Terracotta Flat Arch Floor

Roof arches on account of the pitch of the beams have to be furred down to give a level ceiling.

Terracotta flat arch floor.

The material is commonly used in floor arches fireproofing partition walls and furring. This brittle quality makes them unsuitable for buildings in areas where there is the potential for a seismic event. Save ceramica sant agostino terre nuove sand porcelain stoneware wall floor tiles with terracotta effect. Floor tiles of either.

In north america the material has largely been replaced by concrete masonry units. Each unit is generally made of clay or terra cotta with hollow cavities or cells inside it. These blocks are fragile as compared to other masonry building units. It is however quite as common even where terra cotta floor and roof arches are used to form the furred down ceilings of small channels or angles covered with some form of wire lath.

Architectural terra cotta evolved with the stylistic changes in america in the 1930s. Traditional ornamental styles gave way to more geometric shapes rather than symbolic motifs. The side method arch where the blocks are laid with the webs parallel to the beams fig. Terra cotta blocks may be used for this purpose as shown in fig.

I chiostri ambra porcelain stoneware wall floor tiles with terracotta effect. By the 1930s they seem to have replaced terra cotta arch construction and many other proprietary systems. Terra cotta flat arch floor systems were commonly used during the early twentieth century when the skeletal steel frame emerged as the dominant structural form for building construction. Floor arches between steel beams could also be constructed using skew back terra cotta blocks.

Side construction with terra cotta voids perpendiculartothevaultspan andthenewerendcon struction with voids parallel to the span. A construction of this sort is shown in fig. Flat terra cotta panels with contrasting graphic designs allowed a traditional material to compete with then new materials such as structural glass and porcelain enamel. The high load capacity excellent fire proofing properties light weight and ease of construction rolling out a wire mesh versus laying out reinforcing bars made these floor systems the primary choice for many engineers and builders.

This system s popularity stemmed from a significant weight savings compared to brick or concrete arched floor systems while still providing the benefits of fireproofing. It continues to be used in europe to build fire resistant walls and partitions. Both generic and proprietary flat terra cotta tile arches were tested in new york because neither met the geometric requirements for exemption these sys tems consisted of precast terra cotta blocks with thin webs arranged as flat arch voissoirs there were two major types.