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Bricks

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A brick structure

Bricks is a block or a single unit of a kneaded clay-bearing soil, sand and lime, or concrete material, fire hardened or air dried, used in masonry construction. Lightweight bricks (also called lightweight blocks) are made from expanded clay aggregate. Fired brick are the most numerous type and are laid in courses and numerous patterns known as bonds, collectively known as brickwork, and may be laid in various kinds of mortar to hold the bricks together to make a durable structure. Brick is defined as: a hardened rectangular block of mud, clay etc., used for building; considered collectively, as a building material; something shaped like a brick; a helpful and reliable person.

Quotes

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*Most software today is very much like an Egyptian pyramid with millions of bricks piled on top of each other, with no structural integrity, but just done by brute force and thousands of slaves. - Alan Kay.
The preason for this project comes from my childhood, that is clear to me. I did not have any toys. So, I played in the bricks of ruined buildings around me and with which I built houses. - Anselm Kiefer.
Science is built of facts the way a house is built of bricks: but an accumulation of facts is no more science than a pile of bricks is a house. -Poincare.
If I could only remember that the days were, not bricks to be laid row on row, to be built into a solid house, where one might dwell in safety and peace, but only food for the fires of the heart. -Edmund Wilson.
  • When you can dump a load of bricks on a corner lot, and let me watch them arrange themselves into a house — when you can empty a handful of springs and wheels and screws on my desk, and let me see them gather themselves together into a watch — it will be easier for me to believe that all these thousands of worlds could have been created, balanced, and set to moving in their separate orbits, all without any directing intelligence at all.

Vitruvius The Ten Books On Architecture

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...They should rather be made of white and chalky or of red clay, or even of a coarse grained gravelly clay. These materials are smooth and therefore durable; they are not heavy to work with, and are readily laid.
...at Utica in constructing walls they use brick only if it is dry and made five years previously, and approved as such by the authority of a magistrate.
...The accommodations within the city walls being thus multiplied as a result of the many floors high in the air, the Roman people easily find excellent places in which to live.
As for "wattle and daub" I could wish that it had never been invented. The more it saves in time and gains in space, the greater and the more general is the disaster that it may cause; for it is made to catch fire, like torches. It seems better, therefore, to spend on walls of burnt brick, and be at expense, than to save with "wattle and daub," and be in danger. And, in the stucco covering, too, it makes cracks from the inside by the arrangement of its studs and girts. For these swell with moisture as they are daubed, and then contract as they dry, and by their shrinking cause the solid stucco to split. But since some are obliged to use it either to save time or money, or for partitions on an unsupported span, the proper method of construction is as follows. Give it a high foundation so that it may nowhere come in contact with the broken stone-work composing the floor...

Vitruvius, translated by Professor Morris Hicky Morgan in: Vitruvius The Ten Books On Architecture, Harvard University Press

  • Bricks... should not be made of sandy or pebbly clay, or of fine gravel, because when made of these kinds they are in the first place heavy; and secondly when washed by the rain as they stand in walls, they go to pieces and break up, and the straw in them does not hold together on account of the roughness of the material. They should rather be made of white and chalky or of red clay, or even of a coarse grained gravelly clay. These materials are smooth and therefore durable; they are not heavy to work with, and are readily laid.
    • In Chapter III "Brick" Sec. 1
  • Bricks should be made in Spring or Autumn so that they may dry uniformly.
    • In: Chapter III, Sec. 2
  • Bricks will be most serviceable if made two years before using; for they cannot dry thoroughly in less time. When fresh undried bricks are used in a wall, the stucco covering stiffens and hardens into a permanent mass, but the bricks settle and... the motion caused by their shrinking prevents them from adhering to it, and they are separated from their union with it....at Utica in constructing walls they use brick only if it is dry and made five years previously, and approved as such by the authority of a magistrate.
    • In: Chapter III, Sec. 2
  • There are also half bricks....As the bricks are always laid so as to break joints, this lends strength and a not unattractive appearance to both sides of such walls.
    • In: Chapter III, Sec. 4
  • Taking courage and looking forward from the standpoint of higher ideas born of the multiplication of the arts, they gave up huts and began to build houses with foundations, having brick or stone walls, and roofs of timber and tiles; next, observation and application led them from fluctuating and indefinite conceptions to definite rules of symmetry. Perceiving that nature had been lavish in the bestowal of timber and bountiful in stores of building material, they... embellished them with luxuries.
    • Book II, Chapter I, Sec. 7
  • With the present importance of the city [of Rome.] and the unlimited numbers of its population, it is necessary to increase the number of dwelling-places indefinitely. Consequently, as the ground floors could not admit of so great a number living in the city, the nature of the case has made it necessary to find relief by making the buildings high. In these tall piles reared with piers of stone, walls of burnt brick, and partitions of rubble work, and provided with floor after floor, the upper stories can be partitioned off into rooms to very great advantage. The accommodations within the city walls being thus multiplied as a result of the many floors high in the air, the Roman people easily find excellent places in which to live.
    • In: Chapter VIII, Sec. 17
  • On the top of the wall lay a structure of burnt brick, about a foot and a half in height, under the tiles and projecting like a coping. ...when the tiles on the roof are broken or thrown down by the wind so that rain-water can leak through, this burnt brick coating will prevent the crude brick from being damaged, and the cornice-like projection will throw off the drops beyond the vertical face, and thus the walls, though of crude brick structure, will be preserved intact.
    • In: Chapter VIII, Sec. 18
  • With regard to burnt brick... If not made of good clay or if not baked sufficiently, it shows itself defective... when exposed to frosts and rime. Brick that will not stand exposure on roofs can never be strong enough to carry its load in a wall. Hence the strongest burnt brick walls are those which are constructed out of old roofing tiles.
    • In: Chapter VIII, Sec. 19
  • As for "wattle and daub" I could wish that it had never been invented. The more it saves in time and gains in space, the greater and the more general is the disaster that it may cause; for it is made to catch fire, like torches. It seems better, therefore, to spend on walls of burnt brick, and be at expense, than to save with "wattle and daub," and be in danger. And, in the stucco covering, too, it makes cracks from the inside by the arrangement of its studs and girts. For these swell with moisture as they are daubed, and then contract as they dry, and by their shrinking cause the solid stucco to split. But since some are obliged to use it either to save time or money, or for partitions on an unsupported span, the proper method of construction is as follows. Give it a high foundation so that it may nowhere come in contact with the broken stone-work composing the floor...
    • In: Chapter VIII, Sec. 20
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