Lloyd Lewis sections

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JChoate
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Post by JChoate »

That Pew photo shows doors with jambs that are perpendicular to the canted walls. It's a good looking detail the way it registers the stepped paneling geometry. In the Lloyd Lewis photo, the door at the end of the hall appears to be a conventional flush door similar to the Pew examples. Doors that fall in the same plane along the length of the reverse battered wall is where things get trickier.

Speaking of the canted walls, I suppose they are indicated on the floor plans at the point where the walls intersect the floor. If so, in order to depict the actual dimensions of the ceiling, the reflected ceiling plan would need to show the walls in different locations (presumably where they intersect the ceiling plane).
SDR
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Post by SDR »

Just so. One of the many complications that Wright's fertile imagination introduces into the lives of apprentices, builders, and observers !

I have seen few reflected ceiling plans among the Usonian drawings. Examples include the wonderful Jacobs I ceiling -- though the drawing I saw may have been made by others, after the fact ? -- the New York Exhibition house, and the Wall and Bell/Feldman hexagonal ceilings, quite similar . . .

SDR
Roderick Grant
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Post by Roderick Grant »

Jacobs I ceiling was installed after the house was built. The original ceiling followed the rectangular grid. Don't remember what the material was, off hand. A glimpse of the original ceiling appears in the book on page 43, at the left, over the entrance door.
JimM
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Post by JimM »

Image[/img]
DRN
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Post by DRN »

I seem to recall Mr. Jacobs noting in his book that the ceilings were plain plywood (similar to the Goetsch Winckler ceiling), and that the board and batten ceiling was screwed to the plywood by Mr. Jacobs himself a few years after initial occupancy. The car in the carport we determined is a '37 or '38 Willys, so given this picture, the board and batten ceiling was installed after the Fall of 1936 when Willys introduced this body style.
outside in
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Post by outside in »

the first ceiling in the Jacobs House was made from celotex, which in its day was a compressed paper product. In time, Mr. Jacobs requested a pattern for a wood ceiling from Wright, which he then provided, and used board and battens to match the walls. Jacobs applied the wood directly over the celotex.
Roderick Grant
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Post by Roderick Grant »

Thank you, John. I thought it was Celotex, but wasn't certain. Keep it quiet that Jacobs applied the wood over the Celotex; that stuff has asbestos. If it's still there, some bureaucrat could force the owner to remove it.
SDR
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Post by SDR »

Herb Jacobs writes (p 59), "And Wright, seeing the house the center of so many eyes [sic], naturally wanted t make it more attractive with a paneled ceiling covering the fiberboard, and a better quality of wood for the outside fascias."

The work seems to have been done in 1939; Jacobs mentions working on "the nine-foot living room exterior, balancing on the top of my five-foot stepladder, and using a brace and bit to drill holes and sink the long screws." Madness ! Earlier: "I leaned the hard way, by having boards fall on my head, that it's a good idea to support sixteen-foot boards on both ends, and probably in the middle, too, if one intends to fit them into the batten grooves -- and have them stay in place long enough to drive home a few two-and-a half-inch cadmium-plated screws. I had no miter box, but learned to become rather fair at marking a forty-five-degree angle with a T-square abd sawing, where the pattern turned corners." We spent most of the winter on the paneling . . ."

The process would have been like installing tongue-and-groove flooring, but upside down -- and with the extra trouble of holding the board in place and the batten too, which was where the screws were placed.

Page 59 also details the switch, in February of 1940, from steam heat to forced hot water ". . .which [Wright] was already specifying in the second generation of Usonian houses." The system, which worked at Wingspread where the steam was under seventy pounds of pressure, took a long time, at zero to five pounds, to work its way from the source to the living room, and thence to the bedroom wing, with the return ends of the pipes cool to the touch, a sure sign that the system wasn't working properly. At the same time they switched from oil, as a fuel, to coal, because it was cheaper.

SDR
Tom
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Post by Tom »

Looks like the main cantilever must be framed like a typical Usonian Roof where every other beam is suspended by the cross header from the ends of the adjacent beams on supports.
This always makes me incredulous.
Bouncy floor?
Tom
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Post by Tom »

The finish flooring could also offer some support.
...depending on how it's fastened I guess.

28- 30ft long continuous wood beams?
SDR
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Post by SDR »

a) Which house are you referring to, and

b) Where is the main cantilever on that house ?

S
Tom
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Post by Tom »

Sorry - talking about the Lloyd Lewis house and the main balcony cantilever.
Looks like three of the seven main cantilevered beams cannot be self supporting.
Four align with the brick piers below -
three fall in-between.
Paul Harding said the main framing was 4ft o.c.
SDR
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Post by SDR »

Yes. It looks like the paired 2 x 12s over the brick piers are intermittent between the joists carried by the piers; they in turn carry the remaining joists
in the house and on the deck. The pair of 2 x 12 rim joists at the outer edge of the deck are continuous and carry the intermittent joists. Or so I imagine . . .

See immediately below. There is a horizontal unit line running down the middle of the joist, confusing the view. On the cantilevered portion of the
section, the horizontal lines running below the "perforated boards" might be the elevational view of the end return of the deck parapet boards ?


Image[/img]


Image
Tom
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Post by Tom »

Wondering if it's worth comparing the Lloyd Lewis main floor deck to Sturges?
Wondering if Sturges has some structural finish floor too?
... structural finish floor
Never seen that before, anywhere, as far as I can tell.
Tom
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Post by Tom »

Not that similar.
All main beams at Sturges are self supporting.
No structural finish floor
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