Constructing Journal <Week 1>

Juexin Kong (Starry) 625254 Tutorial 1

Tutorial Activities

!e purpose of the activity was using blocks to build the tower as high as pos-sible, therefore we used triangle shape as the foundation of tower. !e extended parts in two sides of the corner are the way to diperse the force that taking by the triangular sides.

A"er the tower reached some height, we changed the orientation of blocks and also moved the medial blocks away to decrease the perimeter of the wall.

Top view of the foundation

Side view of the foundation wall

!e wall was aranged alternately no matter in horizontal direction or vi-ertical direction. !is arrangement can disperse the forces that apply to the walls.

We changed the shape of the tower in the middle of the process, which from the original triangle to the ellipse. !e perimeter of the tower were continuig decreasing. !e tower was still stable so far.

We started to build a little hole to accomondate the toy dog in the middle of the tower. We inserted four sticks that two parallel to eaach other into the gap of wall, and put blocks on the sticks. !en we built the wall arround the hole, until the wall joined together in the upper layers.

We decreased the pe-rimeter of the wall a"er it joined together, and this shape was kept until it #nished.

!e picture beside is the #nal tower we made. It could be seen that the tower could be divided into three parts.

Triangle foundation

Ellipse body with hole

Long round top

A"erwardss, we did more test of tower’s stability. We put the plastic boxes on the top of the tower. !e important point to put more boxes is that the centre of gravity core of each box need to #t the top centre of the tower.

At last, the tower could supported three plastic boxes, one paper box and one toy dog.

Finaly the tower fell down. From the remains, we could #nd out that the foundation of the tower was stable because it did not break up and still remained.

Also, from the distribution of the fallen blocks, it could be recognized that the direction of collapsing of the tower was opposite to the hole, which means the blocks above the hole supported less forces than other parts of blocks.

!e foundation of the tower was stable maybe bea-cause of the triangular shape. However, the shape was changed to curve during the process, which means the way of bearing forces had been changed by the walls, and the stability of the tower was decreased. Moreover, there was a hole on the middle of the body, which weaken the ability of bearing forces of the wall.

NOTE

POST & BEAM

Not structurally stable when multi stacked

EVENLY DISTRIBUTED LOAD POINT LOAD

Constructing Journal <Week 2>

Juexin Kong (Starry) 625254 Tutorial 1

Lecture Notes

Referencing structural systems: Graviry - vertical forces Wind Water Seismic - lateral forces

Natural structures:

Animal structure Plants structure

Stability

!e parallelogram is not a stable shape. !e deformation will happen on the direction of the resultant force, where the diagonal is.

Instead, we add a fram on the diagonal to bear the force in that direction, thus the structure becomes more stable.

Tutorial Activities!e activity of this week was using balsa wood sticks to build a tower as high as possible. We cut the sticks into about 20cm.

!is was the original foundation of tower we made, which was a cubic structure. A"er the structure is applied a force, the forces will be transmit by columns, then dispersd by the beams on the ground before it applys to the ground.

However we changed the structure of the foundation, which decreased the lower beams. !is made the struc-ture become less stable than the cubic one, as the force would be transmited directly from columns to the ground. !e area of thrust surface is signi#cantly small.

upside-down foundation

Upside-down foundation

!e arrangement of the balsa wood sticks is shown beside, which two parallel sticks are piling up to the other two sticks.

!e force will be dispersed from upper beams to the lower beams a"er apply a force. Finally, the foece goes to the ground.

!e connection of the sticks formed the Butt Joints. !e heads of three sticks were all joined collinearly by glue. !is structure could transmit the forces to all connected sticks.

For reinforcing the stability and the ability of bearing forces, we added the braces on two opposite sides of the foundation. !e brace was placed on the connecting point of two sticks in isosceles triangulat shape.

Structure without braces Structure with braces

When applying a vertical force to the structure, the middle part of beam is bearing most of the forces and bent downward.

A"er added the braces, the force will be dispersed through the braces to the columns, which will be a more stable structure.

As the feet were not in a plane, we #lled up with wood bricks to increase the sta-bility.

As we ran out of time, we did not build the tower as high as possible. Only three layer were built.

From the second layers, the structure became the pure cubic shape with out the brace.

From the image, it could be recognized that the tower was a little unstabile in the second layer, as the columns in the second layer were not collinear with the foundation.

!e tower would fall in the direction that the arrow shows if we apply a vertical force. !e structure would be easy a"ected by lateral force.

Vignettes - V1

Column and Wall

!is is an example of ‘column and wall’. !e columns and wall are combined together by the arch, which shows e"ects such as from public to private, light to dark and light to heavy.

Point and Plane

Point Line

Volume Plane

!e diagrams shows the progress that from point to volume, which from 1D to 3D.

Application of ReadingsIn this case of study, according to Ching (2008), the timber frame braced with diagonal members is called Braced Frame, which is shown in the image below. !e brace can carry both vertical gravity and lateral forces.

!ere are several kinds of brace, and this struc-ture is belonging to the knee bracing. Besides, there are also K-brace, cross bracing as well as cable bracing.

!e following images analysises the forces that bearing by dif-ferent kinds of braces when applying a lateral force.

Knee beracing K-brace

Corss bracing Cable cracing

Reference

Ching, F. (2008). Building construction illustrated. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Constructing Journal <Week 3>

Juexin Kong (Starry) 525254 Tutorial 1

Site Visit

Eastern Precint Student Centre

Outside the ERC Inside the ERC

Cantilever

!is building are two cantile-vers joined together to make the roof. Cantilever is the structure that has "xed sup-port at only one end (Vassigh, 2008).

One of the most improtant materials of the ceiling is glass, which allow the sunligh go into the room and increase the lightness.

Maximum bending stresses

Relevant building

Denver Art Museum

!is is the Denver Art Museum, the Frederic C. Hamilton Building by the Studio Daniel Libes-kind, which opened in 2006 (Gangal, 2012). One of the most obvious structures is the cantilever

(Bitter, 2012)

Msle Building

Le! "e building Right

!is site was focus on the building in the middle that links the other two buildings.

Le!

Material: Red brick

!e image on the le" hand side shows that the bricks have di#erent length and arranged alternately no matter in horizontal direction or vertical direction. !is arrangment can reinforce the structure by dispersing forces.

Right

Materials: Brick & Concrete

!e building on the right hand side image is not having the straight structure. !e wall combined brick and concrete materials.

!e Building

Materials: Steel, Zinc, Robber & Copper

!e building has the similar structure with the building on right hand side. !e materi-als of this building are including steel, which increase the strength of the wall. Besides, te rubber, zinc and copper can protect the wall from weathering or corroding. !e structural system is belonging to frame.

!e image on the right hand side shows the structure of cantilever inside the building. !e span of the cantilever is the wall of the le" hand side building. !e room is much lighter because of the glass that using a lot.

Ormond !eology Centre Reception

Materials: cladding-copper

Originally the surface shined at the beginning, because the copper will be ox-ideized by oxygent, therefore it will become green over a period. !e surface shows the e"ect of transparentcy because of the mash.

Mash on copper-surface

!e wall that made of stone shows the maonry technic.

!e inside wall is made of concrete, and the holes on the wall can be seen clear-ly, which arrange in order.

Column inside the build-ing to increase the ability of bearing forces.

Timber matiral inside the building.

References

Vassigh, S. (2008). Interactive Structures. [DVD]. America: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Gangal, S. (2012). Extension to the Denver Art Museum, Frederic C. Hamilton Building in Colorado by Studio Dan-iel Libeskind. [On-line]. Available: http://www10.aeccafe.com/blogs/arch-showcase/2012/04/19/extension-to-the-den-ver-art-museum-frederic-c-hamilton-building-in-colorado-by-studio-daniel-libeskind/

BitterBredt, C. (2012). DAM’s Enormous Cantilever Hovers over the Street. [On-line]. Available: http://www10.aeccafe.com/blogs/arch-showcase/2012/04/19/extension-to-the-denver-art-museum-frederic-c-hamilton-building-in-colora-do-by-studio-daniel-libeskind/dams-enormous-cantilever-hovers-over-the-street-cbitterbredt/