Week 1 Introduction to Construction

Part 1 Knowledge Map

Materials:need to consider strength, stiffness, shape, material behaviours, economy and sustainabilityConstruction System

• Materials• Force• Load path• Beam

Force: any influence that produces a change in the shape or movement of a body, which has both magnitude and directions.

Tension:When an external load pulls on a structural member, the particles composing the material move apart and undergo tension.

Compression:When an external load pushes on a structural member, the particles of the material compact together.

Load path• Dead Load: static loads acting

vertically downward on a structure

• Live Load: including any moving or movable loads on a structure resulting from occupancy

• loads take the most direct routes to the ground

Beam:rigid structural members designed to carry and transfer transverse loads across space to supporting elements

The cylinder shape was chosen as it did not have any sharp corners, which made the tower more stable and can, to some extent, bear dynamic loads such as wind loads. The MDFs were to be stacked one by one to achieve a higher stability.

When this tower was built, the MDFs (medium-density fibreboard) was stacked horizontally in order to increase the stability of tower because the base needed to be stable if it was very tall . During the building process, we found that stacking the MDFs this way was material consuming and not efficient, then we decided to stack them on the shorter side so as to increase the height by using the same amount of material. We also made a hole in the middle of the tower, which was just enough to put in the dinosaur. By the end of the studio session, the tower was not very high (as shown on the right). It could be due to the inefficient use of the material. In other words, the cylinder can be made smaller to be higher. During the deconstruction process, some of the MDFs can be pulled out without causing the entire tower to collapse due to the compression forces. The MDFs on the top put their loads towards those under them. Therefore, without some MDFs, the tower can still stand.

References

Ching, F 2008, Building construction illustrated, Wiley, New Jersey.

Newton, C 2014, Introduction to construction, University of Melbourne, viewed 14 March 2014, ! https://issuu.com/envs10003/docs/week_01_guide/2?e=8943534/6989973