On-site: Façade Stowaways

Every now and then façade inspections throw up small treasures that forces the inner detective in all of us to ponder. Working on facades generally means you’re exposed to a higher diversity of material combinations, varied materials inherently have different manufacturing and assembly processes, different extraction and refinery techniques and so on. This is then further compounded by history and the cycles of evolution that the material has endured to gain economic efficiencies, each time leaving a signature or trait identifiable with the era. Then there are the anomalies which are not production specific but consequences of field application that perhaps initially appear out of place or illogical for their setting. The enjoyment is in the dissemination and filtration of possible explanations, even more satisfying when applied statistics are proven correct.

The following are a few façade passengers which are worthy of note, if only for their perceived strangeness.

Bricks and Mortar… and Stones

A stone can be seen peeping out of the clay brick. The stone is suspended mid-height and to the side/perpend. The property was constructed c.1880-90 and with some lazy research a possible candidate given the era and locality, the bricks may be The Soft Reds of Brick Hill. In former times clays that were considered glacial contained small stones and through very manual washing processes these could be filtered out, although some remain entrapped within the medium. So, our small resident could have an even more exciting story in that it could have ventured from further north within a glacier moving south at some stage before resting for a short while. Or, it’s just a stone in a brick.

Mixed Views

The faint remnants of an earlier window which has likely been infilled with brick or block work then coated in a matching pebbledash render, which out of all the façade fabric in the UK, offers the least architectural dignity. The structure is about 200 years after the Window Tax and 30 years after the law was repealed in 1851 so we can reasonably omit this as the cause for bricking up the aperture. It is likely just an interior reformatting resulting in a postage stamp feature on the gable end of the property.

The four rust blooms with their varying degree in propagation signatures are of interest, why only the remediated patch? It is unlikely that the same trade completed the small installation as the rest of the render. This trade may have regarded the works as relatively small and not taken the required care as perhaps a larger job may seemingly merit, this is not important, but worth humouring the background context.

What is clear is that the mixture has foreign particulates present with ferrous properties. The aggregate should be prewashed and the aggregate that falls should be captured, washed and re-used to avoid waste so it could have entered the mix via a contaminated collecting tarp or if the delivery of stones were scraped off the bed of an old flatbed truck. The possibilities are vast and don’t particularly matter, what is fundamental is that the processes and understanding of the materials were undervalued.

Life Finds a Way

Perhaps one of my favourite photos I’ve recorded from site, now several years old. I will add that none of the product has induced what you see. The reasons for this condition are separate and focus on atmospheric type and exposure categories. What is relevant to this piece is the scale of the thriving ecosystem and the variety of species present, it’s quite remarkable. This photo was taken at c.6 storeys above ground (18m+). Focusing on the sapling that is stealing the show, how did this come to be? The cladding rails you can see above and the fire stopping devices made for good roosting stops for the local bird life so perhaps the transportation of seeds via bird droppings are to be thanked.

Sometimes it’s the smallest details that are dismissed too early that can help offer assurance during diagnostics. The comprehension of the environment, social habits and economic constraints can bend what may reasonably be expected, expecting the unexpected is not a bad thing, thinking this way is not always second nature though.