Lintels.—For all door and window openings provide 6 in. by 4 in. well-seasoned pine lintels, to extend 12 in. into pisé-work on each side of opening.
Skirting.—Provide and fix in all rooms, to plugs about 3 ft. apart, 6-in. skirting, neatly scribed to floors, mitred at angles as required.
Picture-rail.—Provide 3 in. by 1 in. picture-rail to all rooms.
Plugs.—Prepare and tar for pisé-builder 3 in. by 1 in. well-seasoned softwood plugs, 15 in. long, as per detail, for skirtings, picture- and chair-rail, to be inserted 3 ft. apart.
STUDDING, WIRE-NETTING, AND PISÉ
“This is a modification of Pisé, which provides a settler in a district where poles and saplings are available with a quick method of providing himself with a comfortable temporary residence without the expenditure of much cash. To construct buildings of this character, a framework of saplings or poles, at intervals of 3 ft. 6 in. to 3 ft. apart, is first erected; this framework is covered on both sides with 1¼ in. mesh wire-netting. The two sections of netting are held together, strengthened, and prevented from stretching and bulging between the posts by means of wire hooks or loops, which are as long as the posts are wide. The spaces thus enclosed by the netting and the poles are then filled with earth, which is well rammed, thus making a solid wall 4 in. to 6 in. thick. This wall can be plastered, the plaster forming a key with the wire-netting, which holds securely. Buildings of this character can be made to look rather attractive, and, if neatly constructed, are very much superior, both in appearance and comfort, to slabs or wattle and daub.”
Pisé Shuttering
PISÉ SHUTTERING
[I]
That the plant now commonly in use for pisé-building is but a slight improvement on the anciently accepted model, may be seen by a comparison of modern examples with old engravings and descriptions. Pisé-building lay off the great main stream of constructional activity, and the enterprise and ingenuity lavished on the perfecting of other building materials and methods passed Pisé by, leaving it undisturbed in its quiet backwater, a primitive system still with its primitive tackle.
Yet there were a number of very obvious and unnecessary shortcomings in the accepted shuttering that seemed to clamour for attention, defects, too, that were in no way inherent, but merely traditional infelicities reproduced in succeeding models that remained remarkably true to their primitive ancestral architype—the Pisé plant described by Pliny.