Knowledge map week one
Key idea of the subject: how the design idea gets translated into the build form.
Materials • Strength—strength property, strong or weak: for example, steel is
stronger material, and it is strong in both compression and tension.
• Stiffness—stiff, flexible, stretchy or floppy: for example, carpets and
robbers are not stiff but flexible materials, and concrete is stiff material.
• Shape—mono-dimensional (linear), bi-dimensional (planar) or
tridimensional (volumetric): planar shape—sheet mental, volumetric
shape—brick and concrete
• Material behavior—isotropic or anisotropic: isotropic materials display
similar characteristics no matter which direction the force is applied
• Economy&Sustainability—include the price of the material, availability,
impact on the environment, transport of the material and its efficiency.
Basic structural forces Force: is any influence that produces a change in the shape or movement of a
body.
Tension forces: external load pulls on a structural member
Compression forces: produces the opposite effect of a tension force
load paths
Two types of loads need to be supported by structural system.
Static loads: are assumed to be applied slowly to a structure until it
reaches its peak value without fluctuating rapidly in magnitude or
position.
• Live loads: a variable weight on a structure.
o Occupancy loads: the weight of people, furniture, stored
material, and other similar items in a building.
o Snow loads: the weight of snow.
o Rain loads: the weight of water on a roof.
• Dead loads: the constant load on a structure due to the weight of
the supported structure itself. • Settlement loads: are imposed on a structure by subsidence of a
portion of the supporting soil and the resulting differential
settlement of its foundation.
o Ground loads
o Water pressure
o Thermal pressure
• Impact loads: kinetic loads of short duration due to moving
vehicles, equipment, and machinery.
Dynamic loads: applied suddenly to a structure, often with rapid
changes in magnitude and point of application.
• Wind loads
Wind exerts both positive
and negative pressure of a
house.
• Earthquake load
Our tower’s arrangement is like
brickwork bonding building in
circle, overlapping between courses
in order to distributethe imposed
load. This kind of structure provides
stability of the tower.
The tower is also taper-like, for the
lowest bricks have to bear the
combined load of everything above
them, we have more bricks on the
lowest layer to distribute the load.
The bricks are lapped over each other in successive courses, in order
to distribute imposed loading.
Avoid straight joints
whichconsiderably weaken the wall. The
loads only applied on each row if the
bricks.
Load paths
When we took away some of the bricks
to build an arch, the tower was still
stable. Then we have two “columns” to
transfer the load of the structure to the
ground.
Other groups’ towers are all based on “stretcher bond” brickwork,
because not only it is stable but also it use the bricks efficiently.
Knowledge Map week two
Structural systems • Solid
• Surface
• Frame
• Skeletal
• Membrane
• Hybrid
Construction systems
• Structural system: columns beams and loadbearing walls
• Enclosure system: shell or envelop of a building, consisting of the roof,
exterior wall, windows and doors.
• Mechanical system: provides essential services to a building such as
the water supply system, the sewage system, heating, ventilating and air-
conditioning system, electric system, vertical transportation system, fire-
fighting system and waste disposal and recycling system.
The factors should be taken into account:
• Performance requirement
• Aesthetic qualities: about proportion, color, surface qualities
• Regulatory constraints
• Environmental impacts:embodied energy associated with materials:
efficiency of materials in terms of moderating our environment.
• Construction practice
• Economic efficiency: make the building affordable
o Initial cost of the building
o Life cycle costing: include longevity of the material
and how well the building performs to create comfort without air-
conditioning for example.
Structural joints Roller joints
Pin joints
Fixed joints
Environmental Sustainable Design (ESD) and selecting materials Some important concept:
Embodied energy: the total energy (oil, water, power) that goes into
construction and operation of buildings.
Recycle Reuse and Reduce
Carbon footprint: the total sets of greenhouse gas emission.
Some materials have positive carbon footprint
impact: hardwood, softwood, sandstone, clay, plywood, concrete etc.
ESD stratgies
• Local materials
• Material efficiency
• Thermal mass
• Night air purging
• Solar energy
• Wind energy
• Cross ventilation
• Smart sun design
• Insulation
• Water harvesting
Reflection: in my opinion, the sustainable site design and waste classification
system should also be included in the strategies. It is necessary to consider of the
interaction between house and its neighborhood and environment.
Lecture activity: hold a box with a few straws and pins and make it as stable as
possible.
The pattern that each when we add another
straw is fastened by pin, the joints are
one pin is the most stable, because the
unstable one. Because two pins not allow the
pin joint allow free straw to spin. But it is
rotation at the pin, so still not stable enough.
it is not stable.
But if we add two cross straws to reinforce the
four legs. It will be more stable, because the two
cross straws prevent the movement of the four
legs.
The foundation of
our balsa tower is
a triangular prism.
Triangle is stable
structure, so it is
more stable than
rectangular prism.
The upper part of
the frame is not
reasonable, the
hour-glass-like
structure could
stand just because
of the light
material.
Basically, the three columns hold the whole load of the tower. So when we break
the beams of the structure, the tower still could stand.
The slant beams is to prevent
the movement
of the frame. The frame
could stand without these
slant beams, but they make
it more stable.
The joints of the frame are
rigid joints which is not
flexible and allow the loads
from different direction.