Content area
Full Text
James Douglas: Department of Building Engineering & Surveying, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK
Overview
This paper on ground floor constructions is in two parts. Part 1 traces the origins and uses of ground floor constructions in British dwellings. Part 2, to be published in a future edition of this journal, will also consider suspended ground floors and focus on the technical aspects of ground floor constructions.
Background
Even a cursory survey of the literature indicates that the development of ground floor construction is a neglected area in current textbooks on the technology of buildings in Britain. The relevant texts tend to take for granted the technical and statutory requirements of such floors. Consequently, the origins and evolution of ground floors are not fully explored. This is because construction technology books are primarily concerned with current practice rather than obsolete construction.
Moreover, even in texts dealing with traditional construction, relatively little consideration is given to ground floors (Addy, 1933; Barley, 1971, 1972; Brown, 1986; Bruntskill, 1992, 1994, 1997; Clifton-Taylor, 1972). The analyses and sketches tend to concentrate on the main external elements of buildings - roofs and walls.
Wright (1991) for instance gives a useful insight into traditional forms of building techniques. However, floor constructions are not considered at all in her book except for a short passage about floor finishes.
Still, some studies on the history of building construction and conservation offer slightly more information on the development of ground floors. For example, Innocent (1916) devotes a whole chapter to floors and gives a comprehensive description of the types and forms used in pre- and post-medieval buildings. Like Wood (1965), Braun (1971), Balcolme (1985), Bowyer (1983) and Watt and Swallow (1996), however, neither sketches nor detailed accounts of the evolution of ground floors are given.
The literature suggests that up to the late Middle Ages (i.e. c.1200-1500) solid floors were the most common type of ground floor construction in houses (Watt and Swallow, 1996). Various writers (Braun, 1971; Cunnington, 1984) have indicated that board-and-joist floors at ground level were rare in those days. On the other hand, Innocent (1916) found that timber was sometimes used in the ground floors of Roman and Saxon houses in Britain. He did not, however, elaborate on the form of construction...