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1 Building Construction Methods and History: AR 490-ARCH42S1 - Integregation Course for Architecture 2

1.1 Building Construction Methods and

History
 

History is synonymous to the word "advancement" in many ways. In architecture, primitive structures
started to be just a single stone positioned in a precise direction that signifies primitive people's
beliefs and religion, from there, structures continued to evolved in a more drastic way possible thus
serving several purposes to give people's necessity for shelter, transportation, food storage, place of
worship, resting places for the dead and many other things.

Construction and building materials are the tools used for this evolution, the following timeline will
summarize the relevant building materials discovered and enhanced thru history:

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The History of Building Materials Summarized:

Stone Age

During this time, primitive people live thru the principle of hunter-gatherers, they moved from a place
to another in search for food. The earliest documented materials used for a “house” was excavated in
Europe which dated around 12,000 BCE used wooden poles that are assumed to be frames for
animal skins used as walls for a tent.

Bronze Age and early Urban Cultures

This can be recalled as the time when Middle eastern civilizations existed along great river valleys
like the Nile, the Tigris and Euphrates, the Indus, and the Huang Ho. Given this geographical
advantage, people during this time (around 3000 BCE) people were able to develop a building
material made from mud and formed using straw with four sides, this materials is what we call
“bricks”, these bricks were made from sun-drying the mud found along the aforementioned bodies of
water. “ceramic” where also developed during this time wherein more intricate decors were added,
thus giving Architecture more vibrance.

Egyptian Civilization-

Everybody knows the building material used during this era-stones. Massive blocks of stones such
as limestone, sandstone, and granite that are strong and durable were mined and cut by early
Egyptians to construct monumental structures like Pyramids, mortuaries, and mastabas.

Greek and Hellenestic cultures

Similar to Egyptian Civilization, Greek and Hellenestic people also used stones for their buildings,
they used more from local marble and limestones, since stones available in their place are not as
massive as those in Egypt, they pursued new stone technology like corbelling and construction of
arches staggering pieces of stones precisely to form radial segments.

Roman Civilization

Romans contributed the use of concrete as building material which was derived from the basic
mortar mixture made by sand, lime and water until 2nd century B.C.E. when pozzolana was
discovered and the new material called “pulvis puteoli”, natural cement was then formed with this
material.

Romanesque and Gothic Era

 During around the 5th century, the Iron Age started wherein new building technology was applied in
construction, this is thru using log construction, packed clay walls, mud brick and wattle and daub-

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which is the method of constructing walls in which vertical wooden stakes, or wattles, are woven with
horizontal twigs and branches, and then daubed with clay or mud.

Renaissance Period

Construction of domes is a significant contribution of builders in this era, moreover, the use of timber
trusses with king posts is a major Roman building technique revived in this period. The use of clear
glass was also manifested in many Romanesque buildings which is also called as the “crown glass
method” which is a process handmaking glass out of soda-lime composition.

The First Industrial Age

at around 18th century, the Industrial Revolution emerged wherein mass production of Iron was done
to contribute to the development of machinery which then lead to the “puddling process” or the
process of production wrought iron in 1769. Because of this advancement, machines were created,
and the simple sun-dried bricks were upgraded into “pressed” bricks which were mass produced by a
mechanical extrusion process.

The Second Industrial Age

This was the time when steel and electricity were first used for advancement. Steel were mass
produced to build railroads and soon building frames which lead to construction of early skyscrapers.
Concrete was then also reformulated adding powdered brick and pebbles (which soon evolved into
the aggregates we use today) to the original mixture of lime, sand and water. After that, the use of
reinforced concrete was evident all over the houses in Paris which started when a French gardener
named Joseph Monier uses the concrete mixture for his pots with cage iron wires as reinforcement.
 More technologies emerged during this time such as lighting, heating and cooling systems, more
use of glass, and use of other metals as building material.

Modern Era

The modern era implies more change in building technology, most of them aims to reduce the
building construction’s cost. More research nowadays are being done to upgrade the building
technology with the common aim which is to make construction faster and economical.

REFERENCES:
1. Image Source: (https://www.archdaily.com/476252/infographic-materials-in-architecture-a-
history (https://www.archdaily.com/476252/infographic-materials-in-architecture-a-history) )

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