[HN Gopher] Frank Lloyd Wright and the "textile block" construct...
___________________________________________________________________
Frank Lloyd Wright and the "textile block" construction system
(1992)
Author : benbreen
Score : 26 points
Date : 2022-02-21 15:26 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.domusweb.it)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.domusweb.it)
| daverol wrote:
| Textile Block method, so an obligatory 'Blade Runner' mention:
| https://www.fancypantshomes.com/architecture/frank-lloyd-wri...
| Animats wrote:
| Right, the Ennis house. Recently sold for US$18 million.[1]
|
| [1] https://www.latimes.com/business/real-
| estate/story/2019-10-2...
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| Major FLW groupie here. I've been to the Wisconsin Taliesyn,
| Fallingwater, the Johnson Wax building in Racine, his own home in
| Oak Park and many of the other homes there he built. I love it.
|
| That said: my brother went with me to Taliesyn. The main thing he
| noticed was the shoddiness of the workmanship, e.g. glass corners
| that didn't meet squarely. Still, it's inspiring.
|
| During the Depression, all you needed to move to Taliesyn and
| study with the master was $500. No skill requirement. Johnson Wax
| had years and years of water leaking in from the roof, although
| they finally fixed it and they work in it still.
|
| Steel-reinforced concrete is a time-limited construction
| technique. Water eventually gets in and rusts the steel.
| linksnapzz wrote:
| Yeah, they had a terrible time sealing the edges of the
| lillypad columns in the Johnson Wax building against the
| skylights in the ceiling.
|
| I'd like to think that Wright had read about polysiloxane
| synthetic rubber compounds in Scientific American or something,
| and figured the building he'd designed would just have to leak
| until someone developed those into commercial RTV silicone to
| seal the roof with.
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| Funny, I went there on a Tuesday. They said the guided tours
| were only on Fridays, but when I told them I was from out of
| state, they said a guard would walk us around but not
| narrate.
|
| It was a great office building, way ahead of its time.
| alliao wrote:
| I miss the days of time limited construction, nowadays
| residential building seems to be mortgage-life-limited. I swear
| nothing lasts more than 20yrs.
| mikehotel wrote:
| Would you consider insulated concrete forms (ICF) addressing
| the water intrusion concerns, while retaining the other
| benefits of reinforced concrete?
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| Maybe you know more about this than I do. Does the insulation
| last, say, 200 years?
| tricky wrote:
| ICF requires rebar to be dropped in the forms before
| pouring so... maybe not much better than standard
| reinforced concrete re: water intrusion.
| mikehotel wrote:
| Water could reach the rebar from the ground, but I would
| think waterproof membranes and proper drainage should
| allow it to remain mostly dry. The foam panels should
| also reduce the amount of air that gets to the concrete
| and the rebar. Of course, you want concrete to be wet for
| curing, but how would water and oxygen reach it after it
| drys out? Do you think the oxidization process will not
| stop after curing?
| thechao wrote:
| Does it require _steel_ rebar or could you use glass
| rebar? I think most homes (that are "boxes") have
| concrete in compression, and not tension. That means the
| structural considerations for rebar are a _lot_ lower. I
| think, though, as always, the lifetime of a structure is
| always dependent on its roof. I don 't think I've seen
| any "multicentury" solution for roofs. Even a lead roof
| is only _definitely_ good for about a century before it
| needs maintenance; although, it 's useful for twice that
| long. I've got a metal roof on my house, and it came with
| a 100 year warranty. (The UV eventually gets to the
| paint, which will take out the roof.)
| mikehotel wrote:
| I probably don't know more than you, but I am interested in
| learning more about it. The insulation most often used is
| EPS (expanded polystyrene), which many studies are trying
| to find ways to accelerate decomposition from an ecology
| perspective. Sheltered from UV and solvents, it should last
| more than 200 years, with some marketing materials giving
| it an indefinite lifespan. We need more history on ICF,
| since it is a relatively new building material/technique.
| abeppu wrote:
| > Steel-reinforced concrete is a time-limited construction
| technique. Water eventually gets in and rusts the steel.
|
| Since you're a groupie perhaps you know and could share -- how
| are these concrete block homes doing almost a century after
| Wright started using the system described here? Are they known
| to have serious structural issues from rusting steel / cracking
| concrete? Especially because this article says "relatively
| unskilled labor could easily erect the walls", and because it
| was a new approach, I'd wonder if water would have gotten in
| and damaged these walls more quickly than with modern
| reinforced concrete (which often seems to not last long).
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| I'm not _that_ much of a groupie, sorry.
|
| A lot of FLW homes are owned by architectural or other
| charitable organizations, since maintaining them is
| expensive.
|
| "relatively unskilled labor" -- LOL.
| Animats wrote:
| Stainless steel rebar is the way to go. It's more expensive,
| but is becoming popular for bridges, especially ones over salt
| water. 100+ year lifespan. The price differential is coming
| down as the demand increases.
|
| Plastic-encapsulated rebar was popular for a while, but turned
| out to be a dead end. A nick in the plastic and water gets in.
| SECProto wrote:
| Non-metallic rebar (eg GFRP rebar, Basalt rebar) is also an
| option that's becoming more popular, though I've only seen it
| in low-importance structures. Both have very different design
| considerations than steel though: they essentially don't
| yield until failure loads, they have thermal expansion
| different axial vs radial, etc.
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| I'm not a civil engineer or even close, but I did note that
| some Roman concrete structures have lasted 2000 years, and
| nothing we're building now has any chance of lasting that
| long. 100 years is not much, considering what infrastructure
| in developed countries costs nowadays.
| hasmolo wrote:
| it's easy to forget that modern buildings have much more
| complex loads, higher stress weights, and the added benefit
| of us being able to calculate strength.
|
| it's kind of similar to the idea a 'craftsman' house used
| to cost the equivalent of 50k, and now a house is 500k.
| That's down to electrical service, having gas, appliances,
| modern codes, and more. shit, it's been so effective at
| reducing random fires that fire houses now have to include
| EMS for a reason to exist.
|
| it's cool as shit that a bridge over an ocean can last 100
| years, do you have any classic examples of bridges or
| buildings in continuous use for thousands of years? of
| course not, it would wear out. the buildings that last are
| directly proportional to how used they are, unless
| maintained like a religious building.
| yorwba wrote:
| > do you have any classic examples of bridges or
| buildings in continuous use for thousands of years? of
| course not, it would wear out.
|
| The Pantheon in Rome is famous for having the world's
| largest unreinforced concrete dome:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheon,_Rome
|
| Various Roman bridges are still in use:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponte_di_Tiberio_(Rimini)
|
| Being in continuous use makes it more likely that a
| building will last long, since otherwise people might
| tear it down to use the stones elsewhere. (E.g. what
| happened to the Colosseum.)
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| If you read up on "Roman concrete" you find out that it
| used a volcanic sand "pozzolana" [1] which is difficult
| to find in some parts of the world. There was,
| supposedly, some American professor trying to find a
| recipe for concrete that was as good as the Roman type
| but used more available materials. I don't know the
| current status.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pozzolana
| bondarchuk wrote:
| Friendly inflation reminder: 50k in, say, 1950 dollars is
| roughly equivalent to 500k today. But of course one can
| argue that QoL improvements like you mention are exactly
| what makes up (some part of) inflation.
| alliao wrote:
| they get stronger over time, modern capital requirements
| probably would not consider funding buildings that are
| weakest when new and only operationally stable after couple
| of hundred years...
|
| https://www.science.org/content/article/why-modern-mortar-
| cr...
| dirtyid wrote:
| > time-limited construction technique
|
| To be fair, almost all buildings, especially residential, are
| time limited artefacts. Even if FLW knew some of his works
| would become protected heritage / conservative buildings,
| they're still private constructions without the budget scoped
| for institutional buildings designed to last 100+ years. My
| memory is FLW already had reputation for going over budget more
| often than not, there was never much resources dedicated to
| seriously evaluate longevity of the different building systems
| he was experimenting with.
| linksnapzz wrote:
| "The job of the architect is to spend the client's money!"
|
| He also said:
|
| "The surgeon can bury his mistakes; the architect can only
| advise his clients to plant vines."
| kjhughes wrote:
| Frank Lloyd Wright restoration project house currently for sale
| for $4.25M in Los Angeles: It is one of "Wright's
| 20 most important houses...the missing link between two World
| Heritage sites: Taliesin and Fallingwater," according to the
| writings of architectural historian Kathryn Smith, who was quoted
| in the listing.
|
| https://www.mansionglobal.com/articles/a-newly-listed-4-25-m...
| cepp wrote:
| It sold ~3 weeks ago for ~3M.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-02-21 23:02 UTC)