#brickmaking

The Ancient Art of Brickmaking

Credit: Mark Smith

1. Construction began on the Cattedrale di Santa Maria Del Fiore, Italy, in 1296, but by 1418 it was still incomplete. The cathedral’s original architect, Arnolfo di Cambio, died in 1310 before finishing his project and left no indication of how the cathedral’s crowning dome was to be constructed.

2. To dome was to be built atop the cathedral walls at a height of around 55m on an imprecise octagonal base – the difference between the longest and shortest sides being 0.57m

3. An architecture competition, offering a prize of 200 gold florins, was held in 1418 to find the ideal design.

4. In 1420, the design of goldsmith Filippo Brunelleschi was accepted. He planned to build the dome without supporting scaffolding.  

5. The inner shell of Brunelleschi’s dome, more than two metres thick, is self-supporting. An estimated four million bricks make up the dome, which sits on a sandstone base. But no one knows exactly how Brunelleschi built such a large dome with no support...

Manufacturers Of Rubber Paver Moulds

Musk outlines plan to get into the brick-making business

Tue, May 08, 2018 – 2:23 PM

[SAN FRANCISCO] Move over, candy and flamethrowers. Elon Musk tweeted out plans Monday for yet another side venture: alleviating the nation’s housing crisis.

“The Boring Company will be using dirt from tunnel digging to create bricks for low-cost housing,” he wrote in a tweet about his nascent tunnelling enterprise.

A company spokesman confirmed the plans, saying the…