Week 7 Journal‘OFF Campus”

This week we toured a high rise apartment complex off Elizabeth street.The construction was completed by Maxstra and all structural systems had already been constructed. The work being completed whilst we visited the site was mostly mechanical work and some plastering taking place on the upper floors.

The footing system used for the building was a pile system. Piles transfer building loads down to a deeper stratum that can provide the strength required for a stable building (Ching).

On the ground floor there was mechanical works for the building the pipes were for sewerage, hot water, and ducted heating. Many pipes were hanging from the concrete soffit which was poured in situ as the floor for the first storey. The PVC pipes were for the sewerage, copper pipes for hot water and the steel pipe as a duct for heating and cooling.

The concrete block wall is only used on the ground floor as mass construction is heavy and further weight would mean greater foundations are required to support a greater dead load.

On the first floor most finishing had been done, the plaster used in the residences was red which meant it was fire checked. The plaster was at 60 which meant a fire would take 60 minutes to burn through that line of the building. The pipe protruding from this wall is for the air conditioning.

To gain further understanding of the structural systems we took the lift to the upper floor. All steel frame structure was showing and plaster was only beginning to be installed. The primary structure was steel beams and trusses which connected to steel columns. The secondary structure was light weight steel frame and C section purlins. The steel studs did not require noggins because they have no tendency to buckle compared to timber. In the picture below amongst the steel frames is flexiduct for mechanical works, it is interspersed with steel pipe because flexiduct cannot run for more than 5 metres.

The exterior walls of the building were made of precast concrete panels. That were lifted by the crane situated in the middle of the building. These panels were also used to attach steel studs to which act as a furring before the plasterboards can be connected. The concrete floors were not precast, they were poured in situ to be 200mm deep. The concrete was poured on ply board formwork which was supported with timber joists and steel props. When the concrete set, all formwork was able to be removed.

The site manager allowed for us to observe the roof system from the scaffold. The system used was a skillion roof at 2 degrees with box gutters. The corrugations in the roof were large because of the small pitch. If the corrugations were small they would fill to quickly as the runoff is slower because of the small angle. On the outside of the gutter we observed a box with a hole in it. The holes purpose was to release any water in heavy rainfall.