Issue 42 summer 24 web - Flipbook - Page 70
Above, figure 4
A large portion of the original setts has been retained,
new setts, dimensionally regular and flat on the exposed
surface gives easy access to everybody.
The client expressed the desire of a seamless floor, easy to
clean and navigate for the pensioners and visitors of any
ability. A terrazzo floor would have been ideal but would
have negated any breathability that we were desperate to
achieve in our proposal.
All setts have been laid on an unbounded bed of gritt and
the same gritt feels between the gaps. As long as each sett
presses against a neighbouring sett at one point on four
sides, they interlock and bind strongly together, they give
a permeable surface to avoid any rain water access inside
the Stables.
My Italian origin helped me in thinking about a
cocciopesto floor, usually used in archaeological site to fill
lacuna on mosaic floors and, in its finest form, an historic
floor of a long tradition in Veneto.
The achieved Heritage Fund investment on the Soane
Stables has given the opportunity to the Royal Hospital
and the design Team to put together a project that included: a minimal campaign of repairs of the fabric, removal of the concrete slab everywhere, the installation of
a breathable limecrete screed, new, made to measure, yellow klinker brick floor to commemorate the original
klinker found in some areas and a seamless lime floor in
the café and museum areas.
It is a simple but secret mixture of hydraulic lime, sand,
brick dust, stones and brick aggregates, cured and dry
grinded, finally polished with beeswax and linseed oil. A
marriage made in heaven with the limecrete base.
In this instance all materials and labourers came from
Italy, with an unsustainable approach; the lottery have
supported this idea as a pioneer example, that hopefully
will bring interested people together to share knowledge
and revive a technique that was known in UK and has
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Conservation & Heritage Journal
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