Week 1 1. Construction Overview by Clare Newton Key idea of the subject: How do design ideas get translated into the built form. -Structure principles: the way the building are supported how loads are transported to the ground -Material properties: the price how to construct the building (different in different cities and climates) -Labor: who does what Learn through -experimentation -observation 2. Introduction to Materials by Clare Newton -Strength: strong - steel weak - timber -Stiffness: stiff, flexible, stretchy or floppy -Shape: mono-dimensional (linear), bi-dimensional (planar) or tridimensional (volumetric) -Material Behaviors: isotopic or anisotropic -Economy -Sustainability 3. Basic structure forces According to Clare Newton A FORCE is any influence that produces a change in the shape or movement of a body
-Tension Forces When an external load pulls on a structural member,the particles composing the material move apart and undergo tension.Tension forces stretch and elongate the material.
-Compression Forces A compression force produces the opposite effect of a tension force. When an external load pushes on a structural member, the particles of the material compact together.
4. Melbourne's Bluestone According to Dr Margaret Grose 'Walking the constructed City' Natural environment to Cultural environment Blue stone = basalt (from volcanos north and northwest to Melbourne) Sydney = sandstone Perth = clay bricks and limestone Damage to the bluestones (lava, wheels, modern vehicles) The road level changes because people need use modern vehicles Bluestone is hard - be used to build a foundation of a building Marble of the State Library - from other places Landscape is the fundamental background to the constructed city. 5. Loads path diagrams According to Clare Newton Dead loads: permanent loads Live loads: loads which could move
Tutorial Task 1.Build a tower as high as possible by using little bricks 2.The tower should be able to accommodate a little toy deer.
At first we build the foundation like a square and there is no spare space between bricks. To improve the efficiency of the materials. We decide leave a half-brick space between each bricks.
As we need to create a 'gate', we gave up the thought that to make the tower in the shape of cylinder and we used a cuboid instead for we could use the sticks to make the gate. Before we built our tower which is shown in the pictures, we just used sticks at one side to make the gate, but we found that it can not be the same height then we decided to use sticks at all the four sides so that we can make it more stable. Unfortunately, we did not have enough bricks to make the tower higher but we did believe that we could make the highest tower in our studio group.
Compared with other students' works. I really like the tower shown upon, they built the tower in a cylinder and they just used bricks to build a cylinder and then removed some bricks at the bottom so they can easily got a gate. Knowledge Map:
Week 2 1. Structural Systems According to Clare Newton -Solid structure - pyramids, the Great Wall (mostly compression,arches efficient) -Surface structure - Sydney opera house -Skeletal(frame) structure - Eiffel Tower -Membrane structure - efficient and cheap -Hybrid structure - Swimming Cube, Bird's Nest (New in history,efficiently,economically and quickly) 2. Construction Systems According to Clare Newton -Enclosure Systems -Structural Systems -Service Systems To differentiate the systems and structure -Performance requirements -Aesthetic qualities -Economic efficiencies -Environmental impacts
3. Environmentally Sustainable Design Consideration
4. Structural Joints Roller joints
Pin joint
Fixed joints
Tutorial Task Use thin pieces of balsa wood to build a tower as high as possible. The tower need to be able to support a Tape. When we built this tower, we came out a great idea that we could built the tower in a triangular prism and to make it higher, we could built a smaller triangular prism inside the bigger one, just as the picture shows below. The reason was that the triangle is more stable than circle and square.
And when we fixed the underside of the tower, we used the way in this picture ,the dots were nails.
I think it is a great idea if we could finish our work it must be amazing. However, unluckily, the tower was broken by one of our group members while we building it.