Week 7

This week our tutorial took place at two separate sites. These sites were large

scale constructions that were at different stages of the construction process.

The first site visited was at the initial stages of the construction process. The

site was still being excavated during this stage. The first structural element that

was noticeable was the side wall, which were being developed. These walls

would be dug into the side of the footpath, with supporting columns.

However, this would make the footpath unstable. So the walls would be shock-

creted. This is where concrete is sprayed onto the vertical surface at high

velocity, therefore allowing the concrete to stick to the vertical wall without

sliding down. The sides would first be reinforced with steel sheets before the

shock crete is applied.

What was also interesting to find out about this site was that the supporting

walls needed to be held by cables which where anchored into the ground to

prevent the supporting walls from falling over due to lateral forces. We can

see, painted on the walls, where these anchoring cables would be placed.

The second site visited was much more developed than the first site. The

frame of the building was in place and the builders where attaching the

plasterboard to the inside walls when we arrived. The majority of the walls in

the lower levels are predominantly precast concrete panels.

Similar to the previous site, there was supporting walls dug into the ground.

These were visible from the underground car parks. However, in this project

they were near complete and had already had shock crete applied.

What was interesting about this building is that it was a multi-story facility for

elderly people. This is uncommon as it is difficult to house elderly people in

multi-story apartments due to the physical limitations of these people and the

stairs and other footways involved.

Due to this, many precautions had to be taken when developing the rooms. For

example, the showers had to be level with the bathroom floor, as to avoid a

step into the shower. Also there had to be hand rails attached to the ceilings to

assist the elderly to get up from a lying position.

As we moved along the building there were a lot of a features that weren’t

particularly noticeable on a finished building, that we could see on this

structure. In particular, we saw different coloured plasterboard being erected.

On a finished building it would be near impossible to tell, but each coloured

plasterboard sheet represented a different feature. White plasterboard was

the standard wall. Blue was a waterproof plasterboard, usually found in

bathrooms or around water fittings, and red was a fire resistant board. This red

board is found in this multi-story building because if there was a fire, the red

board will stop the fire from spreading too quickly and allow the occupants

enough time to escape via the fire exits.

Alongside all these features there were some common structural features as

well, such as a false hanging ceiling. This is when the ceiling that will have the

finished plasterboard on it, is not actually the ceiling of the structure, but

rather hangs off the true ceiling. This is to allow wires and pipes to travel under

the ceiling, without being visible.

This site was very interesting as it is a multi-story complex for elderly people

which is very uncommon. I found out a lot about the structural elements of a

building by looking at this site and I could see more than just the elements that

are visible when the building is finished.