The Pilgrim Brewer
Materials
Given that this thesis is about the exaltation of craft, then it must honour an investigation into materials, the building blocks of the craft of making.
Architect Sheila Kennedy of the firm KVA puts forward the idea that working with materials is analogous to cooking. The recipe, the combination, and the proportions of the ingredients determine the final characteristics of the materials.13 Manipulation of material characteristics can become one means by which the architect can infuse the concept of craft into a building industry that has lost some of its tradition of exhibiting the work of the hand.14
There is a principle at work for defining this thesis’ material details, which is to search for solutions that involve the gradual consumption of the material by some added agent, yielding a fortified result. This is the analogue of adding yeast to brewer’s wort to consume fermentable sugars, leaving alcohol as a waste product, producing beer.
In material research this can mean the addition of fly ash to concrete, resulting in a sturdier final concrete. Wood that has been first charred then oiled can take on a deep red and black finish, and becomes more impervious to subsequent flame.
Supplementary Cementitious Material (SCM) Concrete
The brewery foundation and core can contain a high volume fly ash concrete. Diverting fly ash from landfills for use in concrete has numerous benefits: it increases durability, and greatly reduces the amount of cement required. For every kilogram of cement removed from the mix, one less kilogram of carbon is released to the atmosphere in its manufacture. Fly ash can be used as an SCM due to its pozzolanic properties.15 Fly ash reacts with the calcium hydroxide—a product of the cement and water reaction with no cementing value—to produce calcium silicate.
Sandblasting the concrete to expose different degrees of aggregate is one means of expressing the journey of John Barleycorn. While the brewing tower starts with pristine concrete at its uppermost reaches, the concrete gradually reveal more aggregate as it descends, become the most rusticated below ground level in the conditioning space—the grotto—of the brewery.
The Myth of Cedar
Although naturally resistant to rot, cedar still degrades like everything else when exposed to moisture and sunlight. Its hardiness comes from naturally occurring chemicals called extractives, which are water soluble. Without surface treatment, an environment like Halifax’s can leach these chemicals out of the wood within ten years. The damage is exacerbated by ultraviolet attack, which destroys layers of the wood’s outer cells, permitting deeper penetration by moisture.16
There is a trade-off to be made between selecting a potentially noxious wood treatment solution, and extending the usable life of the building’s roof and wall systems. One approach to resolving this dilemma is to fortify exterior cladding with a rehabilitated traditional preservative method.
A mixture of boiled linseed oil, pine tar and turpentine is a traditional recipe for wood preservation, often used on boats, and colloquially known as Old Down East Deck Coating.
Pine tar is distilled through a process of burning wood in the absence of oxygen. Boiled linseed oil is obtained from pressed flax seed, and fortified with siccative, solvent and white spirit in order to improve its drying time. In this recipe, the oil and pitch act as binders, and the turpentine makes the mixture more workable, enabling the tar to become soluble.17
Different ratios of Old Down East Deck Coating ingredients
The combination of ingredients is easily workable, and they do not render the protected wood poisonous to the environment at the end of its service life. The approximate mixing of the ratios of the ingredients means that different batches of the treatment will vary in appearance, recalling the earlier statements in this thesis about variation and legibility in craft.