Odd stone constuction of hut in HPmovie

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--->Paul

 

Try the HP Lexicon- It's one of the best fansites for good detailed information. ^_^ Failing that, I bet someone on HP4GU (Harry Potter 4 Grownups- a group of adult fans of HP who wanted to discuss the books in DETAIL) has info and I'll ask if you like. ^_^

Cait

 

Well first and fore most.. yes it is a movie prop of foam and wood (or similar stuff) They are doing some amazing props these days. As and example take a look at the golden hall of the Rohirrim in LoTR. A wonderful full sized "timber frame" buiding that was constructed over several weeks then completely removed after filming ended. Like this one however it was an amalgam of different types of buildings that were joined together to get look they were after but creating someting that never actually was.

This structure you are talking about (img link can be found here ) is a combination as well, one that I doubt would actually work as demonstrated by the prop piece. It looks to take elements from an Italian trulli house (conical dry stacked stone buildings) and Northern European graneries as shown here...



You will notice the similar stone pillions that support the main timber frame and brick infill structure. The purpose of these is simple to raise the building off the ground, away from rodents. The mushroom shape of the supports is to prevent the rodents from just climbing up the supports into the granary. I have never seen this sort of foundation done with stonework however. My suspicion is that it's just too heavy to pull off. Perhaps if arches were built into the design (thus ruining the look you like) but a straight lintel is going to be taking a LOT of weight.

Not sure I've said much of value there but for what it's worth... there it is.

Oh, and btw, just for the record, I HATE Harry Potter (but it is a nice prop)

J

 

Well then you would probably really like the Italian trulli houses. They are along the lines of what you are talking about.



It is hard to find pictures of them alone as they are often connected to others in a village. Here is a page with several pictures of them. They are dry stack stone construction. The reason behind it is (a very Italian one) that they could be quickly dismantled for when the tax man came. They would completely dismantle their homes into a pile of stones and get valued on what raw land. Once the tax man left they stacked them all back up again. Similar behavior still takes place in Italy now. The villa I lived in in Italy had a set of stairs on the roof patio going up to no where. There was also three pieces of rebar coming out one of the main supports on the front. The reason being is that because the building was "unfinished" it fell into a different tax bracket. It of course would never in fact be "finished".

Here is a page with some other trulli pics on it.

http://www.pbase.com/bauer/trulli

Enjoy

J

 

Thatch, is the brick work between the timbers called "noggin"?

I would love to build a house in this style. That's probably never going to happen, but I do plan to build a pigeon cote or loft like this once we have our retirement place. I keep trying to find "how to" info on it but not much luck so far.

Would also like to learn pargetting.

P.L.

 

It is. Though I don't hear the term used much over here, for what reason I don't know. Personally I'm a wattle and daub man myself.

As for pargetting, I work in a village called Clare. The "Clare Ancient House Museum" is there and has some wonderful pargetting on it. I've done a bit on a cob house we restored and it really isn't too difficult so long as you've got a good mature lime putty to work with.

Here are a couple pics of the Clare house (both for you and for those who'e eyebrows raised when they read that word)

pic 1

pic 2

J

 

You are right on how they expand them. Alberabello (the village with the largest number of these buildings) was just up the road from where I lived in Italy. I have been in many of these buildings. On top of being very attractive buildings they handle the heat of Southern Italy really well. The combination of the conical roof and the stone walls they stayed very cool during the summer months.

There is a book called Stone Shelters that has a chapter (about 50 pages) on the trulli houses of Alberabello. If you are really interested in the topic it might not be a bad book to get a copy of.


J

 

BTW here is a good info site on trullo.


http://www.trulli.com/curiosities.html

J

 

Sure...

It's Stone Shelters by Allen Edward

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0262510103/104-4171184-7241508?v=glance

J

 

Hagrid's hut
http://yacht.zamok.net/DV/Potter/hag_hut.jpg

http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/39239000/jpg/_39239617_potter300.jpg

 

Neat building technique!

HJ,
Might look at this link:
http://www.arkeologi.uu.se/aks/projects/barbro2/livingtradition.htm
"An ethnographical research of the Apulian trullo building in Southern Italy was accomplished primarily made to support certain hypotheses regarding the technical part of the construction of Mycenaean dry masonry domes, i.e. building techniques, statics and structural behaviour of the building during construction. The Apulian trullo is an archaic reminiscence of a very old building tradition which still operates. Trulli in the traditional building technique and style are not built anymore - the last trulli were built around fifty years ago - but some of the masters are still alive and the knowledge has not disappeared." "The members of the Lisi family of Locorotondo, master builders for at least five generations, are the main source of information for this investigation."

Thatch,
The never finished building technique of lowering taxes is still well and in current use in Mexico.

 

Meant to say thanks for the corbelling link. There is a small chance that we could be going to Spain next (6 weeks away from moving out of the UK and I still don't know what continent I'm going to be living on.... ) if that is the case I'll have to make sure and visit these bombos structures. I've been doing research for sometime now on vernacular building techniques for modern application. The simularity of these buildings with the trulli would really flesh out any chapter on dry stone work.

Thanks,

J

 

Ah, one more thing. I found while running through that site a links page that features a number of dry stone construction pages that might interest you. Many are in French but you can either web-translate it or just look for the photo content, some of which is quite good.



Here is the links page.

http://pierreseche.chez.tiscali.fr/sommaire_sites_a_consulter.htm

Sorry to all dialup folks, this thread is getting a bit beefy what with all the pictures.

J