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Structures Summary
STRUCTURES SUMMARY
Emma Magnusson
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I have further understood the technical complexities surrounding the construction of a large structure, and the many aspects of the planning and design around it. Specifically how placing a structure underground might in some aspects be helpful / energy saving, in other aspects (e.g. lighting) can create problems. We worked together as a group of five people, creating a full design scheme for a building on Bedford Square, with programs including a lecture hall and a wood/metal workshop. It is the first time since starting architecture training to attempt designing every aspect of a building. Additional to ‘just’ designing a functional building, we also added the restrictions related to making the largest tree in the world grow inside of it, in a safe manner. Another challenge was working together as a larger group – through which I suppose I learned some kind of project management.
STRUCTURES SUMMARY
Hailey Zhang
In this year’s ETS: Master Class of structural behaviour, there are several subjects that we gained a further understanding on and I personally believe it would benefit the way how I consider architecture design with structure restriction or attraction involving. The subjects include long span structure design, construction and thermal and foundation design.
The most important subject that affects the later design, to me personally would be the long span design, where the depth of the span would affect the interiority significantly. The floor plate and the roof, in reality, could not be simply considered as a sheet of material - even if they are a thinshell structure like a vault, there are still limitations. The depth of the span associated with a lot of issues that have the potential to change the spatial quality and function, for example, skylight and occupiable space for different programmes.
Going further to our design to cooperate with the redwood, which is the most giant tree on the planet, we applied the knowledge of long-span structure on our new Hooke Park in Bedford Square. To prevent the depth of the span would take away space and natural lighting, we designed a masonry vault. The knowledge in the foundation lecture section helps us to find a possible way to cooperate with the redwood’s wide-spreading roots and make sure the building is stable. Apart from the vault and retaining walls, which are 2 fundamental elements of the design, we also introduced light wells, curved separation wall and concrete earth tube to achieve specific light, thermal and acoustic quality.
What I found peculiar about the course is that the way the glossary is taught and how they could be related to design. Instead of throwing out new terms and symbol that many people may have never known with and asking them to be inserted into formula, a more detail, clear lesson of these basic physics concepts could potentially be more useful.
STRUCTURES SUMMARY
In this technical studies course I have learnt about adapting to a new and foreign environment. We were given the Redwood tree, in which does naturally grow in the United Kingdom. In order to conduct our brief we have made a deep research about the conditions, technical system it requires as well as different methods to construct structures a long side such a tree. I was given the task of ventilating our structure, which is underground. In order to solve this technical issues I did a research in which I have learnt a lot about passive and sustainable ways of ventilating an underground building. My materials were timber and steel both very versatile and very commonly used in architecture yet, I did not had such a great understanding of the way the function and support one each other through complex systems. More than that, I learnt a lot about the relation between structures and their support, by practicing different calculations in order to stabilise and support the structure.
STRUCTURES SUMMARY
The structural principles covered in this course started with beams and columns in the art gallery exercice. In order to diversify our structure knowledge, we were then asked to developed a structural scheme design for a university based in Bedford Square. For this exercice, I’ve been using concrete as requested by my tutor Ciaran. This specific material, allowed me to learn different structure type such as, retaining wall, self supported slabs and shear walls. The next step of the university exercice, allowed me to have a deeper look into the foundation of a building of a multistory building.
The arboretum exercice, due to our underground design, brought a better and deeper understanding of retaining walls, how to bring light in undergroud spaces (skylight) and, in my case, to learn about the notion of acoustic. Finally, the vault introduced in our design allowed to understand how the load are transfered on a specif structureand how to deal with the intersection of different structure type (vault/retaining wall).
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