Week 5 constructing environment studio journal

Constructing environment Week 5 studio journal Jianpeng Deng, 657598 This week, the videos that on the e-learning section mainly focuses on the specific construction material - timber. There are few things to notice about; first, it is the physical characteristic of timber that there are grains in timber, imagine the grains are a sheaf of straws, timber is particularly strong/stiff when parallel to grains; however, it is weak when perpendicular to grains. Secondly, heartwood are not used as timber for structure purpose, this is because there is less no growth ring in heartwood, which makes it weak. Another important thing about timber is seasoning; it is a critical process for timbers that remove most of water from them and leaving about 15% water in them. Too much water or too dry of timbers would weaken them so much, that moisture content would cause rot in them and dryness would cause them crack easily. On the other hand, there are quite a number of downsides about timbers; such as weathering, fire, chemical and termite, these are common problems that happen on them. Therefore, protections are required to do on timber, for example, isolating timber from insect by leaving them above from the ground.

Besides, an activity paper about structural concept that is given is to understand deeper about the building assigned to each group. The building that I am working on is MSLE building. It is an extensional building between two structures, a further information will be provided in the next few pages.