Projecting Bays: Enhancing Architectural Design
There are a handful of different common architectural building styles in the historic parts of Washington DC. One of the common styles or some of the details added to a variety of different styles of historic row homes, here in Washington DC, might include a bump out or bay that extends from the top of the porch. In cases, as we’ll show in some examples, there are bays that bump out of the side facade of buildings, where the building side facade is exposed, particularly where It’s at a street or a sidewalk type exposed area.
These bump outs are bays that took some effort and cost to build and create, even way back in historic times. Therefore, it’s a bit rare to find them in the rear ell or rear of the building facades.
In general, historic builders and / or Architects and designers, treated the rear and rear ell type facades with much less emphasis or importance on architectural details and quality in design and construction. As you may have picked up from reading our previous blogs, many of the historic rear ells and rear building facades are built with common bricks and common mortar joints. Builders, even way back over 100 years ago, understood that this type of construction was much weaker than the pressed brick and butter joint type masonry construction typically found at the front facades of historic buildings.
The picture below shows a front bay that is partially supported by the roof of the front porch below. Front porch roofs are not known to be particularly strong, from a structural bearing capacity. However, it’s not the front porch roof alone that supports the load of the bay. The bay of course is attached back to the brick building, but in more than just a framing type attachment, there’s also a group of cantilevered joists that jut out from the front facade to support the floor underneath of the bay. That particular type of connection and building configuration provides a significant amount of support.
To really understand framing support and the structural load mechanics and dynamics of the front bay, it’s a good idea to understand some of the details of the interior floor framing. In most cases, the joists at typical historic row homes run from side to side, basically in parallel with the front facade of the buildings.
In this case where there’s a cantilever for the front porch roof or a bay that projects from the front the side of the building, those joists have to be installed perpendicular to the run of the typical joist in the building. In this case, beam pockets are installed through the brick to let those joists stick directly into the double wythe brick facade.
Ornamentation and architectural decoration is much more common at front facades than most other exterior portions of the building, but here, since this is a stick frame assembly, the architectural styles, specific to the bays, generally change a little bit. It’s much easier to attach decorative elements to a stick frame type building assembly, common in Victorian construction especially outside of the downtown urban environment. In this coming week, we’re going to show some particular examples of spamdrel panels installed on front bays.
In the next coming week we’re also going to take a look at a couple other examples of different types of projecting bays. The one in the picture below is also a three-sided bay that projects from the building facade, but it is stick framed and has had the original architectural details and moldings removed as it has been reclad and resheathed. Now, at this point, the underlying sheathing has been wrapped with a felt paper and clad with a three-tab shingle. This material is typically used for residential roofing, but in this case it’s been applied as a type of siding.
We can Help
Our company focuses on historic restoration more than modern building upkeep, maintenance, and construction, but our company understands both types of construction very well and a full picture well-rounded approach is needed in any niche in the construction industry. Although we focus on historic restoration, repointing, tuckpointing and historic brick repair, our company also has technical knowledge and competencies in the areas of modern and contemporary construction as well as we become one of the leaders in that area of the market today. Understanding both historic and modern or contemporary construction is useful because both aspects help understand the challenges and potential solutions for challenges in building science and construction.
We can help with a variety of historic masonry restoration needs and upkeep, from modest tuckpointing and or repointing to complicated and extensive historic masonry restoration. Infinity Design Solutions is a historic restoration specialist contractor specializing in both historic masonry restoration such as tuckpointing our repointing, and brick repair. If you have questions about the architectural details or facade of your historic building in Washington DC, reach out and say hello and if we can help we’ll be glad to assist you. You can email us or call us on the telephone at the following link: contact us here.
