigid insulation. The wythes are joined together by steel
reinforcement that runs through the insulation and is laid in the horizontal masonry joints
at intervals. Cavity walls have a heat- ow rate that is 50 percent of that of a solid wall.
Timber oor and roof construction, similar to balloon framing, is used with masonry
construction; and there is also some use of precast prestressed hollow concrete panels,
which are reproof and can span up to nine metres (30 feet).
Enclosure systems
Enclosure systems for this building type are varied. For roofs, traditional wood shingles or,
more commonly, felt asphalt shingles are used, as are semicylindrical clay tiles and
standing-seam metal roofs. Rainwater from roofs is usually caught in metal gutters and
directed to exterior downspouts that discharge onto splash blocks or into underground
drains connected to storm sewers.
The wall surfaces of low-rise residential buildings are clad with a range of different
materials. Traditional wood elements such as shingles and horizontal shiplap, or clapboard
siding, are used on light timber frames as are vertical tongue-and-groove siding and
boards and battens. Aluminum and vinyl sidings have been adapted from these wooden
forms. Brick and stone veneer are also applied over timber and anchored to it with metal
fasteners. Cement plaster, or stucco, is another traditional material used to enclose both
timber and masonry structures, and its semiliquid application allows great plasticity of
form. A more recent development is a very thin synthetic resin stucco applied directly to
the surface of rigid plastic foam insulation.
Insulation, which slows the rate of heat transfer through the enclosure, is usually applied
at all exterior building surfaces that are exposed to air. There are two major types of
insulation, rigid and nonrigid. Rigid insulations are primarily plastic foams (the dead air in
the foam cells is the true insulator), which vary in thickness from 2.5 to ve centimetres
(one to two inches). They include styrofoam, used primarily below grade behind frost walls
due to its low re resistance; urethane foam; isocyanurate foam, which has the best re
resistance; and foam glass. Nonrigid insulations are usually made of bre—glass bre
being the most common—often with a foil-backed paper on one side. Fibre insulations
are made in thicknesses up to 23 centimetres (9.25 inches). The effectiveness of an
insulation material is measured in terms of its heat-transfer rate, or U-value, often
expressed as the number of BTUs passing through a given unit of insulating material each
hour at an expressed temperature differential across the material. Low U-values indicate
good insulating properties of the material. U-value is an inverse function of thickness, so
that there is a limit to the cost-effectiveness of increasing the amount of insulation on a
surface. Rigid insulation panels are applied to vertical wall sheathing and the surfacing
material is fastened through the insulation, or it is applied to horizontal roof decks. Glass
bre is usually applied in the spaces between wall studs and between roof joists or the
bottom chords of roof trusses.
Most low-rise residential buildings have a limited number of transparent openings in their
exteriors, because of the traditional requirements of interior privacy and the relatively
higher cost of windows compared to opaque walls. The traditional wooden frames of
domestic windows are often clad in extruded vinyl or aluminum cladding, and frames
made entirely of extruded aluminum are common. Residential windows are a major
means of ventilation, and there are a variety of operating actions for their movable
sections: sliding or double-hung windows are still the major form, but hinged types—
including casement, hopper, and awning forms—are also used. Sliding glass panel doors
are also used, particularly in warmer regions. Glazing is still largely of clear glass. Double
glazing, with two panes bonded to a metal tubular separator that contains a desiccant, is
cost-effective in northern climates, but triple glazing is used commonly only in regions
above about 55° to 60° latitude. A recent development is heat-mirror glass, in which a low-
emissivity coating enhances the relative opacity of the glass to infrared radiation and
slows the rate of internal heat loss in winter.
Interior nishes
Interior nishes and space-division systems de ne the living spaces within residential
buildings with a range of both natural and synthetic materials. The most widely used wall
nish is gypsum board, a prefabricated form of traditional wet plaster. Wet gypsum
plaster is cast between paper facings to form large panels that are nailed to light timber
or metal frameworks. The joints between the panels are lled with a hard-setting resin
compound, giving a smooth seamless surface that has considerable re resistance.
Gypsum board forms the substrate to which a number of other materials, including thin
wood-veneered plywood and vinyl fabrics, can be applied with adhesives. In wet areas
such as kitchens and bathrooms, water-resistant gypsum board is used, sometimes with
the addition of adhesive-applied ceramic tile.
Doors in residential buildings are usually of the hollow-core type, with thin veneers of
wood glued over a honeycomb paper core and solid wood edge strips; door frames are
typically made of machined timber shapes. Plastic laminates bonded to particleboard are
extensively used for built-in cabinets and countertops. The most common oor nish is
carpeting, most of which is now made of synthetic bres, displacing the traditional wool
and cotton. It can be easily maintained, and its soft visual and tactile texture, as well as its
sound-absorbing qualities, make it attractive for residential use. Hardwoods—primarily
oak, birch, and maple—are also used for oors, both in the traditional narrow planks nailed
to plywood decks and as prefabricated parquet elements, which are applied with
adhesives. In wet or hard-use areas vinyl-composition tiles or ceramic tiles are used.
Plumbing
Domestic water-supply systems for low-rise residential buildings have two sources, either
municipal water-distribution systems or, where these are not available, wells that are
drilled to underground aquifers which are free of contamination. Water is drawn from the
wells with small submersible electric pumps, which are lowered through the well casing
to the intake. Underground exterior water-supply pipes are usually cast-iron with
threaded connections to contain the pressures applied to the uid, which is typically
suf cient to raise it four stories. Within the building, copper tubing with soldered
connections is used for distribution because of its corrosion resistance and ease of
fabrication; in some areas plastic pipe is also used. The domestic water supply is divided
into cold and hot systems, the cold water being piped directly to the xtures. The hot-
water system rst draws the supply through a hot-water heating tank, which raises its
temperature to about 60 °C (140 °F) using electric resistance or gas heat. Domestic water
heaters that use solar radiation to heat water in coils exposed to the sun on a glass-
covered black metal plate ( at-plate solar collectors) are found in areas where there is
ample sunshine and relatively high energy costs. The hot water is then distributed from
the heater to the xtures in a recirculating loop pipe system, in which gravity and
temperature differentials maintain a constant temperature in period of low demand.
The primary residential use of water is in the bathroom, which typically includes a bathtub
of cast iron or pressed steel with a ceramic porcelain coating (although bre-glass-
reinforced resin is also used), a ceramic lavatory, and a ceramic tank-type water closet. The
bath and lavatory are supplied with hot and cold water through faucets with lever or
screw-type valve controls. The valve of the water closet supply is also lever-operated and
relies on the gravity power of the water in the tank for its ushing action. Shower baths
are also common, often incorporated into bathtub recesses or in a separate compartment
nished with ceramic tile. In some countries a bidet is included.
Other widely used plumbing xtures include kitchen sinks, usually of cast iron or pressed
steel with a ceramic porcelain coating, or of stainless steel; automatic dishwashing
machines; and automatic washing machines for laundry. Kitchen sinks can be tted with
garbage disposals, which grind solid waste into a uid slurry that is ushed out with
wastewater. Where the possibility of back siphonage of wastewater into the water supply
exists, a vacuum breaker must be provided at the supply to prevent this happening, but
most domestic plumbing xtures are designed to avoid this possibility.
Drainage systems to remove wastewater are made of cast-iron pipe with threaded joints
or bell-and-spigot joints sealed with molten lead or with plastic pipe with solvent-welded
joints. The waste pipe of every plumbing xture is provided with a semicircular reverse
curve, or trap, which remains constantly lled with water and prevents odours from the
drainage system from escaping into occupied spaces. Immediately downstream from
each trap is an opening to a vent pipe system, which lets air into the drainage system and
protects the water seals in the traps from removal by siphonage or back pressure. When
wastewater leaves the building, it is drained through a back ow-prevention valve and into
underground ceramic pipes. It then ows by gravity to either a private sewage treatment
plant, such as septic tank and tile eld, or to the public sewer system. If the discharge level
of the wastewater is below the level of the sewer, a sewage ejector pump is required to
raise the wastewater to a higher level, where gravity carries it away.
Heating and cooling
Atmosphere-control systems in low-rise residential buildings use natural gas, fuel oil, or
electric resistance coils as central heat sources; usually the heat generated is distributed
to the occupied spaces by a uid medium, either air or water. Electric resistance coils are
also used to heat living spaces directly with radiant energy. Forced-air distribution moves
the heat-bearing air through a treelike system of galvanized sheet-metal ducts of round
or rectangular cross section; electric-powered fans provide a pressure differential to push
the air from the heat source (or furnace) to the living spaces, where it is expelled from
grills located in the walls or oors. The negative pressure side of the fan is connected to
another treelike system of return air ducts that extract air from living spaces through grills
and bring it back to the furnace for reheating. Fresh outside air can be introduced into the
system airstream from an exterior intake, and odour-laden interior air can be expelled
through a vent, providing ventilation, usually at the rate of about one complete air change
per hour. To conserve energy, air-to-air heat exchangers can be used in the exhaust–intake
process. The heated air is usually supplied in constant volume, and the ambient
temperature is varied in response to a thermostat located in one room. Central humidity
control is rarely provided in this building type.
Another common heating system is the radiant hot-water type. The heat source is applied
to a small boiler, in which water is heated and from which it is circulated by an electric
pump in insulated copper pipes similar to a domestic hot-water system. The pipes can be
connected to cast-iron or nned tube steel radiators within the living spaces. The
radiators are placed near the areas of greatest heat loss (such as windows or outside walls)
where their radiant energy heats the surrounding air and creates a convection cycle
within the room, producing a roughly uniform temperature within it. The hot water can
also be conducted through narrow pipes placed in a continuous looping pattern to create
a large radiant surface; this pattern of pipes may be cast in a concrete oor slab or placed
above a ceiling to heat the adjoining living space. Temperature control in hot-water
systems uses a thermostat in the living space to adjust the pumped ow rate of the water
to vary the heat supplied.
Radiant electric resistance heating systems use coils in baseboard units in the rooms,
which create convection cycles similar to hot-water radiators, or resistance cables in
continuous looped patterns embedded in plaster ceilings. Local temperature control can
be much more precise with electric heating, because it is possible to install a
thermostatically controlled rheostat to vary the energy output of relatively small sections
of baseboard units or cable.
A type of space heating that is increasing in use in residential buildings is passive solar
radiation. On sunny winter days, south-facing windows let in substantial amounts of
energy, often enough to heat the entire building. Wood-burning replaces with chimneys
are still widely provided in residential buildings, but their use is mostly for aesthetic effect.
The cooling of atmospheres in low-rise residential buildings is often done locally with unit
air conditioners, which penetrate the exterior wall of the space to be cooled; this permits
the intake of fresh air when desired and the ejection of heat pumped from the space to
the exterior air. Less often, forced-air heating systems have cooling coils introduced into
the airstream to provide a centrally cooled interior. A compressive cooling process is used,
similar to that in a domestic refrigerator. A refrigerant, which is a liquid at room
temperature, is pumped through a closed system of coiled copper tubes. An electric
pump maintains a low pressure in the cooling coils, and the liquid refrigerant passes
through an expansion valve from a region of high pressure to the low-pressure coils. This
change in pressure results in a phase change of the refrigerant; it turns from a liquid into
a gas and absorbs heat in the process, just as water absorbs heat when it is boiled and
converted into steam. The heat absorption of the liquid-to-gas transition cools air passing
over the cooling coils. The cooled air is circulated through the building by the forced-air
system. When the low-pressure gaseous refrigerant leaves the cooling coils, it goes
through the pump and is pressurized. The refrigerant travels through condensing coils,
which are located outside the building; there the phase change is reversed as the gas
turns to a high-pressure liquid and liberates heat to the exterior air passing over the
condensing coils. The liquid refrigerant returns to the expansion valve to repeat the
cooling cycle. The refrigeration machine is thus a “heat pump” that moves heat out of the
building to the exterior atmosphere. Heat pumps can also be run in reverse in the winter
months to pump heat from the outside air into the building interior; they work best in
mild climates with fairly warm winter temperatures. The use of heat pumps in cold
climates poses many dif cult technological problems.
Interior atmospheres are also ventilated by operating windows, as well as by unintended

leakage at all types of exterior openings. Bathrooms, kitchens, and laundries generate
odours and heat and often have separate exhaust systems powered by electric fans that
are operated intermittently as required. Residential atmosphere quality is also protected
by the smoke detector, which sounds an alarm to warn of possible danger when smoke
reaches even a very low level in living spaces.
Electrical systems
Electrical systems in residential buildings are supplied from public utility power grids,
starting from a step-down transformer near the building that reduces the high line
voltage to a safer level. An underground or overhead cable from the transformer leads to
the building, where it is connected to a meter that records the energy used by the
subscriber. Immediately beyond the meter is a fused main switch to protect the building
against an accidental power surge from the grid. The main service is then broken down
into a number of circuits by a panelboard, each circuit having a fused switch. From the
panelboard the wires of each circuit distribute the electricity to different areas of the
building. The wires are usually copper, although aluminum is also used, and are covered
with thermoplastic insulation. The wires must be contained in conduit, which is either
metal or plastic tubing, to protect against damage and reduce the possibility of re in the
case of accidental overloading of the wires. Conduits are usually concealed in nished
spaces within the framing of partition walls or above ceilings and terminate in junction
boxes ush with a wall surface. The junction boxes contain terminal devices such as the
convenience outlet, control switches, or the connection point for built-in light xtures.
Residential lighting is provided primarily by movable incandescent xtures plugged into

convenience outlets, but there is often built-in lighting in kitchens, bathrooms, corridors,
and closets, mostly of the incandescent type. There is also some use of uorescent
lighting, particularly in built-in xtures. Overall interior light levels in residential uses are
low, about 20–40 footcandles. Exterior lighting is used for entrances, walkways, and
exterior living spaces.
The power densities of dwelling units are fairly low and are declining because of the
increased use of uorescent lighting xtures and improvement of ef ciency in electrical
appliances. The decline in power consumption enhances the prospect of the widespread
appearance of dwellings—particularly detached houses—with their own independent
electric power generation and storage systems, unconnected to public utility grids.
Photovoltaic cells, which convert sunlight directly into electricity, in combination with
storage batteries can offer these residences a new kind of energy autonomy.
Low-rise commercial, institutional, and industrial buildings
The size of buildings in the commercial, institutional, and industrial market segment
ranges from a few hundred to as much as 45,000 square metres (500,000 square feet). All
of these buildings have public access and exit requirements, although their populations
may differ considerably in density. The unit costs are generally higher than those for
dwellings (although those of simple industrial buildings may be lower), and this type
includes buildings with the highest unit cost, such as hospitals and laboratories.
Residential buildings are fairly static in their function, changing only at long intervals. By
contrast, most commercial, institutional, and industrial buildings must respond to fairly
rapid changes in their functions, and a degree of exibility is required in their component
systems. In addition, these buildings are built by contractors who utilize heavy
mechanized equipment not only for foundations (pile drivers and caisson augers) but also
for lifting heavy components (a wide variety of cranes and hoists). Semimanual machines
such as cement nishers, terrazzo grinders, and welding generators are also used, but a
large percentage of the work is done manually; the human hand and back remain major
instruments of the construction industry, well adapted to the nonrepetitive character of
building.
Foundations
The foundations in these buildings support considerably heavier loads than those of
residential buildings. Floor loadings range from 450 to 1,500 kilograms per square metre
(100 to 300 pounds per square foot), and the full range of foundation types is used for
them. Spread footings are used, as are pile foundations, which are of two types, bearing
and friction. A bearing pile is a device to transmit the load of the building through a layer
of soil too weak to take the load to a stronger layer of soil some distance underground; the
pile acts as a column to carry the load down to the bearing stratum. Solid bearing piles
were originally made of timber, which is rare today; more commonly they are made of
precast concrete, and sometimes steel H-piles are used. The pile length may be a
maximum of about 60 metres (200 feet) but is usually much less. The piles are put in
place by driving them into the ground with large mechanical hammers. Hollow steel
pipes are also driven, and the interiors are excavated and lled with concrete to form
bearing piles; sometimes the pipe is withdrawn as the concrete is poured. An alternative
to the bearing pile is the caisson. A round hole is dug to a bearing stratum with a drilling
machine and temporarily supported by a steel cylindrical shell. The hole is then lled with
concrete poured around a cage of reinforcing bars; and the steel shell may or may not be
left in place, depending on the surrounding soil. The diameter of caissons varies from one
to three metres (three to 10 feet). The friction pile of wood or concrete is driven into soft
soil where there is no harder stratum for bearing beneath the site. The building load is
supported by the surface friction between the pile and the soil.
When the soil is so soft that even friction piles will not support the building load, the nal
option is the use of a oating foundation, making the building like a boat that obeys
Archimedes’ principle—it is buoyed up by the weight of the earth displaced in creating
the foundation. Floating foundations consist of at reinforced concrete slabs or mats or of
reinforced concrete tubs with walls turned up around the edge of the mat to create a
larger volume.
If these buildings do not have basements, in cold climates insulated concrete or masonry
frost walls are placed under all exterior nonbearing walls to keep frost from under the
oor slabs. Reinforced concrete foundation walls for basements must be carefully braced
to resist lateral earth pressures. These walls may be built in excavations, poured into
wooden forms. Sometimes a wall is created by driving interlocking steel sheet piling into
the ground, excavating on the basement side, and pouring a concrete wall against it.
Deeper foundation walls can also be built by the slurry wall method, in which a linear
series of closely spaced caissonlike holes are successively drilled, lled with concrete, and
allowed to harden; the spaces between are excavated by special clamshell buckets and
also lled with concrete. During the excavation and drilling operations, the holes are lled
with a high-density liquid slurry, which braces the excavation against collapse but still
permits extraction of excavated material. Finally, the basement is dug adjoining the wall,
and the wall is braced against earth pressure.
Timber
The structures of these buildings are mostly skeleton frames of various types, because of
the larger spans their users require and the need for future exibility. Timber is used, but
on a much-reduced scale compared to residential buildings and primarily in regions
where timber is readily available. The public nature of commercial and institutional
buildings and the hazards of industrial buildings generally require that they be of
noncombustible construction, and this largely excludes the use of light timber frames.
Heavy timber construction can be used where the least dimensions of the members
exceed 14 centimetres (5.5 inches); when timbers are this large they are charred but not
consumed in a re and are considered re-resistant. Because most harvested trees are
fairly small, it is dif cult to obtain solid heavy timbers, and most large shapes are made up
by glue laminating smaller pieces. The synthetic glues used are stronger than the wood,
and members with cross sections up to 30 × 180 centimetres (12 × 72 inches) are made;
these may be tapered or otherwise shaped along their length. Skeletons of glue-
laminated beams and columns, joined by metal connectors, can span 30 to 35 metres (100
to 115 feet). Heavy decking made of tongue-and-groove planks up to 9.4 centimetres (3.75
inches) thick is used to span between beams to support oors and roofs.
Steel
Steel is a major structural material in these buildings. It is a strong and stiff material and
yet relatively inexpensive, and it can be quickly fabricated and erected, which saves
construction time. Although steel is noncombustible, it starts to lose strength when
heated above 400° C (750° F), and building codes require it to be reproofed in most
multistory buildings; in small and low-hazard buildings, however, it can be left
unprotected.
Nearly all structural steel—including sheets, round or square bars, tubes, angles, channels,
and I beam or wide ange shapes—is formed by the hot-rolling process. Steel roof and
oor deck panels are fabricated from sheet metal by further cold-rolling into corrugated
pro les four to eight centimetres (1.5 to three inches) deep and 60 centimetres (24 inches)
wide. They are usually welded to the supporting steel members and can span up to 4.5
metres (15 feet). The lightest and most ef cient structural shape is the bar (or open web)
joist, a standard truss made with angles for the top and bottom chords, joined by welding
to a web made of a continuous bent rod. It is used almost exclusively to support roofs and
can span up to 45 metres (150 feet). The standard rolled shapes are frequently used as
beams and columns, the wide ange, or W shape, being the most common. The widely
separated anges give it the best pro le for resisting the bending action of beams or the
buckling action of columns. W shapes are made in various depths and can span up to 30
metres (100 feet). Where steel beams support concrete oor slabs poured onto a metal
deck, they can be made to act compositely with the concrete, resulting in considerable
economies in the beam sizes.
The connections of steel shapes are of two types: those made in the workshop and those
made at the building site. Shop connections are usually welded, and site or eld
connections are usually made with bolts due to the greater labour costs and dif culties of
quality control in eld welding. Steel columns are joined to foundations with base plates
welded to the columns and held by anchor bolts embedded in the concrete. The erection
of steel frames at the building site can proceed very rapidly, because all the pieces can be
handled by cranes and all the bolted connections made swiftly by workers with hand-held
wrenches.
A large proportion of steel structures are built as prefabricated, pre-engineered metal

buildings, which are usually for one-story industrial and commercial uses. They are
manufactured by companies that specialize in making such buildings of standard steel
components—usually rigid steel bents or light trusses—which are assembled into frames
and enclosed with corrugated metal siding. The con gurations can be adapted to the
needs of individual users. The metal building industry is a rare example of a successful
application of prefabrication techniques in the construction industry in the United States,
where its products are ubiquitous in the suburban and rural landscape.
Concrete
Reinforced concrete is also a major structural material in these buildings. Indeed, outside
of North America and western Europe, it is the dominant industrialized building material.
Its component parts are readily available throughout the world at fairly low cost. Portland
cement is easily manufactured by burning shale and limestone; aggregates such as sand
and crushed limestone can be easily obtained. Steel minimills, which use scrap iron to
feed their electric furnaces, can mass-produce reinforcing bars for regional use. In
industrialized countries the mixing and delivery of liquid concrete to building sites has
been mechanized with the use of central plants and mixing trucks, and this has
substantially reduced its cost. In barely 100 years, reinforced concrete has risen from an
experimental material to the most widespread form of building construction.
There are two methods of fabricating reinforced concrete. The rst is to pour the liquid
material into forms at the building site; this is so-called in situ concrete. The other method
is called precast concrete, in which building components are manufactured in a central
plant and later brought to the building site for assembly. The components of concrete are
portland cement, coarse aggregates such as crushed stone, ne aggregates such as sand,
and water. In the mix, water combines chemically with the cement to form a gel structure
that bonds the stone aggregates together. In proportioning the mix, the aggregates are
graded in size so the cement matrix that joins them together is minimized. The upper
limit of concrete strength is set by that of the stone used in the aggregate. The bonding
gel structure forms slowly, and the design strength is usually taken as that occurring 28
days after the initial setting of the mix. Thus there is a one-month lag between the time in
situ concrete is poured and the time it can carry loads, which can signi cantly affect
construction schedules.
In situ concrete is used for foundations and for structural skeleton frames. In low-rise
buildings, where vertical gravity loads are the main concern, a number of framing systems
are used to channel the ow of load through the oors to the columns for spans of six to 12
metres (20 to 40 feet). The oldest is the beam and girder system, whose form was derived
from wood and steel construction: slabs rest on beams, beams rest on girders, and girders
rest on columns in a regular pattern. This system needs much handmade timber
formwork, and in economies where labour is expensive other systems are employed. One
is the pan joist system, a standardized beam and girder system of constant depth formed
with prefabricated sheet-metal forms. A two-way version of pan joists, called the waf e
slab, uses prefabricated hollow sheet-metal domes to create a grid pattern of voids in a
solid oor slab, saving material without reducing the slab’s strength. The simplest and
most economical oor system is the at plate, where a plain oor slab about 20
centimetres (eight inches) thick rests on columns spaced up to 6.7 metres (22 feet) apart.
If the span is larger, the increasing load requires a local thickening of the slab around the
columns. When these systems are applied to spans larger than nine to 12 metres (30 to 40
feet), a technique called posttensioning is often used. The steel reinforcing takes the form
of wire cables, which are contained in exible tubes cast into the concrete. After the
concrete has set and gained its full strength, the wires are permanently stretched taut
using small hydraulic jacks and fastening devices, bending the entire oor into a slight
upward arch. This reduces de ection, or sagging, and cracking of the concrete when the
service load is applied and permits the use of somewhat shallower oor members.
Concrete columns are usually of rectangular or circular pro le and are cast in plywood or
metal forms. The reinforcing steel never exceeds 8 percent of the cross-sectional area to
guard against catastrophic brittle failure in case of accidental overloading.
Precast concrete structural members are fabricated under controlled conditions in a

factory. Members that span oors and roofs are usually pretensioned, another prestressing
technique, which is similar in principle to posttensioning. The reinforcement is again steel
wire, but the wires are put into tension (stretched) on a xed frame, formwork is erected
around the taut wires, and concrete is poured into it. After the concrete has set and
gained its full strength, the wires are cut loose from the frame. As in posttensioning, this
gives the precast oor members a slight upward arch, which reduces de ection and
permits the use of shallower members. Precast prestressed oor elements are made in a
number of con gurations. These include beams of rectangular cross section, hollow oor
slabs 15 to 30 centimetres (six to 12 inches) deep and spanning up to 18 metres (60 feet),
and single- and double-stem T shapes up to 1.8 metres (six feet) deep and spanning up to
45 metres (150 feet). Precast concrete columns are usually not prestressed and have
projecting shelves to receive oor members. At the building site, precast members are
joined together by a number of methods, including welding together metal connectors
cast into them or pouring a layer of in situ concrete on top of oor members, bonding
them together. Precast prestressed construction is widely used, and it is the dominant
form of construction in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe.
Masonry nds only a limited structural use in these buildings. Concrete block walls with
brick facing and punched openings (discrete windows entirely surrounded by the facing
material) spanned by concealed steel lintels can be used for exterior bearing walls where
the interior is a skeleton frame of steel or timber. The use of interior bearing walls so
greatly reduces the exibility needed in these buildings that they are only rarely found.
Enclosure systems
Enclosure systems in these buildings range from rather simple forms in industrial uses to
quite sophisticated assemblies in the commercial and institutional sectors. Most have in
common the use of at roofs with highly water-resistant coverings, the traditional one
being a built-up membrane of at least four layers of coal-tar pitch and felt, often weighted
down with a gravel ballast. Such roofs are pitched at slopes of 1 : 100 to 1 : 50 toward
interior drains. In recent years the single-ply roof, made of plastic membranes of various
chemistries, has found wide application. The seams between the pieces of membrane are
heat- or solvent-welded together, and they are either ballasted with gravel or
mechanically fastened to the underlying substrate, which is usually rigid foam insulation.
Sometimes standing-seam sheet-metal roofs are also used; the best quality is
continuously welded stainless steel.
The choice of transparent surfaces in these enclosures is based on three major

considerations: conductive heat transfer, radiant energy transfer, and safety. All the
transparent materials used in the low-rise residential sector are found, plus a number of
others. In buildings with fully controlled atmospheres, double glazing is common to
reduce heat transfer and both interior and exterior condensation on the glass.
Commercial and institutional buildings tend to have large internal sources of heat gain,
such as people and lighting, so it is desirable to exclude at least some solar gain through
the transparent surfaces to reduce energy consumption in cooling. This can be done by
reducing the light transmission or shading coef cient of the glass by integrally tinting it
in various colours; grey, bronze, and green are common tints. This can also be
accomplished by vacuum-plating partial re ective coatings of varying densities to an
inner surface of double glazing; this can re ect up to 90 percent of the incident energy.
Two kinds of re ecting metal are used: aluminum, which is silver in tone, and rubidium,
which is gold-toned. These coatings are perceived as strong tints when the outside world
is viewed through them by day: grey for aluminum and green for rubidium.
Skylights or horizontal transparent surfaces have found wide application in these types of
buildings. These installations range from purely functional daylighting in industrial uses to
elaborate aesthetic forms in commercial structures. In horizontal applications, and in
vertical walls where people might blunder into glazed panels, safety glazing is required.
Safety glazing is of four types: certain plastics that are exible and dif cult to break; wire-
embedded glass, which holds together when broken; tempered glass, which is very
strong and breaks into tiny and relatively harmless fragments; and laminated glass, which
consists of two layers of glass heat-welded together by an intermediate plastic lm.
Laminated glass can also be made with tinted lamination lm, producing many colours
not available in integrally coloured glass.
Because many of these buildings have skeleton structures, their vertical surfaces are
enclosed in nonstructural curtain walls that resist wind forces and provide
weatherproo ng. Curtain walls are of several types; the most common is one supported
by a metal (typically aluminum) gridwork attached to the building structure. The vertical
members, called mullions, are attached to the building at every oor and are spaced 1.5 to
three metres ( ve to 10 feet) apart; the horizontal members, called muntins, are attached
between the mullions. The rectangles between the grid of mullions and muntins are lled
with transparent or opaque panels. The transparent surfaces can be any of those just
described, and the opaque panels include opaque coloured glass, painted or anodized
aluminum sheets, porcelain enameled steel sheets, breglass-reinforced cement, and
stone wafers of granite, marble, or limestone cut with diamond-edged tools. All of these
materials are usually backed up by rigid insulation to slow heat transfer. Metal sandwich
panels are also used for economy of material; two thin layers of metal are separated by a
core of different material, often with a high U-value for insulating effect. The separation of
the thin layers of strong metal greatly increases the overall stiffness of the panel. The
joints between panels and the supporting grid are weatherproofed with elastomeric
sealants (cold-setting synthetic rubbers) or by prefabricated rubber gaskets. In glazed
areas of curtain walls, mullions of structural glass are an alternative to metal mullions;
they are more expensive, but they give an effect of greater transparency where this is
desired.
Another type of curtain wall is the panel type. It has no gridwork of mullions and muntins
but is made of large prefabricated rigid panels connected to the oors and spanning
between them, with transparent openings made as holes cut out of the panel. The panels
can be made of precast concrete, aluminum, or steel, often in sandwich form; elastomeric
sealants are used to close the joints.
The nishes of metals in curtain walls include anodizing of aluminum, an electrolytic

process that builds up the natural colourless oxide of aluminum into a thick adherent
layer; it often includes the introduction of colour into the oxide layer itself. Durable paint
coatings (with lifetimes of up to 40 years) can be applied to the metal in the factory; more
conventional paints that must be renewed at shorter intervals are also used.
Interior nishes
Partitions
Space-division systems in these buildings make use of gypsum board partitions, usually
applied to a framework of formed sheet-metal members attached to the building
structure. They are readily demolished and rebuilt at relatively low cost, meeting the need
for exibility in such buildings. They are often used for re-resistive protective enclosures,
for which a number of layers are laminated to achieve the speci ed re resistance.
Transparent and translucent partitions are also used, with different types of glass set in
metal frames. Of ce buildings may contain prefabricated movable metal partitions,
which typically use metal sandwich panel construction to create panels with both
transparent and opaque surfaces as well as doors. These partitions are expensive
compared with gypsum board and must be moved often to justify the greater initial cost.
Concrete block is used in un nished spaces and for re-resistive partitions. Glazed
ceramic block or ceramic tile applied over concrete block or gypsum board is used in wet
areas and where cleanliness is a problem, such as in kitchens and toilet rooms.
Occasionally walls with wood paneling or stone veneer are used for aesthetic effect. Doors
are usually set in formed sheet-metal frames, although some wood frames are used. The
doors themselves are usually made of solid timbers glue-laminated together and covered
with thin decorative wood veneers; painted hollow sheet-metal doors are used for exterior
doors and in areas of hard use.
Ceiling nishes
Ceiling nishes in these buildings create a sandwich space below the roof or oor slab
above, which conceals projecting structural elements, recessed light xtures, electrical
wiring conduits, and air-handling ductwork. The ceiling must be accessible to change or
maintain the service elements located above it, and the most common ceiling system is
composed of wet felted mineral bre panels, painted and perforated on one side for
sound absorption. The removable panels are supported on a grid of formed sheet-metal
tee bars or zee tracks, which are suspended by wires from the structure above. Where
accessibility is not important and a smooth nish is desired, suspended gypsum board
ceilings can be used.
Floor nishes
Floor nishes in commercial and institutional uses make considerable use of synthetic-
bre carpeting and vinyl composition tile. In areas of higher traf c harder surfaces may be
used—for example, cut stone tiles of marble or granite, ceramic tile applied with epoxy
adhesive to the substrate, or terrazzo. Terrazzo is made in two ways, traditional and thin-
set. In the traditional form a four-centimetre (1.5-inch) layer of cement and sand grout is
poured over the substrate; a grid of metal divider strips to control shrinkage cracks is set
on the hardened surface, and grout mix of coloured cement and marble chips is poured
between the strips. After hardening, the surface is machine polished to expose the marble
chips and metal dividers. Thin-set terrazzo is made by placing the metal strips and
pouring the binder and marble chips directly onto the sub oor, without the underbed of
cement and sand. It is generally possible only when epoxy resins are used in place of
cement binders. Terrazzo is available in many colours, and it forms a hard, smooth, and
durable surface that is easily cleaned.
Life-safety systems
Most important in the hierarchy of interior elements are life-safety systems to protect and
evacuate the building population in emergencies. These include life-threatening events,
such as re and smoke and earthquakes, and less critical ones, such as electric power
failures. To deal with the threat of re and smoke there is an array of re-detection and
re-suppression systems. These include electronic heat and smoke detectors that can
activate audible alarm devices to warn the building population and automatically notify
local re departments. For re suppression hand-operated re extinguishers must be
provided, but many buildings have a separate piping system to provide water for re
ghting. If public water mains cannot provide adequate water pressure, an electric pump
is included, and there is also a connection outside the building to attach portable re
truck pumps. The piping terminates in an array of sprinkler heads located throughout the
building in the ceiling plane in a density ranging from eight to 18 square metres (90 to
200 square feet) per head. Typically there is always water in the pipes (a wet system),
though dry systems are used in unheated buildings or where leakage might damage the
contents. The head is opened to spray water by a fusible link made of metal that melts at
a fairly low temperature when the air surrounding it is heated by a re. Sprinkler systems
have proved to be a highly reliable and effective means of re suppression. Smoke can be
as dangerous as re to building occupants, and protective measures include the
automatic shutdown of mechanical ventilating systems and the division of the building
into smokeproof compartments to prevent the spread of smoke.
The evacuation of occupants in emergencies is accomplished by a system of protected

exits leading to the exterior; all building areas must be within a speci ed travel distance of
such an exit, varying from 30 to 90 metres (100 to 300 feet). For one-story buildings the
exit usually consists simply of exterior doors, but for multistory buildings the exits are
enclosed stairways that also lead to the exterior. The stairways have re-rated enclosures
and are often pressurized to exclude smoke; their width is determined by the maximum
predicted number of occupants per oor. Travel paths to the exit must be clearly marked
by illuminated directional exit signs, and battery-powered emergency lighting is required
in the travel path and in the exit itself, in case of power failure. Some buildings of this type,
such as hospitals, have large diesel- or natural gas-powered emergency electric
generating systems that provide power and lighting for critical areas (such as operating
rooms).
Another of the life-safety elements in these buildings is the re-resistance requirements

for building materials. These include the application of cementitious reproo ng or
insulation to structural steel frames, the re-resistive construction of the enclosures
around exits, the ame-spread ratings of nish materials such as carpeting and wall
coverings, and the use of such inherently re-resistant materials as reinforced concrete
and heavy timber. The re-resistive ratings of various construction materials and
assemblies are established by laboratory re tests.
Vertical transportation systems in these low buildings include stairways, sometimes only
those provided as life-safety exits but more often open, well-lighted ones as well. Where
large numbers of people need to be moved vertically a short distance, escalators, or
moving stairways, powered by electric motors are often provided. For moving smaller
volumes of people and freight, hydraulic elevators are used; the cabs of these elevators
are moved by a telescoping tubular piston underneath, which is raised and lowered by
pumping oil in and out of it with an electric pump. Hydraulic elevators move slowly, but
they are the least expensive type and are well suited for low buildings.
Plumbing
Plumbing systems for water supply and wastewater removal are very similar to those used
in residential buildings, but the higher population densities of commercial, institutional,
and industrial buildings require larger toilet rooms for public multiperson use. These often
include pressure-valve water closets placed in partitioned cubicles and urinals in men’s
toilet rooms. Some xtures in each toilet room must be carefully arranged for easy access
by handicapped persons.
The internal drainage of large at roofs introduces another piping system, similar to that
for sanitary wastewater, to carry away storm water to separate underground storm sewers.
Heavy rainstorms can introduce huge in uxes of water into storm sewers, and sometimes
this surge effect is tempered by the use of storm water retention ponds on the building
site; runoff from the roof and paved areas is temporarily stored in these ponds while it
ows into the sewer at a slower rate. Hospitals, laboratories, and factories have many other
types of plumbing systems for various gases and liquids; these require special materials
and construction. The sites of commercial, institutional, or industrial buildings may have
underground networks of irrigation piping that terminate in ush sprinkler heads to water
grass and plantings.
Environmental control
The atmosphere systems of industrial buildings are usually simple, involving only winter
heating and possibly humidity control if the manufacturing process is sensitive to it. A
commonly used element is the unit heater, in which an electric fan blows air through a
coil heated by hot water, steam, electric resistance, or gas combustion and provides a
directed supply of warm air where needed. Another system involves radiant heating using
electric resistance coils backed by re ectors or continuous re ector-backed metal pipes
that radiate heat from gas burned inside them. Ventilation in industrial buildings is
sometimes done with operable windows but more often with unit ventilators, which
penetrate walls or roofs and use electric fans to exhaust interior air that is replaced by air
owing in through operable louvres.
Commercial and institutional low-rise buildings generally have fully controlled

atmospheres with heating, cooling, and humidi cation. An economical method of
providing this controlled atmosphere is with rooftop single or multizone package units.
Each unit contains an electric fan to move conditioned air; heating elements, which can
be gas or oil- red or electric resistance coils; cooling coils, which use the compressive
cooling cycle with compressor, cooling coils, and condensor coils to liberate heat; as well
as a fresh-air intake and air exhaust. All of these elements are prefabricated in a
rectangular enclosed unit that is simply set on the roof over an opening through which it
is connected to the supply and exhaust ducts. The air ow over the heating and cooling
elements can be partitioned to provide different conditioned airstreams to serve different
zones of the building. The conditioned air is fed at a constant volume into treelike systems
of insulated sheet-metal ductwork for transmission to the zones served. The conditioned
air enters the occupied space through diffusers placed in the ceiling system and
connected to the ducts by exible spiral reinforced fabric tubes. Thermostats within the
space sense temperatures and send signals by electricity or compressed air ow to the
unit to adjust heating and cooling as required; relative humidity is held to a range of 20 to
40 percent. The return of air from the occupied space to the unit for reconditioning is
sometimes done through a reverse tree of ductwork leading back to the unit, but more
often in commercial buildings this is accomplished by placing the entire sandwich space
between the ceiling and the structural deck above under negative pressure to make what
is called a return-air plenum. The negative pressure is created by an opening into the
plenum from the return side of the rooftop unit, and perforated openings or grills in the
ceiling plane admit the return air from the occupied space. Return air can also be made
to enter the plenum by passing over the lamps of uorescent light xtures; this permits
the direct recovery of heat generated by the lamps, which can be recycled to the occupied
space in winter.
The rooftop unit is best used in one-story buildings or smaller multistory ones. For larger
multistory buildings, centralized atmosphere systems are used. These are built up of
separate components, most of which are housed in mechanical equipment rooms or in
penthouses at roof level. The components include fans for moving air, humidi cation
devices, air- ltering devices, and refrigeration machines. Where large refrigeration
machines are used, the condensor coils that liberate heat are no longer placed outside
the building as in residential units or rooftop units but are located in a water jacket near
the compressor. This water is circulated through a piping system to carry away the heat to
a cooling tower outside the building where the water is sprayed into the atmosphere and
partially evaporated to liberate heat, then recovered and returned at a lower temperature
to the condensor coil jacket. Mechanical equipment rooms for atmosphere systems
require a minimum of 5 percent of the oor space in a commercial building and can
range up to 20 percent in hospitals and 40 percent in laboratory buildings; if the building
is large, there can be more than one fan room with centralized refrigeration machines
and cooling towers. The distribution of conditioned air in buildings with centralized
atmosphere systems is usually done through an insulated ductwork tree, using the
variable air volume (VAV) method. This method supplies conditioned air in variable
amounts as required to maintain the desired temperature in occupied spaces; it results in
considerable energy economies over constant volume air supply methods. Separate
exhaust systems are used for areas generating heat and odours, such as kitchens,
laboratories, and toilet rooms.
Electrical systems
Electrical systems in these buildings begin at a step-down transformer provided by the

utility company and located within or very close to the building. The transformer reduces
the standard line potential to two dual voltage systems, which then pass through master
switches and electric meters to record the subscriber’s usage. Each of the voltages
provided serves a separate category of use; different levels are required for incandescent
lights and small appliances, large appliances, ceiling-mounted non-incandescent lighting,
and heavy machinery. Each voltage pair has a separate distribution system of wiring
leading from the meters and master switches to circuit breaker panels, where it is further
broken down into circuits similar to residential uses. Because high-voltage wiring is
considered hazardous, the switches controlling overhead lighting use lower voltages, and
each heavy machine has its own fused switch. From the circuit breaker panel, low-voltage
power conduit and wiring is typically distributed through partitions and ceiling sandwich
spaces, but, in large open areas of commercial buildings, there may be wireways
embedded in the oor slab. These wireways can be either rectangular metal tubes
inserted into the concrete slab before pouring or closed cells of formed steel deck; the
wireways are tapped where desired to provide convenience outlets at oor level.
Lighting in these buildings is predominantly uorescent. Lamps range in size and

wattage, and the available colours can range from warm white to cool white.
Incandescent tungsten- lament lamps are used mostly for accent lighting, since their
light-output ef ciency is low. Mercury-vapour and metal halide-vapour lamps have the
same ef ciency as uorescent lamps, but certain types may have longer operating lives.
High-pressure sodium-vapour lamps have even higher ef ciencies and are used in
industrial applications; their marked orange colour and high intensity has limited their
commercial and institutional use, however. Each of these types of lamp is used in a variety
of xtures to produce different lighting conditions. Incandescent lamps can be placed in
translucent glass globes for diffuse effects, or in recessed ceiling-mounted xtures with
various types of re ectors to evenly light walls or oors. Fluorescent lamps are typically
installed in recessed rectangular xtures with clear prismatic lenses, but there are many
other xture types, including indirect cove lights and luminous ceilings with lamps placed
above suspended plastic or metal eggcrate diffuser grids. Mercury-vapour and high-
pressure sodium-vapour lamps are placed in simple re ectors in high-ceilinged industrial
spaces, in pole-mounted light xtures for outdoor applications on parking lots and
roadways, and in indirect up-lighting xtures for commercial applications.
Mathematical models can accurately predict the performance of lighting in most

applications. The zonal cavity method, which takes into account the lamps, xtures, shape
of room, and colours of room surfaces, is one example. The usual measure of light intensity
is in footcandles on a horizontal surface, such as the oor of a room or a desk. The intensity
ranges from 15 footcandles for a minimum ambient light level to 70 footcandles for an
of ce or classroom and 100–200 footcandles for very precise visual tasks such as drafting;
direct sunlight at noon, by comparison, is about 1,000 footcandles. In most of these
buildings, the required lighting level is achieved with xtures mounted at ceiling level;
having all lighting at ceiling level allows exibility in using building spaces. But the
intensity of light varies inversely with the square of the distance from the source; thus, if a
light xture gives an intensity of 40 footcandles at a distance of one metre, it will produce
an intensity of 10 footcandles at two metres. Therefore, considerable energy savings can
be realized by having a minimal ambient light level (say 15 footcandles) produced by
ceiling-mounted xtures and providing task lighting close to work surfaces where higher
intensities are needed. Daylighting from windows and skylights is also utilized in these
buildings, and mathematical models have been developed that accurately predict its
performance.
Communications systems are of growing signi cance and complexity in commercial,

institutional, and industrial buildings. Thus communications wires for telephones, public-
address systems, and computer data are free to take many paths through the building,
including vertical risers, ceiling sandwich spaces, and wireways in oor slabs similar to
those of electrical power wires. Where the density of wires rises to very high levels—for
example, in computer rooms or where many small computer terminals are installed—
raised oor systems are used. Removable oor panels are mounted on tubular metal
frameworks resting on the structural oor slab, creating a plenum space to carry the
necessary wiring.
A number of building systems are controlled by computers or microprocessors. In certain

atmosphere systems both the interior sensors (such as thermostats) and the exterior
weather sensors feed data to a computer that adjusts the system for minimal energy
expenditure. Other examples include security, re, and emergency alarm systems.
High-rise buildings
The high-rise building is generally de ned as one that is taller than the maximum height
which people are willing to walk up; it thus requires mechanical vertical transportation.
This includes a rather limited range of building uses, primarily residential apartments,
hotels, and of ce buildings, though occasionally including retail and educational facilities.
A type that has appeared recently is the mixed-use building, which contains varying
amounts of residential, of ce, hotel, or commercial space. High-rise buildings are among
the largest buildings built, and their unit costs are relatively high; their commercial and
of ce functions require a high degree of exibility.
Foundations
The foundations of high-rise buildings support very heavy loads, but the systems
developed for low-rise buildings are used, though enlarged in scale. These include
concrete caisson columns bearing on rock or building on exposed rock itself. Bearing piles
and oating foundations are also used.
Structural systems
Wind loads
The structural systems of tall buildings must carry vertical gravity loads, but lateral loads,
such as those due to wind and earthquakes, are also a major consideration. Maximum
100-year-interval wind forces differ considerably with location; in the interiors of
continents they are typically about 100 kilograms per square metre (20 pounds per square
foot) at ground level. In coastal areas, where cyclonic storms such as hurricanes and
typhoons occur, maximum forces are higher, ranging upward from about 250 kilograms
per square metre (50 pounds per square foot). Wind forces also increase with building
height to a constant or gradient value as the effect of ground friction diminishes. The
maximum design wind forces in tall buildings are about 840 kilograms per square metre
(170 pounds per square foot) in typhoon areas.
The effect of wind forces on tall buildings is twofold. A tall building may be thought of as a
cantilever beam with its xed end at the ground; the pressure of the wind on the building
causes it to bend with the maximum de ection at the top. In addition, the ow of wind
past the building produces vortices near the corners on the leeward side; these vortices
are unstable and every minute or so they break away downwind, alternating from one
side to another. The change of pressure as a vortex breaks away imparts a sway, or
periodic motion, to the building perpendicular to the direction of the wind. Thus, under
wind forces there are several performance criteria that a high-rise structure must meet.
The rst is stability—the building must not topple over; second, the de ection, or sidesway
1
at the top, must not exceed a maximum value (usually taken as / of the height) to
500
avoid damage to brittle building elements such as partitions; and, third, the swaying
motion due to vortex shedding must not be readily perceptible to the building occupants
in the form of acceleration, usually stated as a fraction of gravity, or g. The threshold of
perception of lateral motion varies considerably with individuals; a small proportion of the
population can sense 0.003 g or 0.004 g. The recommendation for motion perception is to
limit acceleration to 0.010 g for wind forces that would recur in 10-year intervals. The
fourth criterion involves the natural period of the building structure. This is the vibration
period at which the swaying cantilever motions of the building naturally reinforce and
enhance each other and could become large enough to damage the building or even
cause it to collapse. The natural period of the building should be less than one minute,
which is the period of vibration due to the shedding of wind vortexes.
Earthquake loads
Earthquake or seismic forces, unlike wind forces, are generally con ned to relatively small
areas, primarily along the edges of the slowly moving continental plates that form the
Earth’s crust. When abrupt movements of the edges of these plates occur, the energy
released propagates waves through the crust; this wave motion of the Earth is imparted
to buildings resting on it. Timber frame buildings are light and exible and are usually
little damaged by earthquakes; masonry buildings are heavy and brittle and are
susceptible to severe damage. Continuous frames of steel or reinforced concrete fall
between these extremes in their seismic response, and they can be designed to survive
with relatively little damage.
In two major earthquakes involving large numbers of high-rise buildings, in Los Angeles in
1971 and Mexico City in 1985, lateral accelerations due to ground motions in a number of
tall buildings were measured with accelerometers and were found to be of the order of
0.100 to 0.200 g. In Los Angeles, where the period of the seismic waves was less than one
second, most steel-frame high rises performed well with relatively little damage;
continuous concrete frames also generally performed well, but there was considerable
cracking of concrete, which was later repaired by the injection of epoxy adhesive. In
Mexico City, however, the period of the seismic waves was quite long, on the order of a few
seconds. This approached the natural frequency of many tall structures, inducing large
sidesway motions that led to their collapse. Based on this experience, determination of
the seismic performance criteria of buildings involves the lateral resistance of forces of
0.100 to 0.200 g and consideration of the natural period of the building in relation to the
period of seismic waves that can be expected in the locality. Another important factor is
the ductility of the structure, the exibility that allows it to move and absorb the energy of
the seismic forces without serious damage. The design of buildings for seismic forces
remains a complex subject, however, and there are many other important criteria
involved.
Classi cation of structural systems
The types of structures used for high-rise buildings must meet the lateral load
performance criteria outlined above, and they must be reasonably ef cient in the use of
material and of reasonable cost. The most ef cient high-rise structure would meet the
lateral load criteria using no more material than would be required for carrying the
building gravity load alone; in other words, it would have no premium for height. This
economic criterion of “no premium for height” has led to a classi cation of high-rise
structures, each of which has only a small premium for a particular range of height
(Figure 2).
High-rise structures begin at the lowest range with the rigid frame in both steel and
concrete. Some or all of the joints between the beams and columns are rigidly joined
together by welding the steel or pouring the concrete in situ, and lateral resistance is
provided by the rigid joints; this system can rise about 90 metres (300 feet) with little
premium. The next type is the rigid frame with a vertical shear truss in steel or a shear wall
in concrete to provide greater lateral rigidity; it has a range of 38 to 150 metres (125 to 500
feet). The framed tube structure in both steel and concrete brings more gravity load and
more structural material to closely spaced columns at the building’s perimeter, again
increasing lateral rigidity; this type is reasonably ef cient from 38 to 300 metres (125 to
1,000 feet) in height. The trussed tube with interior columns, which can also be executed
in both steel and concrete, introduces diagonal bracing on all sides of the building’s
perimeter. The bracing also carries gravity loads and further raises the lateral rigidity,
making this a low-premium structure for the region of 240 to 360 metres (800 to 1,200
feet). The bundled tube, which consists of a number of framed tubes joined together for
even greater lateral rigidity, begins to be practical at about 75 metres (250 feet). It was the
form of the steel structure used for the Sears (now Willis) Tower in Chicago. Beyond this
height there is another system that appears to have a low premium: the superframe. In
this structure much of the building’s gravity load, and therefore its material, is brought to
a diagonally braced superframe tube at the perimeter by interior transfer trusses of

various con gurations. No true superframes have yet been built.
Enclosure systems
The enclosure systems for high-rise buildings are usually curtain walls similar to those of
low-rise buildings. The higher wind pressures and the effects of vortex shedding, however,
require thicker glazing and more attention to sealants. The larger extent of enclosed
surfaces also requires consideration of thermal movements, and wind- and seismic-
induced movements must be accommodated. Window washing in large buildings with
xed glass is another concern, and curtain walls must provide xed vertical tracks or other
attachments for window-washing platforms. Interior nishes in high-rise buildings closely
resemble those used in low-rise structures.
Life-safety systems
Life-safety systems are similar to those in low-rise buildings, with stairways serving as
vertical emergency exits; in case of re all elevators are automatically shut down to
prevent the possibility of people becoming trapped in them. Emergency generator
systems are provided to permit the operation of one elevator at a time to rescue people
trapped in them by a power failure. Generators also serve other vital building functions
such as emergency lighting and re pumps. Fire-suppression systems often include
sprinklers, but, if none are required by building codes, a separate piping system is
provided with electric pumps to maintain pressure and to bring water to re-hose
cabinets throughout the building. There are also exterior connections at street level for
portable re-truck pumps. The re hoses are so placed that every room is accessible; the
hoses are intended primarily for professional re ghters but may also be used by the
building occupants.
Vertical transportation systems are of vital importance in high-rise buildings. Escalators

are used on lower oors for moving high volumes of people over short distances. A few
retail or educational buildings have escalators for up to 10 stories. The principal means of
vertical transport in tall buildings is the roped elevator. It moves by a direct current
electric motor, which raises and lowers the cab in a shaft with wire ropes running over a
series of sheaves at the motor and the cab itself; the ropes terminate in a sliding
counterweight that moves up and down the same shaft as the cab, reducing the energy
required to move the elevator. Each elevator cab is also engaged by a set of vertical guide
tracks and has a exible electric cable connected to it to power lighting and doors and to
transmit control signals. Passenger elevators range in capacity from 910 to 2,275 kilograms
(2,000 to 5,000 pounds) and run at speeds from 90 to 510 metres per minute; freight
elevators hold up to 4,500 kilograms (10,000 pounds). The speed of elevators is apparently
limited to the current value of 510 metres per minute by the acceleration passengers can
accept and the rate of change of air pressure with height, which at this speed begins to
cause eardrum discomfort.
Elevator movements are often controlled by a computer that responds to signals from call
buttons on each oor and from oor-request buttons in each cab. The number of
elevators in a building is determined by the peak number of people to be moved in a ve-
minute period, usually in the early morning; for example, in an of ce building this is often
set at 13 percent of occupancy. The average waiting time for an elevator between pressing
the call button and arrival must be less than 30 seconds in an of ce building and less than
60 seconds in an apartment building. The elevators are usually arranged in groups or
banks ranging from one to 10 elevators serving a zone of oors, with no more than ve
elevators in a row to permit quick access by passengers. In a few very tall buildings the sky
lobby system is used to save elevator-shaft space. The building is divided vertically into
subbuildings, each with its own sky lobby oor. From the ground oor large express
elevators carry passengers to the sky lobby oors, where they transfer to local elevator
banks that take them to the individual oors within the subbuildings.
Plumbing
Plumbing systems in tall buildings are similar to those of low-rise buildings, but the
domestic water-supply systems require electric pumps and tanks to maintain pressure. If
the building is very tall, it may require the system to be divided into zones, each with its
own pump and tank.
Environmental control
The atmosphere systems in high-rise of ce buildings are similar to those of low-rise, with
conditioned air distributed by a ductwork tree using the VAV system and return air
removed through ceiling plenums. The placement of air-handling equipment can be
done in two ways. One uses centralized fans placed about every 20 oors, with air moved
vertically through trunk ducts to and from each oor; the other uses oor-by- oor fan
rooms to provide air separately for each oor. There is usually a central refrigeration plant
for the entire building connected with cooling towers on the roof to liberate heat. The
central refrigeration machines produce chilled water, which is circulated by electric
pumps in a piping system to the air-handling fans in order to cool incoming air as
required. Incoming air is heated in winter either by piping coils through which hot water is
circulated by pumps and piping from a central boiler, or by electric resistance coils in the
air-handling units. In residential high-rise buildings cooling is typically provided by
window air-conditioning units, and heating by hot-water or electric resistance radiant
systems. There is limited use of centralized cooling, in which chilled water from a central
refrigeration plant is circulated to fan-coil units near the building perimeter; a small
electric fan within the unit circulates the air of the room over the chilled water coil to
absorb heat.
Electrical systems
Electrical systems for high-rise buildings are also very similar to low-rise types. The major
difference is that, if the building is exceptionally tall, the utility company may bring its
high-voltage lines inside the building to a number of step-down transformers located in
mechanical equipment spaces. From each step-down transformer the distribution of
electricity is similar to that of a smaller building.
Long-span buildings
Long-span buildings create unobstructed, column-free spaces greater than 30 metres

(100 feet) for a variety of functions. These include activities where visibility is important for
large audiences (auditoriums and covered stadiums), where exibility is important
(exhibition halls and certain types of manufacturing facility), and where large movable
objects are housed (aircraft hangars). In the late 20th century, durable upper limits of span
have been established for these types: the largest covered stadium has a span of 204
metres (670 feet), the largest exhibition hall has a span of 216 metres (710 feet), and the
largest commercial xed-wing aircraft has a wingspread of 66.7 metres (222 feet) and a
length of 69.4 metres (228 feet), requiring a 75–80-metre- (250–266-foot-) span hangar. In
these buildings the structural system needed to achieve these spans is a major concern.
Structural systems
Structural types
Structural systems for long-span buildings can be classi ed into two groups: those
subject to bending, which have both tensile and compressive forces, and funicular
structures, which experience either pure tension or pure compression. Since bridges are a
common type of long-span structure, there has been an interplay of development
between bridges and long-span buildings. Bending structures include the girder, the two-
way grid, the truss, the two-way truss, and the space truss. They have varying optimum
depth-to-span ratios ranging from 1 : 5 to 1 : 15 for the one-way truss to 1 : 35 to 1 : 40 for the
space truss. The funicular structures include the parabolic arch, tunnel vault, and dome,
which act in pure compression and which have a rise-to-span ratio of 1 : 10 to 1 : 2, and the
cable-stayed roof, the bicycle wheel, and warped tension surfaces, which act in pure
tension. Within these general forms of long-span structure, the materials used and labour
required for assembly are an important constraint along with other economic factors.
Timber structures
Glue-laminated timber can be used as a long-span material. It can be prefabricated using

metal connectors into trusses that span up to 45 metres (150 feet). Its most economical
forms, however, are the pure compression shapes of the multiple-arch vault, with spans
up to 93 metres (305 feet), and ribbed domes, with spans up to 107 metres (350 feet).
These are often used as industrial storage buildings for materials such as alumina, salt,
and potash that would corrode steel or concrete. Such timber structures are usually found
only near forested areas; transportation of timber to other areas increases its cost.
Steel structures
Steel is the major material for long-span structures. Bending structures originally
developed for bridges, such as plate girders and trusses, are used in long-span buildings.
Plate girders are welded from steel plates to make I beams that are deeper than the
standard rolled shapes and that can span up to 60 metres (200 feet); however, they are
not very ef cient in their use of material. Trusses are hollowed-out beams in which the
stresses are channeled into slender linear members made of rolled shapes that are joined
by welding or bolting into stable triangular con gurations. The members of trusses act
either in pure compression or pure tension: in the top and bottom horizontal members
the forces are greatest at the centre of the span, and in the verticals and diagonals they
are greatest at the supports. Trusses are highly ef cient in bending and have been made
up to 190 metres (623 feet) in span. Two-way grids can be made of either plate girders or
trusses to span square spaces up to 91 metres (300 feet) in size; these two-way structures
are more ef cient but more expensive to build.
The highly ef cient funicular forms are used for the longest spans. Vaults made of rows of
parabolic arches, usually in truss form for greater rigidity, have been used for spans of up
to 98.5 metres (323 feet). Steel truss domes, particularly the Schwedler triangulated dome,
have been the choice for several large covered stadiums, with the greatest span being
204.2 metres (669 feet). Cable-stayed roof construction is another structural system
derived from bridge building. A at roof structure in bending is supported from above by
steel cables radiating downward from masts that rise above roof level; spans of up to 72
metres (236 feet) have been built. Another funicular form is the bicycle-wheel roof, where
two layers of radiating tension cables separated by small compression struts connect a
small inner tension ring to the outer compression ring, which is in turn supported by
columns.
Tension-cable networks use a mesh of cables stretched from masts or continuous ribs to
form a taut surface of negative curvature, such as a saddle or trumpet shape; the network
of cables can be replaced by synthetic fabrics to form the tension surface. Another fabric
structure using tension cables is the air-supported membrane. A network of cables is
attached by continuous seams to the fabric, and the assembly of cables and fabric is
supported by a compression ring at the edge. The air pressure within the building is
increased slightly to resist exterior wind pressure. The increase can be as slight as 1.5
percent of atmospheric pressure, and it is possible to maintain this even in large buildings
with relatively small compressors. The cables stiffen the fabric against utter under
uneven wind pressure and support it in case of accidental de ation.
Concrete structures
Reinforced concrete, because of its inherent strength in compression, is primarily used for
long spans in funicular compression forms, including vaults, shells, and domes. Thin
parabolic shell vaults stiffened with ribs have been built with spans up to about 90 metres
(300 feet). More complex forms of concrete shells have been made, including hyperbolic
paraboloids, or saddle shapes, and intersecting parabolic vaults. An example of the latter
is the CNIT Exhibition Hall in Paris, which consists of six intersecting double-shell parabolic
vaults built to span a triangular space 216 metres (708 feet) on a side with supports only at
the apexes of the triangle. Reinforced concrete domes, which are usually also of parabolic
section, are built either in ribbed form or as thin shells. The maximum span of these
domes is about 200 metres (660 feet).
Another funicular form used in concrete, though it is really a composite structure, is the
inverted dome, or dish. As in the steel bicycle wheel, a concrete compression ring resting
on columns at the perimeter of the structure supports radial steel cables that run inward
and downward to a small steel tension ring at the centre, forming the dish shape. The
cable network is stiffened against wind forces by encasing it in a poured concrete dish;
structures of this type have been built with spans of up to 126 metres (420 feet).
Factors in the built environment
Acoustics
Long-span auditoriums involve considerations in acoustics: audiences wish to hear

speakers clearly and to hear music with appropriate tonality. Unfortunately, acoustic
requirements for speech quality often con ict with those for music, and it is dif cult to
design an auditorium that is satisfactory for both. The best single measure of acoustic
performance for auditoriums is the reverberation time, which is directly proportional to
the volume of the hall and inversely proportional to the amount of sound absorbency
within it, including wall and ceiling surfaces and the audience itself. Measured in the
sound range of 500–1,000 hertz, rooms with short reverberation times of one to 1.5
seconds are good for the intelligibility of speech, while longer reverberation times of 1.5 to
2.5 seconds add richness of tone to musical performances. Thus, adding sound-absorbent
material to a hall improves it for speech but detracts from its musical qualities. People are
excellent sound absorbers, and thus the audience has a distinct impact on auditorium
acoustics; to keep this effect constant with varying audience size, auditorium seats are
usually upholstered to serve as surrogate spectators of the same sound absorbency.
Curved surfaces, which tend to focus sound, are either avoided in auditoriums or covered
with sound-absorbent material. Electronic sound-ampli cation systems can be used to
assist speakers in large halls but generally are not satisfactory for music. Other long-span
buildings, such as covered stadiums and exhibition halls, receive only minor acoustical
treatment.
Environmental control systems
Atmosphere systems in long-span buildings must handle the considerable heat and
odour generation from population densities of less than one square metre (11 square feet)
per person. Air must be moved fairly rapidly through the population zone to maintain an
acceptable air-change rate.
CITATION INFORMATION
ARTICLE TITLE: Construction
WEBSITE NAME: Encyclopaedia Britannica
PUBLISHER: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
DATE PUBLISHED: 22 July 2019
URL: https://www.britannica.com/technology/construction
ACCESS DATE: September 03, 2019

Construction: Construction, Also Called Building Construction, The

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Construction: Construction, Also Called Building Construction, The

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9/3/2019 Construction -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia

construction of apartment buildings

Apartment buildings under construction in

The history of construction

Evidence of composite construction of clay and wood, the so-called wattle-and-daub

Bronze Age and early urban cultures

The development of bronze, and later iron, technology

. are still used today.

The Egyptians possessed no lifting machinery to raise stones vertically. It is generally

Greek and Hellenistic cultures

In contrast to stone technology, which remained largely unchanged from Egyptian

Although stone technology remained con ned to the trabeated (column-and-beam, or

Early concrete structures

In the late empire, concrete technology gradually

Timber and metal construction

linear members, was apparently a Roman invention. No evidence of their theoretical

Building support systems

Romanesque and Gothic

Construction in timber and brick

Timber construction underwent slow development in this period. Scandinavian stave

Reintroduction of dome construction

constrained by iron chains; it supports a triangularly braced timber framework to which is

Revival of Roman technics and materials

In addition to Roman forms in masonry, the Renaissance recovered other Roman

The rst industrial age

Development of iron technology

Manufactured building materials

Emergence of design professionals

Improvements in building services

undesirable products of combustion (particularly carbon soot) in occupied spaces.

The second industrial age

Introduction of steel building technology

Early steel-frame high-rises

While these prodigious structures were the centre of

Steel long-span construction

The invention of reinforced concrete

The concrete dome

Development of building service and support systems

Heating and cooling systems

Important innovations in cooling technology followed. The development of refrigeration

Carrier’s “Weathermaster” system was energy-intensive, appropriate to the declining

Glass as a building material

High-rise construction since 1945

Use of steel and other metals

Use of reinforced concrete

Parallel to the development of tall steel structures, substantial advancements in high-rise

Another important technique developed for concrete high-rise construction is

Postwar developments in long-span construction

The concrete dome or shell developed rapidly in the

Modern building practices

play an important role in society, the aesthetic dimension is important in valuing

Building design and construction

Low-rise residential buildings

The rst step is to construct a oor, which rests on the

Heating and cooling

Interior atmospheres are also ventilated by operating windows, as well as by unintended

Residential lighting is provided primarily by movable incandescent xtures plugged into

Low-rise commercial, institutional, and industrial buildings

A large proportion of steel structures are built as prefabricated, pre-engineered metal

Precast concrete structural members are fabricated under controlled conditions in a

The choice of transparent surfaces in these enclosures is based on three major

The nishes of metals in curtain walls include anodizing of aluminum, an electrolytic

The evacuation of occupants in emergencies is accomplished by a system of protected