Project Profile:
Role: Undergraduate Student Design Competition Entry
Tools: Rhino, Circular Saw, Chop Saw, Drill
Challenge: Constructability
Project Scope:
Develop and construct a design intervention using 100 extruded, wire-cut, red bricks.
Project Attribution:
Concept, design, and construction by Matt Flamm for Kentuckiana Masonry Institute 2009 Stephen Degar Memorial Competition at the University of Kentucky College of Design School of Architecture.
Design:
Wire-cut, extruded bricks are a unique candidate for post-tensioned design applications due to their inherent compressive strength and standardized voids. These voids are a result of a manufacturing process in which a brick mix is extruded out of a brick-shaped forming nozzle, cut with a wire, and fired. Extruded bricks usually fall into the facing or void ASTM categories and are assessed with lower structural load ratings than their solid counterparts.
Build:
The arch is composed of 100 bricks, arranged in twenty-five rows, four bricks wide each. Between each adjacent row, a ripped, wooden wedge with pre-drilled holes serves as a shim or keystone which defines the arch’s radius. Aligned holes between rows of bricks, as well as matching counterparts in wooden wedges permit the passage of eight 3/8” threaded steel rods thorough the entire assembly. Each end of the arch terminates in a 3/8” steel C channel that serves as a footer. Washers and nuts threaded onto both ends of the rods and tightened with a ratchet wrench hold the arch assembly in lateral compression.
Outcome:
This entry tied for first place in the design competition. In addition, the design was sufficiently strong to support four people without noticeable deflection. No structural analysis has been performed on this concept, but the weakest link in the version pictured here is the low compressive strength and low weatherability of the pine wood wedges.
