NOTICE: Please note that The Town Paper is no longer in business. This website is maintained as a historical archive. |
THE
TOWN PAPER VOL. 4, NO. 4 -- WINTER 2002 |
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Get Your House Right: Lintels Openings in masonry walls may be spanned in two manners:
lintels or arches. Lintels, depending on the material, are most economically
used for shorter spans. Arches, because they are in compression and not
subject to bending or shear stresses, can span further. The visual expectation
for the size of the lintel is based on what was traditionally possible in
masonry construction, without hidden structure.
Figure 1.
Figure 2.
Figure 3.
Marianne Cusato and Richard Sammons are architects with Fairfax & Sammons Architects in New York. They are co-authoring "Get Your House Right, A Builders Guide to Avoiding Common Mistakes in Traditional Architecture" with Léon Krier, which will include a compilation of drawings addressing many of the typical mistakes made when designing, detailing and building traditional architecture.
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