Original name
Lakóházak [Apartment buildings]
Original use
Housing /housing ensemble
Current use
Housing /housing ensemble
Architects
Tibor Tenke
Concrete by reinforcement
Concrete is a relatively brittle material that is strong in compression but less so in tension.
To increase its overall strength, steel rods, wires, mesh or cables may be embedded in concrete before it sets. This reinforcement, often known as rebar, resists tensile forces. By forming a strong bond, the two materials are able to resist a variety of applied forces, effectively acting as a single structural element .
Construction method
In this case, the concrete can be made by mixing the components directly on site, or it may be transported from a production plant in concrete-mixer trucks.
This method has the disadvantage of leaving the concrete exposed to the elements while it is setting. Whereas, with other methods, the environmental conditions can be controlled during setting, providing greater control over the outcome, with cast-in-place concrete a series of tests and protocols are necessary to verify its final strength.
Architectural concrete
- textured walls
- wooden formwork finish
- stamped concrete
- exposed aggregate concrete, colored concrete, etc.
Structural types
Beams are the horizontal load-bearing elements of the frame. Columns are the vertical elements of the frame and act as the building’s primary load-bearing element. They transmit the beam loads down to the foundations.
A shear wall resists loads parallel to the plane of the wall. Collectors, also known as drag members, transfer the diaphragm shear to shear walls and other vertical elements in the seismic force resisting system. Shear walls are typically light-framed or braced wooden walls with shear panels, reinforced concrete walls, reinforced masonry walls or steel plates.
State of Conservation
Description
The experimental character of these social housing blocks originates with the technology tested during their construction and the resulting structural option, both associated with reinforced concrete. The buildings are towers, where the perimeter or façade is a load-bearing concrete wall, complemented by interior walls, also load-bearing, to separate the five units on each floor. In addition, the formwork for the walls was designed to slide vertically, so that the concrete for each floor could be poured all at once, and then the formwork was slid upwards for use on the following floor. In each case, it was only necessary to rearrange the “negative” formwork for the façade openings in the right position for each floor, in order to add variation to the composition of the façade. Rather than an aesthetic choice, the rounded edges characteristic of the building’s corners were the result of the need to slide the formwork along the concrete that had already set. A conventional corner at right angles would have been too weak.
The structural typology of the load-bearing walls also allowed for generating an interior floor plan free from intermediate supports in each of the five housing units. This circumstance was used to test a system based on interior partitions that could be reconfigured by the users: depending on the number of inhabitants, space could be transferred between bedrooms and common areas.
Hungary
Magasház U. 2
Pest 1222 Budapest
Commission
1963
Completion
1965