This is a great example of an ancient architectural design element: corbelling. Structurally, as long as you follow the 1/3 rule these creations are safe, IE yo

This is a great example of an ancient architectural design element: corbelling. Structurally, as long as you follow the 1/3 rule these creations are safe, IE you shouldn't extend the centre of mass beyond 1/3 of the width of the tower/wall. The principle shown here is similar to what's been long used, where a stretcher would be corbelled 1/3 of its width, and then a header would be corbelled 1/3 of its width, then a second header would be corbelled at 1/3 of its width, this would get an overhang of approximately 2/3 the width of the initial wall (assuming the width of the wall is thickened to provide a cantilever effect. Architecture solved a lot of these by mixing corbelling and jettying. Corbelling permits you to gain ~2/3 of your wall width in overhang when done optimally. So with a 1' thick wall, you can gain 8" of overhang, which admittedly in house construction isn't much. The interesting thing here, is when you put a jetty on it (which relies on the cantilever principle) you've extended the cantilever distance you can get without compromising the structural strength, why is this interesting? Well your original 8" overhang on a masonry wall might have gained you a 1'6" total extra length on your upper level. Now if your longest available lumber is ~24' long. You safely gain a jetty of 1/6th the lumber length, meaning 4'. In combination, you just gained ~9'6" of length and width to your upper level. So with a 40' x 40' main floor, 1600sqft, and with a 49'6" x 49'6" second floor, you get 2450sqft second floor. With your initial brick corbelling you would only get an extra 120sqft. This is the main reason tudor style housing, with masonry main floors and timber second exploded in popularity in their era. Masonry was expensive, timber was cheap. However, timber was especially prone to rot and insect damage within the height range of rising damp. Tudor style allowed the best of timber construction (jettying) with the stability and longevity of masonry.