Finishing a masonry closet

I've just finished a closet in a masonry building I'm making. A closet allows me to try certain steps, before committing such steps to the entire building.  

How will the drywall work? Test it in the closet.

How will the paint look? Try the closet.  

It's a pretty cool closet. A right triangle floor, with a half-dome ceiling.

Snow covered masonry buildings

 I awoke to a beautiful 15 inches of fresh powder.  I took a few pictures of these masonry buildings covered in snow.  The domes, arches, catenary forms: all seem to create interesting topological snow surfaces.   

Sometimes people will ask about how appropriate a masonry roof is for big snow loads?  They only get stronger with more weight, and the snow also helps insulate even more.  These buildings can handle extreme snow loads.

View out my bedroom window.

Floor, walls and bond beam

 This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1660075 ("Topological interlocking manufactured concrete block").  Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

The previous post showed how we excavated, poured the footer and built the stem wall.  Following this, the vertical walls were assembled and the floor was installed. The floors are made to accommodate a radiant heating system. First a rigid foam is laid down, on the level compacted ground floor; then "Pex" TM pipe was installed.  

Concrete was then poured on top of the foam and pex, and screeded level, then the floor surface was floated. 

The walls were built up to header height, then a temporary scaffolding was built for roof assembly.  All exterior doorways had a masonry arch built over them, using wooden forms. The arches are fast and easy to assemble, they are also inexpensive.

After all the vertical walls were assembled, forms were built at the top of these walls; rebar was placed in this cavity as per the PE specification, and the form was poured with concrete to create a reinforced bond beam. 

With the bond beam made, roof construction was about to begin.  That's what I'll describe and show next..

Excavating and making a foundation for a test building

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1660075 ("Topological interlocking manufactured concrete block").  Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

My company was awarded a Phase II funded project by the National Science Foundation.  The main objective of this work was to demonstrate our innovative masonry systems, and to obtain a positive evaluation report from the International Code Council- Evaluation Services. In order to achieve this, it was strongly suggested by ICC-ES that we work with a Registered Design Professional architect and a licensed Professional Engineer to design and build a test or sample building for the purposes of evaluation.

We began with the building design, in consultation with Robert Ferry, RDP, AIA and Cheng-Ning Jong, PE. The basic approach was to keep the entire structure under compression, being squeezed together, which is how masonry is strongest.  We incorporated several different types of arches, domes and half-domes, configured with flying buttresses.

Work began with excavation for the footer.  This work was done room by room, in sequence, simply so we had a place to put all the excavated dirt while we worked.

The footer had its reinforcement rebar detailed by the PE. All footer sections used formwork to establish dimensions. Rebar laid flat, horizontally, was tied to the vertical rebar which would go up into the walls.  This was done using ninety-degree elbows of rebar. All rebar was “Gatorbar” basalt-based Fiber Reinforced Polymer rebar, which is lightweight, stronger than steel in tension, and never rusts.  This rebar also bends easily to provide curves for arched roofs.

Once the footer was poured, stem walls were built to make the foundation come up to grade, where the vertical walls began, above grade.

After the stem walls were built, the floor was filled back in with the excavated earth and compacted to a solid mass.

My next blog entry will talk about the next steps in construction.

Product Listing by the International Code Council- Evaluation Services

 Today (December 2nd 2020) my company Spherical Block LLC received a Product Listing from the International Code Council-Evaluation Services (ICC-ES).  This puts my company's technology in accordance with the International Building Code (IBC) which is written by ICC.  This was a long, tedious, difficult and expensive process, but it's necessary for any new construction technology. 

So hooray!  It's a big step that I am glad to have accomplished and behind me.

Here are two pages from the listing itself: 

So there it is, another important step in commercialization of an idea completed. ICC-ES Product Listing.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1660075 ("Topological interlocking manufactured concrete block").  Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

How it all began

I have been working on using manufactured concrete block to make roofs, including domes, arches, spheres, flying buttresses and more, for around 27 years now.  Today I'm taking a look back at how this all began.  I am prompted to do this by some old photographs which a friend (Paul Sofinski) recently shared on facebook from many years ago, when I was studying ceramic engineering and ceramic art at Alfred University's New York State College of Ceramics.

As a child I was fortunate to live in Europe, where my father was on sabbatical as a professor of European history.  My siblings and I were dragged into many of the great cathedrals of Europe, where I would stare in awe at these wonders of masonry.  A seed had been planted in my young mind.

I began doing pottery in high school.  I went to Guilderland Central High School in Guilderland, New York.  I was fortunate enough to have Mr. Paul Krauss as a ceramic art teacher.  Under his tutelage I began working on the potter's wheel and spent a few years after high school making and selling my work. I attended the University at Albany in the early 1980's, where I studied geology and in my spare time made and sold pottery at the university's campus center.

Some years later I decided to attend Alfred University.  I initially went there to study ceramic engineering, but once I saw their art facilities, I decided to pursue art also.  I was looking for a more challenging aspect of art to investigate, so my work became large in scale.

Here are some pictures of me and this early student work.  I would use a forklift to move these pots around, to get them in and out of the kiln, etc.

This became interesting from an engineering perspective.  These pots at first were anthropomorphic, being human in scale and proportion; having a foot, a shoulder, a neck, and so on.  This quickly transformed into their becoming architectural, and soon I was contemplating the notion of a ceramic house.  I combined my ceramic art and ceramic engineering studies at Alfred, and obtained a custom degree in Masonry Science.

I researched ceramic houses, and investigated the work of Nader Khalili, Paolo Soleri, Bucky Fuller, and others.  Nobody was doing what I was thinking about.  My approach seemed obvious, self-evident and simple.  I wanted to use common concrete block technology (usually called a "cinder block") to make roofs, in the form of arches and domes. I sought to combine the high efficiency and very low cost of concrete block automated production with the high compressive strength and design flexibility which symmetry and geometry make possible. I was shocked to learn that this had never been really attempted.  It seemed like an interesting and unique opportunity, so I pursued it. 

It takes a naive young person to try something new!  I was that sort (still am, to a degree).  I encountered the extremely conservative construction industry, and the even more conservative practice of masonry.  Over the years that followed, I have worked and produced designs, buildings, molds, blocks, patents, and done my best to try and demonstrate my ideas within my limited economic means (it is expensive to try and change a global industry by one's self).  My work has gained some recognition and has garnered interest nationally and globally.  Currently I am completing my third funded award from the National Science Foundation, wherein I am seeking to gain a positive evaluation report from the International Code Council - Evaluation Services.  This will allow this technology to be sold as a product globally. It all began with an art student making big pots.  Now cut your hair and get a real job!