TRADITIONAL HILL
SETTLEMENTS
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Continent Size:
9,938,000 sq km
3,837,081 sq miles
Percent of
Earth's Land: 6.7%
Population:
729,000,000 (2009)
INTRODUCTION
Europe, the planet's 6th largest continent includes 47 countries and
assorted dependencies and territories.
In exacting geographic definitions, Europe is really not a continent, but
part of the peninsula of Euroasia which includes all of Europe and Asia.
However, it's still widely referred to as a continent.
The European continent is separated from Asia by Russia's Ural
Mountains, and the Caspian and Black Seas.
Europe's highest point, just north of the Georgia border in European
Russia is Mt. Elbrus at 18,481 ft (5,633m). Its lowest point is on the edge
of the Caspian Sea at 92 ft (28m) below sea level.
TOPOGRAPHY
• Land relief in Europe shows great variation within relatively small areas.
• The southern regions, however, are more mountainous, while moving
north the terrain descends from the high Alps, Pyrenees and Carpathians,
through hilly uplands, into broad, low northern plains, which are vast in
the east.
• This extended lowland is known as the Great European Plain, and at its
heart lies the North German Plain.
• The Ural Mountains (the Riphean Mountains in Greco-Roman antiquity,
and known as the Stone Belt) are a mountain range that runs roughly
north and south through western Russia. They are usually considered as
the natural boundary between Europe and Asia.
CLIMATE
Influenced largely by low pressure zone
moving with prevailing westerly and
south westerly winds from Atlantic.
Maximum part of Europe enjoys
temperate weather.
Receive rainfall almost all the year with
slight fluctuations in temperature.
Temperature of sea water transit
between 6 degree c to 10 degree c.
It has been observed that eastern coast
are comparatively colder.
CLIMATE
MEDIEVAL EUROPE
TRADITIONAL ARCHITECTURE
The Middle Ages
(5th - 15th century )
It is the middle period in a three-period division of history:
Classical, Medieval, and Modern.
The period followed the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, and
preceded the Early Modern Era.
Historians in the Romance languages tend to divide the Middle Ages into
two parts: an earlier "High" and later "Low" period.
English-speaking historians, following their German counterparts, generally
subdivide the Middle Ages into three intervals: "Early", "High" and "Late".
a. the Early Middle Ages (476-1000),
b. the High Middle Ages (1000–1300),
c. the Late Middle Ages (1300–1453).
The Middle Ages
(5th - 15th century )
The Early Middle Age The High Middle Age The Late Middle Age
(476-1000) (1000- 1300) (1300- 1453)
• Breakdown of Roman
society. • Crusades.
• Church and • Science and
monasticism. technology. • State resurgence.
• Carolingians. • Changes. • Hundred Years' War.
• Byzantine. • Controversy within
• Breakup of the the Church.
Carolingian empire.
• Art and architecture.
Medieval architecture
• The first part of the Middle Ages saw very little building, mainly houses in
western Europe, as people struggled to adjust to the fall of Rome.
• People built some small churches here and there.
• Western European architecture in the Early Middle Ages may be divided into
Early Christian and Pre-Romanesque, including Merovingian, Carolingian,
Ottonian, and Asturian.
• While these terms are problematic, they nonetheless serve adequately as
entries into the era. Considerations that enter into histories of each period
include Trachtenberg's "historicising" and "modernising" elements,
• Italian versus northern, Spanish, and Byzantine elements, and especially the
religious and political maneuverings between kings, popes, and various
ecclesiastic
Medieval architecture
Surviving examples of medieval secular architecture
mainly served for defense.
Castles and fortified walls provide the most notable
remaining non-religious examples of medieval
architecture.
Windows gained a cross-shape for more than
decorative purposes: they provided a perfect fit
for a crossbowman to safely shoot at invaders
from inside. Notre-Dame de Chartres, France
(1194–1260)
Gothic architecture
Crenelated walls (battlements) provided shelters for
archers on the roofs to hide behind when not
shooting.
Domestic architecture - Phases
Pre-Romanesque Romanesque
Gothic
Pre-Romanesque
Western European architecture in the Early Middle Ages may be divided into
Early Christian and Pre-Romanesque, including Merovingian, Carolingian,
Ottonian, and Asturian.
While these terms are problematic, they nonetheless serve adequately as
entries into the era. Considerations that enter into histories of each period
include Trachtenberg's "historicising" and "modernising" elements,
Italian versus northern, Spanish, and Byzantine elements, and especially the
religious and political maneuverings between kings, popes, and various
ecclesiastic officials.
Romanesque
Romanesque, prevalent in medieval Europe during the 11th and 12th
centuries, was the first pan-European style since Roman Imperial
Architecture and examples are found in every part of the continent.
The term was not contemporary with the art it describes, but rather, is an
invention of modern scholarship based on its similarity to Roman
Architecture in forms and materials.
Gothic
The style originated at the 12th century abbey church of Saint-Denis in Saint-
Denis, near Paris, where it exemplified the vision of Abbot Suger.
Verticality is emphasized in Gothic architecture and features almost skeletal
stone structures with great expanses of glass, pointed arches using the
ogive shape, ribbed vaults, clustered columns, sharply pointed spires and
flying buttresses.
TYPES OF
BUILDINGS
TYPES OF BUILDINGS
Medieval architecture in Europe, in many ways, was defined during the reign
of Charlemagne from 815 AD to 1500 AD;
There were significant variations from region to region in Europe due to the
available building materials and established traditions.
Individuals with power and wealth built palaces and castles, but until the late
Middle Ages, the emphasis was often more on defensive capabilities than on
structural or aesthetic innovations.
Throughout the middle ages the most prestigious and durable edifices were:
residential structures e.g. palaces and houses;
religious structures e.g. churches
defensive structures e.g. castles and forts;
MEDIEVAL TOWN HOUSES
medieval period (10th -12th cen)
Most surviving medieval town houses were the homes of rich merchants;
much evidence for early construction is now hidden by later work.
There has been repeated rebuilding and remodelling of these older
properties.
FEATURES OF THE MEDIEVAL TOWN HOUSE
• The usual house plan was rectangular, with a gable end or wing facing on
to the street. On the ground floor the front part of the property was often
used as a shop or for some other trade purposes. Behind this was the hall
or main living area, extending through two storeys.
Further back was often the counting house or office, and perhaps stores and
warehouses, with additional living accommodation on an upper floor
above some or all of these rooms.
• The kitchen was often, a detached structure at
the rear, separated from the main house by a
courtyard.
• The upper storey adjoining the street was
usually overhanging the street, giving more
floor space on the upper storey than at ground
floor level.
HOMES OF THE POOR AND OTHER SMALL COTTAGES
Evidence remains relating to the houses of the
poorer sectors of the community, but
archaeological evidence from other medieval towns
suggests that the poor tended to live in single-cell
buildings about 3 metres (10 feet) wide, with
internal partitioning to divide them into a living
area and a bedchamber.
MEDIEVAL TOWN HOUSES
FEATURES
• Domestic chambers or sleeping rooms were located above the passage.
Timber framing continued to be used during the middle ages.
• A central hearth provided the location for a blazing fire. Smoke escaped
through a hole in the roof which was covered by a louvre. Wall fire-places
and chimneys became a feature of later medieval houses.
• Medieval houses did not have proper sanitation facilities. Privies or
garderobes were made in the thickness of the walls of larger town houses,
or as projecting jetties. Privies discharged through pipes and gutters into a
pit. Chamber pots were used in ordinary dwellings. Very few of the houses
had bathrooms.
MEDIEVAL TOWN HOUSES
• Initially, people lived in small villages for safety, in farmhouses on their
own land.
• In southern hilly European regions (Italy and Spain and southern France),
people usually build their houses out of stone and mudbrick, sometimes
with timber framework.
1. To make it easier to live in small villages that people could defend against
attackers, the houses became narrow and tall, with little high windows.
2. In cold weather, People heated these houses with charcoal braziers. They
had wells or fountains in the middle of the village to get water.
Distinctive elements of
medieval architecture
embrasure
Merlon
jettying
half-timbered Construction
Timber framing
• Timber framing or half-timbering, is the method of creating structures
utilizing heavy timbers jointed via pegged mortise and tenon joints.
• Half-timbered construction in the Northern European vernacular building
style is characteristic of medieval and early Denmark, England, Germany
and parts of France and Switzerland where timber was in good supply yet
stone and associated skills to dress the stone work it were in short supply.
In half-timbered construction timbers
that were riven in half provided the
complete skeletal framing of the
building.
Advantages
• It is rapidly erected it lends itself well
to prefabrication, modular
construction and mass-production.
• An average sized timber-frame home
can be erected within 2–3 days.
• the frame can be encased for Offers some structural benefits as the
windows, mechanical systems, and timber frame, if properly engineered,
roofing. lends itself to better seismic
survivability .
Can use recycle otherwise discarded
timbers
HALF-TIMBERED STRUCTURES
Vertical and horizontal
members joined together to
form the frame
Diagonal bracing to
prevent racking of
structure
A double jettied
Jettying timber framed
building.
Jettying is a building technique used in
medieval timber frame buildings in which
an upper floor projects beyond the
dimensions of the floor below.
This has the advantage of increasing the available space in the building
without obstructing the street. Jettied floors are also termed jetties.
A jetty is an upper floor that depends on a cantilever system in which a
horizontal beam, supports the wall above and projects forward beyond
the floor below (a technique also called oversailing) .
Jetty joists in their turn were slotted sideways into the diagonal dragon
beams at angle of 45° by means of mortise and tenon joints.
Embrasure
A loophole, arrow loop or arrow slit passes through a solid wall and was
originally for use by archers.
Excellent examples of deep embrasures with arrow slits are to be seen in
France.
In military architecture, an embrasure
is the opening in a crenellation or
battlement between the two raised
solid portions or merlons , sometimes
called a crenel or crenelle .
Pillbox stepped embrasure
Embrasure
• A distinction was made between
vertical and horizontal embrasures
or loopholes, depending on the
orientation of the slit formed in the
outside wall.
• The etymology of embrasure
expresses "widening".
Merlons
In architecture, a merlon forms the solid part of an embattled parapet,
sometimes pierced by embrasures.
The merlons had a width sufficient to shelter a single man.
As new weapons appeared in the Middle Ages, the merlons were enlarged
and provided with loop-holes of various dimensions and shapes, varying
from simply rounded to cruciform.
HOUSES AND PALACES
HOUSES AND PALACES
• Brick was used in southern France and northern Germany as a substitute
for the poor-quality local stone.
• The first step would have been the selection, clearing, and leveling of the
site of the proposed building or complex.
• Walls of irregular small field stones, rubble, or reused Roman bricks were
first replaced by hammer dressed stones and then by carefully cut and
shaped ashlar blocks that were mined from hillsides.
• House in Europe were mainly built in wood. That was because there was
plenty of wood around, so it was cheaper to build in wood.
• This is the typical method of construction of houses in Europe( specially
FRANCE & ENGLAND) which started in 800AD.
• Timber framing is the method of creating framed structures of heavy
timber jointed together with pegged mortise and tenon joints
(lengthening scarf joints and lap joints are also used).
Daub is generally created
from a mixture of certain
ingredients like mud,
crushed chalk and
crushed stone.
• To finish the walls, the spaces between the timbers were often infilled
with wattle-and-daub, brick or rubble, with plastered faces on the exterior
and interior which were often “ceiled” with wainscoting for insulation and
warmth.
• This method of infilling the spaces created the half-timbered style, with
the timbers of the frame being visible both inside and outside the
building.
CHURCHES AND CATHEDRALS
CHURCHES AND CATHEDRALS
• In Mountainous countries like England, Sweden ,France, Spain, Norway,
Italy etc churches were built on hilly terrain.
• They had same plans as found in traditional English churches having two
transverse axis.
• Due to the availability of timber , they were covered by timber roofs, often
open to the space below that included sloping beams-rafters connected
by tie beams to form triangular truss;
• The main building material for walls were stones in lime mortar;
• Sometimes even wooden vaults imitating the appearance of stone were
erected.
Example : NORMAN CHURCHES
The ceilings of Norman churches and cathedrals were vaulted.
These vaults allowed the weight of the roof to be evenly
distributed throughout the pillars and walls as the main
points of the vaults rested on the tops of the pillars.
The Normans used three styles of vaulting: barrel, rib and cross.
Norman walls and pillars had faced stone on the outer surfaces
but rubble was put into the hollow between the cut stone.
Hence, the effect would be wall, rubble and wall. Pillars were
effectively hollow until the central core was filled with
rubble.
The method of building was not particularly strong.
To get round this and strengthen them, the Normans made their
walls much thicker than later styles of building which relied
on specifically cut stone that fitted together with the blocks
surrounding it thus creating its own strength.
FORTRESSES AND CASTLES
The typical castle of Europe prior to the 11th century--that is, the castle
that predominated for fully half of the Middle Ages is called by the English
the motte and bailey.
Initially they were made of wood but soon king realized the weakness of
wood and started stone const.
A motte and bailey fortress
consists of a circular ditch
dug perhaps 10 feet deep
and 30 feet across, with
wooden palisades at the
edge of the ditch.
This was dug around a high
hill, but could be constructed
even on flat land, for the dirt
removed from the ditch was
placed in a mound in the
center.
CASTLE BUILDING MATERIAL
CASTLE BUILDING MATERIAL
Earth, timber , stone, roman red Mortar was made of water, sand, and lime
Bricks, Stone Chart ,lead and iron. mixed together.
Type Color
Sandstone Purple Other ingredients were often used in place
Stone Light red of the above, or to strengthen the
Sandstone Yellow mortar. chapels were located in the
Limestone Grey bailey, or outer ward or in the castle
Triassic Sandstone Brown towers and gate houses.
Lias Sandstone Blue-grey
Sutton Stone Conglomerate Many castles had more than one chapel, it
was only room in the castle that had
carved and vaulted decoration.
Draw bridges were made of wood and were
use as door and bridge; guards use to
pull off bridge and use it as door.
CONSTRUCTION TECHNIQUES
• The walls were very thick, anywhere between 8 and 20 feet in thickness
• Originally, towers were simple square-shapes , later round towers were
preferred.
• Stone, mortar, wood-these were the simple components used to
construct some of the most heavily fortified structures ever created
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