- Roof materials Selection of roof materials based on the structure and materials’ characteristic of walls and foundation, also needs to follow the climatic and temperature conditions in local. The purposed building located in tropical zone, the most important consideration in design stage is heat dissipation and ventilation. Besides, due to the material selected for walls is brick, we would like to reduce the weight of roof as much as possible for matching up the load-bearing capacity of brick walls. Timber structure covered by aluminium sheets is the combination we select for roof. The timber type for the structure is pine. Although pine is not the main species of plants in local, it is common on local timber market and the price is lower than precious timber produced in local. Besides, lumber is another available option. Lumber is the timber recycled from old building, furniture or other woodwork. Effective utilization of lumber can reduce deforestation and control desertification . In terms of roof sheet, our choice is aluminium. Aluminium is a lightweight material with good ductility and heat dissipation performance. Under the same volume, weight of aluminium is only one-third of iron or steel. In addition, good ductility makes it easier to satisfy the requirements of different kinds of construction project. Therefore, it is popular in Senegal and many other African regions.
3.2 Construction Process Construction process of the women house is similar to the detached houses in local. It can be divided into five main steps: site clearing, foundation construction, wall&column construction, roof construction and landscape construction. -
Site clearing: The site needs to be cleaned up in order to eliminate obstructions that might affect construction process before construction works start. According to the Standard Method of Measuring Building Work in Africa, Site clearance work includes Digging up and removal of rubbish, debris, hedges, shrubs and trees not exceeding 200mm girth. -
Foundation construction: The foundation type we selected for the purposed building is concrete strip footing. The concrete strip footing consists of three components: concrete casting layer, brickwork and ground beams. The first step is trench excavation. For a single-storey building, the depth of foundation trenches needs to reach 0.8m at least. Position of trenches shall be coincident with walls on the architectural drawings because the footings are used for supporting walls and transferring load from walls to the ground. According to the regulation of construction standard method in Africa, excavated material should be set within 100m from the perimeter of the excavations for use as filling and landscape construction.
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