Invented by - Native Humans
Year - 500 Thousand years ago approximately.
People have constructed buildings and other structures since prehistory, including bridges, amphitheatres, dams, electricity pylons, roads and canals. Building materials in present use have a long history and some of the structures built thousands of years ago can still be regarded as remarkable. The history of construction overlaps that of structural engineering.
Neolithic construction
The first bridges made by humans were probably wooden logs placed across a stream. The first buildings were simple huts, tents and shelters meant to suit the basic needs of protection from the elements, built by their inhabitants. The very simplest shelters, tents, leave no traces.
Construction in ancient Mesopotamia
The earliest large-scale buildings for which evidence survives have been found in ancient Mesopotamia. The smaller dwellings only survive in traces of foundations, but the later civilisations built very sizeable structures in the forms of palaces, temples and ziggurats and took particular care to build them out of materials that last, which has ensured that very considerable parts have remained intact. The chief building material was the mud brick, formed in wooden moulds (adobe). Bricks varied widely in size and format from small bricks that could be lifted in one hand to ones as big as large paving slabs. Rectangular and square bricks were both common. They were laid in virtually every bonding pattern imaginable and used with considerable sophistication. Drawings survive on clay tablets from later periods showing that buildings were set out on brick modules. By 3500 BC, bricks were also being fired and surviving records show a very complex division of labour into separate tasks and trades.
Construction in ancient Greece
The ancient Greeks, like the Egyptians and the Mesopotamians,tended to build most of their common buildings out of mud brick, leaving no record behind them.
Roman construction
The great Roman breakthrough was the development of hydraulic lime mortar. Previous cultures had used lime mortars but by adding volcanic ash the Romans managed to make a mortar that would harden under water. This provided them with a cheap material for bulk walling. They used brick or stone to build the outer skins of the wall and then filled the cavity with massive amounts of concrete, effectively using the brickwork as permanent shuttering. The concrete, being formed of nothing more than rubble and mortar was cheap and very easy to produce, requiring relatively unskilled labour, enabling the Romans to build on an unprecedented scale.
Medieval construction
Most buildings in Northern Europe were constructed of timber until c. 1000 AD. In Southern Europe adobe remained predominant. Brick continued to be manufactured in Italy throughout the period 600–1000 AD but elsewhere the craft of brickmaking had largely disappeared and with it the methods for burning tiles.
Construction in the Renaissance
The Renaissance in Italy, the invention of moveable type and the Reformation changed the character of building..The rebirth of the idea of an architect in the Renaissance radically changed the nature of building design. The Renaissance reintroduced the classical style of architecture. Water mills in most of western Europe were used to saw timber and convert trees into planks. Bricks were used in ever increasing quantities.
Construction in the seventeenth century
The seventeenth century saw the birth of modern science which would have profound effects on building construction in the centuries to come. The major breakthroughs were towards the end of the century when architect-engineers began to use experimental science to inform the form of their buildings. The major breakthrough in this period was in the manufacture of glass, with the first cast plate glass being developed in France. Iron was increasingly employed in structures
Construction in the eighteenth century
The eighteenth century saw the development of many the ideas that had been born in the late seventeenth century. The architects and engineers became increasingly professionalised. Experimental science and mathematical methods became increasingly sophisticated and employed in buildings. The major breakthroughs in this period were in the use of iron (both cast and wrought). Iron columns had been used in Wren's designs for the House of Commons and were used in several early eighteenth-century churches in London, but these supported only galleries. In the second half of the eighteenth century the decreasing costs of iron production allowed the construction of major pieces of iron engineering.
Construction in the nineteenth century
The industrial revolution was manifested in new kinds of transportation installations, such as railways, canals and macadam roads. These required large amounts of investment. As steel was mass-produced from the mid-19th century, it was used, in form of I-beams and reinforced concrete. Glass panes also went into mass production, and changed from luxury to every man's property.Plumbing appeared, and gave common access to drinking water and sewage collection. Building codes have been applied since the 19th century, with special respect to fire safety.
Construction in the twentieth century
With the Second Industrial Revolution in the early 20th century, elevators and cranes made high rise buildings and skyscrapers possible, while heavy equipment and power tools decreased the workforce needed. Other new technologies were prefabrication and computer-aided design.
