GRIDS. Windows Windows have a recent origin; the first dwellings of human beings, like caves and piles, had only an entry. With the passing time there.

GRIDS

Windows

• Windows have a recent origin; the first dwellings of human beings, like caves and piles, had only an entry. With the passing time there was the need for an openness for the air flowing and for light, so the people made a hole in the roof of their dwellings in order to have a constant change of air and ,contemporarily, to protect themselves from climate ( both rigid or too hot) and eventually intruders.

• To us it seems a distant history, but there, nowadays too, people, who are not to build windows even if they have constructive habits.

• In the ages windows were adapted and to climatic conditions and to different requirements according to the building functions and the architectural styles.

• These requirements gave birth to the frame structures, including windows, doors and screens and all these structures are important not only for their specific functions, but also to determine its architectural style and let us know the age they pertain to.

For our temperate climate the windows are never accompanied by other ventilation opening since winter is not too rigid and the hot season is not so hot.

• there is , in some cases, the necessity to protect us from the sunlight and this created the starting point for formal invention: areas full of windows matching openings for ventilation and shielding in fixed or movable slats of wood, aluminium or other materials, or grid openings in the wall for decoration and finishing of outside surfaces. These are called grids.

• The grid arrangement is, usually, used for fences or railings, or to soak up the rooms in which you want the air to circulate.

• The thinness of the grid walls makes them particularly sensible to a structure deformation , so that the mortar which link/ connect the bricks, therefore, must be rather elastic like the mortars which are not too rich of concrete or the mortar made only of lime. It should always be worked with wet bricks, because, since mortar has a volume smaller than brick, there is a high risk of burning, reducing, by this way, its strength. It is important too that the layer works with a great precision and cleanness, as irregularities may be very visible and grates difficult to be cleaned.

• The gratings are typical of “tolls” and “dairy buildings”, buildings which are very common in plains or on hills. Among the “paleoindustrial” architecture they have their own space, since they define a “type” born from a productive process, the one of the cheese (in particular of the Parmesan), that takes its shape in rural buildings between the seventieth and the early twentieth century.

• Making cheese follows precise rules which define the initial shape of the “toll”: a quadrangular plan with a pavilion roof. Made of bricks, the “toll” makes use of their qualities and induces the production of special pieces which can be found also in barns and are used for hay drying in winter and the evacuation of gases that may causes fires.

• The “tolls”, that at a casual glance can look like a curious peasant architectures, are the forerunners of the modern “infill” of the latest generation and, maybe, even richer of functions.

• In this case, the grids allow the control of lighting aimed at the maintaining of a constant half-light within the area of cheese production and allow the penetration of direct sunlight only in the early morning and just before the sunset. The gratings are also used for the air circulation inside the structure and to prevent, at the same time, the entry of insects which may induce a proliferation of bacteria and damage seriously the Parmesan.

There are many types of gratings:

Grilled diamond: with this arrangement the horizontal pitch following its normal texture walls, while the vertical will be inaccurate, unless the bricks are not inclined to cut to size or its mortar joints, triangular, not be lightly

overstaffed.

Courses staggered brick integers: the strength decreases with increasing width of the wall voids. Typically the bricks overlap by one quarter, leaving a gap of a head. Where the masonry barbecue joins with the wall normal, you

can leave large gaps in the grid a quarter of a brick or you will cut a quarter of alternate rows of brick perimeter walls.

Grilled list with bricks and knives orthogonal: you start placing two bricks vertically by a small amount of mortar and proceed by connecting them with a brick of pot. Third brick is laid with a knife before connecting to another

brick flat and so on, constantly checking alignment and verticality.

Bias: the bricks should be placed at an angle with one edge aligned with the front of the opposite wall with the back face .

Grilled alternate courses: in the most common alternate courses of bricks and a whole course of half brick. In this way retains the texture of normal provision for coating walls with all the pieces arranged for listing and is

therefore easy to insert this grid into the wall drawing.

Report by Alice Colombini

Accordion

Protrudin

g

Grilled cross

Gratings for plots

BARNS

BARNS