Brick


 * As a topic of class, brick is going to be studied as construction material in architceture.

Bricks are mostly made of fired clay, which is a material from natural sources in the ground. Bricks are used specifically for constructions. Generaly, they are used to raise walls and make large extensions of horizontal surfaces. The are as many brick types as many kinds of clay in the ground, but concerning to their shape, there are basically three types of brick: a) The solid brick, which has uniform surfaces, b) the frogged brick, which has a sink at one its sides and c) the perforated brick, which has perforations on its stretcher face. There are also bricks without the usual shape. Some advantages of using brick are the aesthetic quality that some give to facades and arches, they are good keeping warm temperatures (which can come as a disadvantage if used at the wrong place) and their fireproof property. However, bricks are usually small and their weight makes them unstable when placed without mortar and nowadays, brick surfaces are still handmade.

When using bricks at constructions, there are different ways or methods applied to lay each unit of brick. They all consist in the alternation of the position of the units.These ways or methods are known as the brick laying techniques. The most common brick laying technique is the stretcher laying that is generaly used for walls. It shows a simple sequence every 2 courses of bricks; once a course is done, the next brick that starts a new one is placed with its edge over the middle of the inferior brick that supports it. All bricks are layed showing their stretcher face. Another technique a bit more unusual is the Rowlock laying. Instead of placing a course of straight stretcher faces, it alternates the position with a sequence of a stretcher face followed by the smallest face of the brick. This laying technique demands for a thicker wall because the stretcher faced bricks are placed along horizontally and the others are placed vertically. **



The Hampton Court Palace media type="file" key="THCP joyce.mp3" width="240" height="20"

This construction is one of the most famous buildings in England. It is located upon Thames (south west London).This palace once belonged to Thomas Wosley, Archbishop of York in 1514. At that time, the palace's façades were covered in bricks of a harsh pink tonality and its shape and design belonged to a perpendicular-Gothic style which harmonised well with the Renaissance architecture. At the time, this building came to be so impressive and large that it became even bigger and fancier than the king's residency itself. Wosley, in order to keep his position, had to gift his palace to the King. Then, the Hampton Court Palace was enlarged through the years due to the King's desire. This enlargement is very characteristic because the style of the building changes completly but still doesn't corrupt the perpendicular-Gothic original style. Due to this situation, the building is divided into two historical styles: the first one is the Tudor brickwork which represents the Gothic part of the palace and the second was the Stuart dinasty baroque style.

One the elements that make the differentaition of the building's styles more evident is the brickwork in them. In Tudor times, there were larger extensions of brick façades to show the look of a castle; and in the Stuart dinasty, there's less brickwork in order to leave spaces for sequences of windows and galleries, which are more corresponding to the look of a palace. The use of brick in a country like England comes as an advantage due to the changing climates. It's also known that in the 16th century the english population didn't count with any technlogical heater-systems, that's why the construction materials had to be carefully chosen. Concerning to brickwork of this palace, its main purpose is to give an aesthetical look to the building and secondly, to keep the warm temperatures inside (since brick has an anti-frost property). **