Quote:
Originally Posted by Justin7
Sorry for getting pedantic, but I would call this "block" rather than "brick." These concrete blocks still have a non-load-bearing brick facade. What I meant, and should have been clearer about, is that I'd be shocked to see a new building where the brick (or cut stone, or whatever) facade is also what is holding up the building. It's hard to imagine us going back to that.
I agree that I'd rather live in something built of concrete than of sticks, though, and I'm thankful we seem to have at least gone back to hand-laid brick facades in many smaller builds because I hate most "brick" panels.
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To get even
more pedantic, the older brick buildings that you're referring to work in much the same way! The frontmost course of bricks on the street-fronting facade of any rowhome in Philadelphia bears little to no weight other than self-weight (along with any adornment). Two or three courses of brick
behind the front facade are what are doing the actual bearing of weight.
The same goes for cut stone. On
this pair of twins, the serpentine stone is doing virtually no structural work. Serpentine stone, Wissahickon Schist, and other decorative stones are rarely bearing weight, because they 🞵🞵🞵🞵 at doing it!
To your point, the cinder/cement/composite blocks used in the buildings I linked are likely of superior quality to the bricks of old. The problem is,
construction like that is still effectively illegal in Philadelphia. Simply legalizing it would go so far towards "faux-historical" buildings looking less "faux".
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