MANFREDI, CARLO1

1) Architect PhD, Adjunct Professor, Politecnico di Milano, Dipartimento di Architettura e Studi Urbani, carlo.manfredi@polimi.it

Throughout the 19th century industrial development boost new needs in living, working,

and building. Comfort and health became the settlements to which building practice is required to answer. Water supply, sewage and drainage systems, heating, ventilation and lighting, as well as acoustic level and safety from fire are shaping all kind of buildings. Furthermore, it must be taken into account that new kind of edifices had to be built, such as theatres, hospitals, prisons, government and administrative buildings; increasing working class needs decent homes not so far of factories. Several networks were going to connect simple buildings to the city, and the quest for new materials comes through separation between structural skills, empowered to a load-bearing construction, and a light shell, sheltering indoor life. Masonry became a leading actor, being the boundary protecting new ways of life now developing. Constructive comfort skills of masonry, and earliest ways to explore them will be pointed out by the paper.

Keywords: thermal inertia, heat storage, brick, hollow brick, 19th Century