Geometry and Actual Construction in Brick Vaults by Slices: The Case of Carranque in Spain

Abstract

This paper deals with the study of a rectangular plan sail vault built by brick slices in the Roman villa of Carranque in Spain in the fifth century, in the context of a research project on the constructive configuration of Mediterranean vaults of this kind. The project aims to identify technical links to trace their expansion and examine the possibilities of using this technique in present-day building practice. The case at Carranque confirms the arrival of this vaulting technique to the Iberian Peninsula prior to a possible diffusion through the Arab world. The analysis of a 3d photogrammetric model of the remains allows posing that the solution used to solve the slices meeting at the diagonal is different from Byzantine ones; the large perimetral arches were lowered, almost matching the height of the small ones, and a vertical area was placed, being arranged as if it were part of the vault itself. With this design, it is not easy to notice the rectangular form of the vault.

An Analysis of the Planar Vault under the Choir Loft of the Monastery of El Escorial

“…Today we can see the failed vault in the basement of the Monastery of El Escorial. This vault is rougher and larger (8.36 × 8.60 m [7,8]) than the one analysed in this article. However, this planar vault does not stand on its own.…”

“…Several authors have pointed out that the vault analysed here was a success preceded by two experiments within the monastery [5,7,8,10]-one of them failed and another was smaller and imperfect.…”

Algorithmic Modeling for Complex Vaults in Vittone’s Civil Architecture Between Archival Drawings and Realizations

“…This research represents a contribution in a parametric key to the thread of study on the geometric interpretation of complex vaulted systems developed through the experimentation and refinement of a method that incorporates into the workflow the tools useful for comparing ideal models, built architecture, the study of the main treatise sources and, especially in this application, archival materials. The tools of algorithmic modeling allow this work to confront an ever-developing scene (Bagnolo et al 2022;Bolognesi and Stancato 2021;López-Mozo et al 2022) and to facilitate the search for vocabularies and rules of three-dimensional form in the study of classes of homogeneous objects, to be applied to ideal models and built architecture.…”