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Why Can't You Have a Skyscraper Made of Bricks?

Ryan002

Yeah, what the question says. I'm curious. What's wrong with good old bricks? I have never seen a skyscraper made of bricks before. 

Well, I've seen *some* parts of skyscrapers that have bricks, but that's it. 

 
Jul 28, 11 5:30 am
Rusty!

10 million bricks motherfucker!

Jul 28, 11 5:44 am  · 
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Ryan002

I had no idea that was entirely made of bricks. 0_0

Jul 28, 11 5:51 am  · 
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Rusty!

Oh you cheeky bastard. I can't think of any ocupiable structure thats "entirely" made of bricks.

Jul 28, 11 6:02 am  · 
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curtkram

http://www.monadnockbuilding.com/history.htm

Jul 28, 11 7:47 am  · 
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won and done williams

Ryan002's report card:

Architecture History: A+

Structures: F-

Jul 28, 11 8:20 am  · 
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Beepbeep

Un-Reinforced Masonry / (Brick alone) would not resist enough lateral forces for one, and the URM would have to be so thick at the base to support the load it would be extremely inefficient, the building footprint would would loose to much usable sq ft.

Jul 28, 11 9:31 am  · 
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lletdownl

yeah kurt already linked to it... but the monadnock is a perfect example.. 

its the tallest load bearing masonry commercial building ever constructed (so says wikipedia)...  the exterior walls at the base are 6' deep, and its only 200' tall

Jul 28, 11 10:22 am  · 
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Actually it isn't made ENTIRELY of brick. That skyscraper is masonry encase steel frame structures.

First, you can't build a skyscraper this tall with only bricks and the walls be only 5-ft thick. Buildings like this faces many structural dynamic situations. You do realize that wind often changes opposite directions with elevations At the same time, the structure would be an open exposure at higher wind speeds at elevations of 500-1000+ feet up than at say 30-ft.

Jetstreams can get awfully low altitude. Commonly as low as 500-ft. This means the skyscraper would be faced with winds upto 300-400 mph in the upper half of the building while at 30-ft. from ground is only facing 10-30 mph wind. Seriously, iy is an engineering matter that almost all architects then understood firmly but today's architects are sketchy about it.

At those heights, the walls would have to be about 150- ft. thick for unreinforced and reinforced only by dowel rods that don't really have the same reinforcement like a rebar system in reinforced concrete or all out H-section steel columns and beams that are designed to deal with the tensile strain while the masonry does two things: fire-resistance and essentially mass resistance dampening do to the mass of the brick would dampen the sway effects that would otherwise be present in ordinary steel frame without the brick. Fundamentals of Newtons law regarding mass.

 

Jul 28, 11 11:45 am  · 
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150-ft. thick (is at ground)  is assuming a wall-height to thickness ratio of about 10:1

URM walls are generally between 30:1 and 10:1.

In such structure, one could taper the wall thickness as one goes up.

Minimum for tapering and considerations, the wall at the top floors would not be thinner thinner than 50-ft. thick. There would be lots of dynamics but also the ability to resist wind forces and if it was to be entirely URM than we would also need to use arch structuring and some strong column structuring inside that would be broadening at the base and create static stability.

Another problem lies at the base. Soil bearing presssure. How will it hold up to that much weight.

 

 

Jul 28, 11 11:52 am  · 
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curtkram

I think the Monadnock Building was built in 2 segments.  The first was entirely load bearing masonry, the second came later and included steel support.  The brick does taper as it goes up.

 

Jul 28, 11 12:22 pm  · 
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You don't have to taper the masonry but often it does to reduce mass weight a little bit as you don't need as thick of walls higher up on the building as you would on the bottom.

 

Jul 28, 11 1:20 pm  · 
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i was so fortunate to spend two weeks in it when it was empty except the ground floor shops in 1980.  we were group of traveling sci arc students and one of us being from chicago knew the building management co.. bricks do taper. on the interior, monadnock building has steel support exposed around its circulation core.

Jul 28, 11 1:33 pm  · 
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Cathedral of Our Lady of Strasbourg (466ft)... What? Although it's technically cut stone, it pretty much is 100% masonry.

Can also throw on the Ulm Minster (530ft), Chamberlin clocktower (325 ft) and the Torre del Mangia (~300ft).

Jul 28, 11 1:56 pm  · 
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holz.box

the top of the tor of the ulm muenster is awesome, my wife dragged me up, even though i have an insane fear of heights.

Jul 28, 11 2:48 pm  · 
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jplourde

In addition to the above comments regarding structural capacities, the labor involved in making hand laid in situ brick facades at that scale is economically prohibitive.  I'd imagine one would have to prefabricate panels with bricks inlaid in the shop, but then if you're doing pre-fab panels why would you use brick as opposed to sheet metal or some other readily available factory made material? 

Jul 28, 11 5:01 pm  · 
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Ryan002

Thanks guys. I'm always appreciative of how much I can learn here!

A bit embarrassing but...I always thought brick wasn't "all that heavy". 

(P.S. This has totally ruined the story of the three little pigs)

Jul 29, 11 12:20 am  · 
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1 brick isn't heavy but think of the entire volume of brick. Measure the weight of one brick and that is the weight of the brick for the cubic area of the brick. Now multiply that by the cublic volume of a wall that is 1500 ft high x _________ ft. thick x 300 ft. and multiply that by 4. Assuming a 300 x 300 ft. footprint. A classic square.

Walls can be easily heavy.

Soil bearing pressure is only so much.

 

Jul 29, 11 12:53 am  · 
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Brick also has a compressive strength of around 1500psi to 5000psi with 2500psi being quite common.

While limestone has a minimum compressive strength of around 4000psi. Sandstone is 10000psi. Granite is 20000 psi. Your other carbonates like calcite, marble and travertine are around 7500 psi.

This explains how many of the structures I listed above got to such great heights while still having functional spaces. Although this ignores that many of these buildings are towers or spires, they still have a fair amount of space at the highest points.

In comparison, the Torre del Mangia's tower shaft (all brick construction) is approximately 3 meters thick but it is also topped with a marble cap. Cathedral of Our Lady of Strasbourg's walls, although supported on the exterior by buttresses, are on average a meter or less thick. It should also be pointed out that Cathedral of Our Lady of Strasbourg is made out of sandstone rather than limestone.

Jul 29, 11 1:35 am  · 
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Ryan002

Eh? I don't understand that. How does brick having a lower compressive strength ultimately translate to having more functional space?

*Scratch head*

Jul 29, 11 2:50 am  · 
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The majority of the structures I listed above, other than Torre del Mangia, are built using stone masonry. The comparison I made between Torre del Mangia and Our Lady of Strasbourg was that even though Our Lady of Strasbourg is 166 feet taller, its walls are considerably thinner.

Gothic architecture and the numerous "skyscraper high" towers it spawned would be more or less impossible using brick alone for many of the same reasons as dealing with circulation and usable space.

Even though stone is much heavier than brick, the fact that you can use less of it translates to thinner walls with equal weight.

Jul 29, 11 3:43 am  · 
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Ryan002

And my education grows. Thanks James :)

Jul 29, 11 3:53 am  · 
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On the fence

wow.

Amazingly enough the professors apparently did not go over this for some on this site.

Jul 29, 11 3:42 pm  · 
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Rusty!

on the fence, no some of us did no go to New Jersey Polytechnic Vocational Institute and surplus store :p

Jul 29, 11 4:21 pm  · 
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Some of us have just read Architectural Graphic Standards front to back a few times.

Jul 29, 11 5:27 pm  · 
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arthurliu82

Pyramids

Jul 29, 11 6:01 pm  · 
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Guys, there are various reasons and techniques to allow for wall heights to go up without instantly getting thicker. To mitigate a runaway thickness may involve many tactic from arched or solid shear walls perpendicular to the exterior wall that is as deep as the floor to floor height and the floors serve as a lateral bracing diaphragm. In addition to that, the walls incorporate reinforcement.

However, as you go taller, the thicker the walls at the base needs to be to take the carrying load of all the weight above but also spread the load distribution. Otherwise, your building begins to sink into the ground and your planned ground floor can end up being quite well under surface grade.

Not a nice scenario to have.

The reinforcment is necessary for structural continuity. To build a skscraper in masonry, then brick and stone and rebar rods / dowels rods would be needed and significant use of arch construction like the Romans and progressive thickening of the walls for spreading distribution of load, lowering center of gravity and creation of static stability.

It would be a rather challenging proposition.

 

Jul 29, 11 9:46 pm  · 
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Hans Kollhoff designed skyscraper in Berlin.  Maybe not a true "brick" skyscraper because the base appears to be stone but definitely a lot of brick!

 

Via skyscrapercity.com, yo!

Dec 22, 11 8:51 am  · 
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lletdownl

the buildings across the street from there are way nicer... 

Dec 22, 11 9:29 am  · 
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Brick, and masonry in general will not crush.  The fear is lateral forces, or differential movement putting upper loadings out of path with bearing elements.

Dec 22, 11 9:59 pm  · 
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