Cottage Building in Cob Pise Chalk and Clay Part 10

to 6 in. thick. This wall can be plastered, the plaster forming a key with the wire-netting, which holds securely. Buildings of this character can be made to look rather attractive, and, if neatly constructed, are very much superior, both in appearance and comfort, to slabs or wattle and daub."

[Headnote: Pise Shuttering]

PISe SHUTTERING

I

That the plant now commonly in use for pise-building is but a slight improvement on the anciently accepted model, may be seen by a comparison of modern examples with old engravings and descriptions. Pise-building lay off the great main stream of constructional activity, and the enterprise and ingenuity lavished on the perfecting of other building materials and methods pa.s.sed Pise by, leaving it undisturbed in its quiet backwater, a primitive system still with its primitive tackle.

Yet there were a number of very obvious and unnecessary shortcomings in the accepted shuttering that seemed to clamour for attention, defects, too, that were in no way inherent, but merely traditional infelicities reproduced in succeeding models that remained remarkably true to their primitive ancestral architype--the Pise plant described by Pliny.

Here seemed to be a very promising field for an ingenious inventor, a field that is still "To Let."

In the absence of any such inventive genius, the author has had certain ideas of his own embodied in the "Mark V" type of shuttering--a type that further experience and experiment will doubtless modify.

The principle of the building-process remains unaffected. The improvements, such as they are, are merely improvements of mechanism.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DIAGRAM OF MARK V PISe SHUTTERING]

[Ill.u.s.tration: +Mark V Shuttering.+ Showing top cross-braces thrown back and free leg disengaged.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: +Mark V Shuttering.+ Showing screw-up securing tackle of exterior corner-piece and its rounded interior. Also screw-cramp at interior angle of shuttering.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: +Mark V Shuttering.+ Shuttering about to be removed from a first section of Pise walling.

Top cross-braces have been thrown back and clamps to legs released.

It is now only necessary to detach the stays and lift away the shutters. Where, as here, there is no masonry plinth, the bearing-pins are only required for the succeeding courses of Pise, and need not be inserted for the first.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: +Mark V Shuttering.+ The angle-iron stay with cross-brace raised, and the blocking-box showing its internal clamping-gear.]

Scientific research could doubtless, if it would, do much towards perfecting Pise-building.

We know very little about the behaviour of different earths under compression, or of their several reactions to chemical treatment.

Meanwhile, a few trifling mechanical modifications are all that distinguish our modern plant from that devised by the ancients. That said, a short description of the "Mark V" model may be of some interest, pending the future developments that may now be hoped for.

II

The chief desiderata in designing a satisfactory Pise plant appear to be these:

All const.i.tuent parts should be reasonably light and easy to handle. The shutters should be rigid and not liable to warp, without being expensively constructed. The shutters, when clamped in position, should be firmly and positively supported, without deviation from the vertical.

The fairway between the shutters must be as little obstructed by the cross-braces as may be, leaving good room for the men on the wall to tread and ram.

The through-pins by which the shuttering rests upon the base wall or on a completed course of Pise, must be easily withdrawn without injury to the wall.

The shuttering must be easily disengaged and removed from the wall, one side at a time.

The special corner-piece must have some means of rigid attachment to the ordinary shutters on the two meeting walls.

There must be some means of blocking off the shuttering at any desired point, for the forming of door or window openings at any level.

The whole apparatus must be as simple and as fool-proof as possible, and built to stand rough usage and exposure to the weather.

III

The author has attempted to construct a plant embodying these essentials, and the working drawing and photographs shown will give the reader a tolerable idea of his "Mark V" model.

The thing has, at the moment of writing, only been experimentally tested in one of the London parks. These trials were, however, sufficiently satisfactory to encourage a belief that the new plant will prove a very considerable improvement on the old. It has now been despatched to a site in Surrey, there to undergo the searching and very practical test of being used for the building of a small-holder's house and homestead.

IV

To the second edition of this book a postscript must be added. Since the last paragraph was written, the small-holder's house has come into actual being at Newlands Corner, near Guildford, and has attracted a good deal of attention from the Press, both at home and abroad. It has been inspected by mult.i.tudes of people, including a great number of Colonials and prospective Colonists, and by many distinguished persons directly or indirectly concerned with the problems of housing.

That "Good wine needs no bush" may be a true saying, but a novel system of building a.s.suredly needs demonstration, however great its merits. The success of the experiment at Newlands is admitted by all who have made the pilgrimage thither. Often would critics come to scoff and remain to pray. Specially prized amongst the converts is a foreman-bricklayer once openly scornful in his unbelief. Of enthusiasm, perhaps, there has been almost over much; and it has been difficult to restrain the zeal of would-be pise-builders until the coming of spring, and the return of such weather conditions as the craft might reasonably demand.

[Ill.u.s.tration: +A Simple Mould for Pise Blocks.+]

[Ill.u.s.tration: +Block-Moulds, Large and Small. The Latter shown opened out.+]

[Ill.u.s.tration: +Sketch of a Pise House in Course of Erection.+ With acknowledgements to _The Sphere_.]

For pise is a "dry-earth" method of building, and, as at present practised, that means it is a summer job, so far, at any rate, as England is concerned.

The author is the last person to claim that pise-building may be successfully and economically carried out in all places, and at all seasons. He merely suggests that in a great many parts of the United Kingdom, pise offers possibilities of cheap yet permanent building that are very well worth exploitation.

A wide and thorough trial of the method now seems a.s.sured under a variety of conditions in a sufficient variety of places. Pise is to be given its chance in Housing Schemes, in Government building demonstrations, on Ducal estates, and by ordinary private citizens in need of houses--by the rich (old and new), and by the poor.

[Headnote: If Reason Rule]

If reason rule, pise will make good and all will be well.

If pise-building is attempted where the conditions are unsuitable and in defiance of its physical limitations, the misguided enthusiasts responsible must blame only themselves. But it is not self-reproach alone that they will have to suffer, for the author and all true friends of pise will view their troubles with as much anger as sorrow.

Nothing could be so well calculated to bring discredit on a new movement as the failures of a few enthusiastic incompetents.

THE FIRST DEMONSTRATION PISe DE TERRE HOUSE AT NEWLANDS CORNER, NEAR GUILDFORD

_With acknowledgments to the "Spectator"_

_Description._--The house has six rooms arranged on one floor, of areas and cubical contents as laid down in their higher "schedules of accommodation" by the Ministry of Health and the Board of Agriculture.

The plan is an adaptation of the first type ill.u.s.trated in the Board's new manual "designed for the guidance of County Councils and their architects" in the matter of buildings for small-holdings.

The walls are of 18-in. solid pise-work, the roof of red Bridgewater tiles, and the chimney b.r.e.a.s.t.s and stacks of brickwork.