Frog Up or Down

One of the more interesting things about Walter Segals detailing, is the use of a Tartan Grid, thats alined to the size of materials as well as the structural needs of the building. If you take time to have a look through the Excellent AJ article on Walter Segal , you might want to take time and review his explanation of this grid. It’s not the usual grid you might expect to find on a house or for that mater any other Architectural project I have ever worked on in 45 years, and consist of a smaller tartan grid fitting within a master grid. Walter segal houses were, or are, made with as little waste as possible, materials used are fitted whole, not cut, hence the tartan grid, which is used to control the main materials and they are intended to fit between the main structure grid. Lets start with the smaller tartan grid, which is made up of a 600mm wide larger spacing with a 50mm wide space between. The 6000mm wide space being the width of a plaster board . The 50mm spa...

If you have followed my blog for the past few years, it will come as no surprise to learn of my fascination with the Architect Walter Segal . I first came into contact with him and his method of timber frame building as a Tech guy in Dow Construction Products, we got involved with making a new updated version with Styrofoam as the loose core insulation not quilt, at the centre of Alternative Technology mid wales. The Architect Jon Broom was the designers at the time, he worked with Walter, and although runs his own practice in London, he still has strong ties to the method Walter devised. The AJ at about the same time printed a booklet attached to the AJ, it looked at the way he viewd materials, the method of layout, and his tartan grid that aided layout design by looking at the material sizes. I still have a copy and if you want a pdf for research, please let me know I send a link to down load it. Recently I recieved an email from the the AA about an affordable Housinr ...