HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Wattle and daub is a
composite Composite or compositing may refer to: Materials * Composite material, a material that is made from several different substances ** Metal matrix composite, composed of metal and other parts ** Cermet, a composite of ceramic and metallic materials ...
building method used for making walls and buildings, in which a woven lattice of wooden strips called wattle is daubed with a sticky material usually made of some combination of wet soil, clay, sand, animal dung and straw. Wattle and daub has been used for at least 6,000 years and is still an important construction method in many parts of the world. Many historic buildings include wattle and daub construction.


History

The wattle and daub technique was used already in the
Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several pa ...
period. It was common for houses of Linear pottery and Rössen cultures of middle Europe, but is also found in Western Asia (
Çatalhöyük Çatalhöyük (; also ''Çatal Höyük'' and ''Çatal Hüyük''; from Turkish ''çatal'' "fork" + ''höyük'' "tumulus") is a tell of a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic proto-city settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from app ...
, Shillourokambos) as well as in North America ( Mississippian culture) and South America (
Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
). In Africa it is common in the architecture of traditional houses such as those of the
Ashanti people The Asante, also known as Ashanti () are part of the Akan ethnic group and are native to the Ashanti Region of modern-day Ghana. Asantes are the last group to emerge out of the various Akan civilisations. Twi is spoken by over nine million Asa ...
. Its usage dates back at least 6,000 years. There are suggestions that construction techniques such as lath and plaster and even cob may have evolved from wattle and daub. Fragments from prehistoric wattle and daub buildings have been found in Africa, Europe, Mesoamerica and North America. Evidence for wattle and daub (or "wattle and reed") fire pits, storage bins, and buildings shows up in Egyptian archaeological sites such as Merimda and El Omari, dating back to the 5th millennium BCE, predating the use of mud brick and continuing to be the preferred building material until about the start of the First Dynasty. It continued to flourish well into the New Kingdom and beyond. Vitruvius refers to it as being employed in
Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...
. A review of English architecture especially reveals that the sophistication of this craft is dependent on the various styles of timber frame housing.Graham, A.H.D. "Wattle and Daub: Craft, Conservation and Wiltshire Case Study" (Dissertation), 2004
Accessed 26 October 2012
/ref>


Construction

The wattle is made by weaving thin branches (either whole, or more usually split) or slats between upright stakes. The wattle may be made as loose panels, slotted between
timber framing Timber framing (german: Holzfachwerk) and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large woode ...
to make infill panels, or made in place to form the whole of a wall. In different regions, the material of wattle can be different. For example, at the Mitchell Site on the northern outskirts of the city of Mitchell, South Dakota, willow has been found as the wattle material of the walls of the house. Reeds and vines can also be used as wattle material. The origin of the term ''wattle'' describing a group of acacias in Australia, is derived from the common use of acacias as wattle in early Australian European settlements. Daub is usually created from a mixture of ingredients from three categories: binders,
aggregate Aggregate or aggregates may refer to: Computing and mathematics * collection of objects that are bound together by a root entity, otherwise known as an aggregate root. The aggregate root guarantees the consistency of changes being made within the ...
s and reinforcement. Binders hold the mix together and can include clay, lime, chalk dust and
limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms w ...
dust. Aggregates give the mix its bulk and dimensional stability through materials such as mud, sand, crushed chalk and crushed stone. Reinforcement is provided by straw, hair, hay or other fibrous materials, and helps to hold the mix together as well as to control shrinkage and provide flexibility. The daub may be mixed by hand, or by treading – either by humans or
livestock Livestock are the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to provide labor and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The term is sometimes used to refer solely to ani ...
. It is then applied to the wattle and allowed to dry, and often then
whitewash Whitewash, or calcimine, kalsomine, calsomine, or lime paint is a type of paint made from slaked lime (calcium hydroxide, Ca(OH)2) or chalk calcium carbonate, (CaCO3), sometimes known as "whiting". Various other additives are sometimes used. ...
ed to increase its resistance to rain. Sometimes there can be more than one layer of daub. At the Mitchell Site, the anterior of the house had double layers of burned daub. This process has been replaced in modern
architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...
by brick and mortar or by lath and plaster, a common building material for wall and ceiling surfaces, in which a series of nailed wooden strips are covered with
plaster Plaster is a building material used for the protective or decorative coating of walls and ceilings and for moulding and casting decorative elements. In English, "plaster" usually means a material used for the interiors of buildings, while "re ...
smoothed into a flat surface. In many regions this building method has itself been overtaken by drywall construction using plasterboard sheets.


Styles of infill panels

There were two popular choices for wattle and daub infill paneling: close-studded paneling and square paneling.


Close-studding

Close-studding panels create a much narrower space between the timbers: anywhere from 7 to 15 inches (18 to 40 cm). For this style of panel, weaving is too difficult, so the wattles run horizontally and are known as ledgers. The ledgers are sprung into each upright timber (stud) through a system of augered holes on one side and short chiseled grooves along the other. The holes (along with holes of square paneling) are drilled at a slight angle towards the outer face of each stud. This allows room for upright hazels to be tied to ledgers from the inside of the building. The horizontal ledgers are placed every two to three feet (0.6 to 0.9 metres) with whole hazel rods positioned upright top to bottom and lashed to the ledgers. These hazel rods are generally tied a finger-width apart with 6–8 rods each with a 16-inch (40 cm) width. Gaps allow key formation for drying.


Square panels

Square panels are large, wide panels typical of some later timber-frame houses. These panels may be square in shape, or sometimes triangular to accommodate arched or decorative bracing. This style requires the wattles to be woven for better support of the daub. To insert wattles in a square panel several steps are required. First, a series of evenly spaced holes are drilled along the middle of the inner face of each upper timber. Next, a continuous groove is cut along the middle of each inner face of the lower timber in each panel. Vertical slender timbers, known as staves, are then inserted and these hold the whole panel within the timber frame. The staves are positioned into the holes and then sprung into the grooves. They must be placed with sufficient gaps to weave the flexible horizontal wattles.


Applications

In some places or cultures, the technique of wattle and daub was used with different materials and thus has different names.


Pug and pine

In the early days of the colonisation of
South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest o ...
, in areas where substantial timber was unavailable, pioneers' cottages and other small buildings were frequently constructed with light vertical timbers, which may have been "native pine" ('' Callitris'' or ''
Casuarina ''Casuarina'' is a genus of 17 tree species in the family Casuarinaceae, native to Australia, the Indian subcontinent, southeast Asia, islands of the western Pacific Ocean, and eastern Africa. It was once treated as the sole genus in th ...
'' spp.), driven into the ground, the gaps being stopped with ''pug'' (kneaded clay and grass mixture). Another term for this construction is ''palisade and pug''.


Mud and stud

"Mud and stud" is a similar process to wattle and daub, with a simple frame consisting only of upright studs joined by cross rails at the tops and bottoms. Thin staves of ash were attached, then daubed with a mixture of mud, straw, hair and dung. The style of building was once common in
Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-we ...
.


Pierrotage, columbage

Pierrotage is the infilling material used in French Vernacular architecture of the Southern United States to infill between half-timbering with diagonal braces, which is similar to daub. It is usually made of lime mortar clay mixed with small stones. It is also called bousillage or bouzillage, especially in French Vernacular architecture of Louisiana of the early 1700s. The materials of bousillage are Spanish moss or clay and grass. Bousillage also refers to the type of brick molded with the same materials and used as infilling between posts. Columbage refers to the timber-framed construction with diagonal bracing of the framework. Pierratage or bousillage is the material filled into the structural timbers.


Bajarreque

Bajarreque is a wall constructed with the technique of wattle and daub. The wattle here is made of bagasse, and the daub is the mix of clay and straw.


Jacal

Jacal can refer to a type of crude house whose wall is built with wattle and daub in southwestern America. Closely spaced upright sticks or poles driven into the ground with small branches (wattle) interwoven between them make the structural frame of the wall. Mud or an adobe clay (daub) is covered outside. To provide additional weather protection, the wall is usually plastered.Harris 2006, p. 551.


See also

* Lath and plaster * Earthen plaster *
Quincha Quincha is a traditional construction system that uses, fundamentally, wood and cane or giant reed forming an earthquake-proof framework that is covered in mud and plaster. History Quincha is a Spanish term widely known in Latin America, borrowe ...
* Mudbrick * Adobe *
Cob (building) Cob, cobb, or clom (in Wales) is a natural building material made from subsoil, water, fibrous organic material (typically straw), and sometimes lime. The contents of subsoil vary, and if it does not contain the right mixture, it can be modified w ...
* Rammed earth * Timber frame *
Ceramic houses Ceramic houses are buildings made of an earth mixture which is high in clay, and fired to become ceramic. The process of building and firing such houses was developed by Iranian architect Nader Khalili in the late 1970s; he named it Geltaftan. "Gel" ...
* Clay panel


Notes


References

*


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wattle And Daub Soil-based building materials Plastering Timber framing Building engineering Types of wall es:Bahareque