Virginia Folk Housing, Part 2 of an update

 

The Moore House* photographed by Henry Glassie, built before 1750.

 

This house has 2 rooms up and down, 2 fire places, 2 chimneys, and a shed on each end. The main block  is double the size of the house I wrote about in Part1: https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2022/11/virginia-folk-housing-update.html

The geometry begins as it did in Part 1, using the width as the circle's  radius.   

 

Here is the floor plan: 2 rooms with fireplaces, and sheds on both ends.

The daisy wheel progression begins with a length A-B which becomes the radius of a circle here lettered C-A.

The daisy wheel for this house begins with the left wall of the main house.

That wall's width  is the radius, 1-6. A is the center of the circle. The daisy wheel lays out the other 4 points, 2, 3, 4, 5.  

 Lines 1-3 and  6-4 are the sides of the house. 2-5, the diameter of the circle, lays out the interior wall.

 

Lines 1-5 and 2-4 can extend forever. Where is the right end wall of the house located? Where is C? 

It's at the end of the circle, but that's only a point, not a line. 2 points are necessary to draw a line to mark the right end of his foundation and the floor of the house.

If the carpenter extends his arcs he can quickly find the missing points. 

Extend the arc centered at 3 (2-A-4) to B.  The arc centered at 4 (5-A-3) crosses the earlier arc at B.   He has 2 points: A and B, And can draw line A-B. 

Now C is fixed at the intersection of A-B. C is the center of a new arc, (7-A-8). The extended arc from 5 (6-A) crosses at 7. The arc 2 (1-A) crosses at 8. 7-C-8 locates the right wall.

C also locates the center of the fireplace and the chimney. 

The daisy wheel is often dismissed as a design tool. It is flexible, quickly drawn, and accurate. 

The geometry comes from the first length - the width chosen by the owner and builder for this house. That width, and the house, could be bigger or smaller to suit the owner's needs and budget, as well as to the lumber available for joists and rafters. 

Once the carpenter decides on a width he uses one compass setting, one radius, for the whole layout. Every point is checked. As the lines are marked, the diagonals can prove the layout to be  true.

If he drew a layout at a smaller scale, he could easily step off to full-sized construction dimensions with his compass. He could also draw the layout on the ground, stake the points and mark the wall locations with twine just as framers and masons do today. 

Consider how the plan would be laid out if the circle is not used. Use a 10' pole - a common tool of the time.  Each corner would need to be figured independently;  every dimension stepped off separately, and with what accuracy? 

The daisy wheel locates all angles and lengths quickly. It has built-in checks from the beginning and as the layout progresses: if the circle doesn't close, the 6 points will be uneven, the arcs won't cross, the diagonals will not match. The layout will not be accurate.

 Both wings are 3/4/5 rectangles. See the left shed. The floor plans of wings were usually 3/4/5 rectangles so that they would sit square to the existing house. All the joists would then be the same length; as would be the rafters.  

 

 

My earlier complex geometry 'works'; the lines are there. But they don't give the basic information the builder needs: the dimensions of the foundation, the floor plan, the size of the house.

 

*The Moore House, Fig. 31, Type 5, p, 77; the photograph: p.76. 

Henry Glassie, Folk Housing in Middle Virginia, U Tennessee Press, 1975; plans, drawings and photographs by Henry Glassie.

Virginia Folk Housing, Part 1, an update

The house recorded by Henry Glassie in Folk Housing in Middle Virginia * were basic shelter for people with few resources. They may have been the first house for someone homesteading, built by a sharecropper or by someone enslaved.   

This is Fig. 35, The Parrish House, a "small mid-eighteenth-century house of sawed logs", p. 84 in Glassie's book.*

 

The geometric diagrams I drew in May 2014,** were accurate but much too complex for these houses. More importantly they didn't begin as a carpenter would: with the size of the foundation and the floor plan.

 

 A carpenter's first question is, " Why?" Then he asks, "How big? How long? How wide?" 

The red line across the bottom of the floor plan is 'how long', about 21 ft. That distance can be the beginning of the layout, the first Line that determines all the others.

 

That Line can be the radius for a circle:

The arcs of the Line A-B cross at C. That's the center of the circle for the layout of this house.

In the diagrams below: 1) B-C is the radius of the circle. 2) Beginning with B on the circumference  the arcs of the daisy wheel are added. The 6 even spaced points around the circle A, B, D, E, F, G  are located.

 

 

 

 

Connect the Lines. A-F and B-E are perpendicular to A-B. G-D is the diameter. They mark the width and length of the rectangle for the house plan.  If there is a question about accuracy, diagonals can be used to true the shape.

 

 

Here is the plan within its circle, the circle that begins with the carpenter's choice of width, his 'module'.

 

 

The masonry block for the 2 chimneys is square, centered, and 1/3 of the width the house. Glassie's photograph shows a shed sheltering that fireplace.

 

*Henry Glassie, Folk Housing in Middle Virginia, U Tennessee Press, 1975. The book includes more information, drawings, and a photograph of the house. It no longer exists.

** The original post is here:  https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2014/04/18th-c-virginian-folk-houses.html. Its companion, here: https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2014/05/18th-c-virginian-folk-houses-part-2.html

I considered deleting the 2 posts, but their existence brought a comment and question which prompted this update.

Also:

As I read them I realize how much I have learned about geometry since 2014. I saw it and tried to explain it, just as Henry Glassie did in his Rules, Chapter IV, The Architectural Competence.

When I began to study Practical Geometry there were no books, no one for discussions or critiques. I was teaching myself, reading early pattern books line by line. Laurie Smith was the only person I knew who saw geometry as I did, and he was in the UK. Later that year he came to the States; I took a workshop with him. I was able to work with him until his death last year.  

I don't want this information to be lost again. I want others to find it, question it, reject and/or improve upon my analysis, their own analysis, expand our understanding.