Week 8 studio journal

Constructing Environment Week 8, studio journal Jianpeng Deng, 657598 This week, e-­‐learning section is mainly about openings in structures and the property of glasses. As it is also discussed during studio section, openings provide access between two spaces that allows lights, views and especially people to walk through etc. Openings are divided into two categories, windows and doors; speaking of door, there are exterior door and interior door, “exterior doors should provide weathertight seals when closed and maintain the approximate thermal insulation value of the exterior walls they penetrate.”

(Ching, 2008, Pg. 8.02) Also, door types are of variety, such as, swinging door, bypass sliding door and folding door. On the other hand, windows are much alike as doors, different types of windows achieve ventilating differently; for example, fixed windows produce 0% ventilating whereas casement windows can produce 100% of it. In addition, we also discuss the details about openings, such as mullion, spandrel and sash.

Glass is another emphasis that is a material widely used in construction nowadays. An example of which is Wilson Hall in campus that the curtain wall is made of glasses. The focus is on flat glasses, to be more specific, it is float glass, laminated glass and tempered glass; float glass is standard window glass and the process involves a large bed of molten tin. Laminated glass consists of glass and plastic interlayer that makes it has an advantage of safety. Tempered glass is strong in the bending strength and the biggest advantage is the little fragments the glass will become when it breaks. Moreover, double-­‐glazing is also discussed in the video as well as during the studio class, that double-­‐glazing simply means a window with two panes and a gap in between and the purpose of which is to reduce heat and noise transmission through the window.

Image 1 is the summary of the week’s topic.

Image 1

The activity for this week is to visit case-­‐study building and find assigned detail.

MSLE building is the building that I am assigned to as well as the specific part of the building is shown in the following images.

The blue-­‐line section is the one I take charge to find out the details about, material and structure etc.

Image 2-­‐ the footprint of MSLE building

This is the image of the tasks that other group members are working on.

Image 3

This image shows the task that I am assigned, the one at the bottom in blue-­‐line section. First of all, it clearly tells us that it is the rear part of the building structure.

Image 4

This image on the left shows the specific part of the real building, it will be referred back to illustrate the detail.

Simply it gives an idea of metal frame, transparent and white-­‐color glasses.

Image 5

The picture on the left is my 1:1 sketch of the assigned

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5

section; it is not drawn

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accurately as I am not a good sketcher.

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2

3

8

4 5

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Picture 1

“1” with an arrow to the thin sketch, it is vinyl floor finish that it is either tiles or just the painting on the floor, which is to protect and beautify the floor underneath.

“2” represents one of the important structures of building which is the concrete floor slab. As it refers back to the big drawing, it is new concrete slab added to the existing one.

“3”, I fail to find the information about it, but it seems important that it connects the floor and ceiling, also, there are dozen of it in the same section and regularly seen in drawings; therefore, it has to be strong enough to hold the ceiling underneath. I guess maybe there is a light bulb in it.

“4” is flush jointed plasterboard ceiling that the purpose is to provide a better looking as well as other systems (light, smoking detector etc.) so that we don't see the concrete floor at the top directly; also, it in some ways blocks dirt and moisture to the floor above. See the image in the following that shows the ceiling in real building.

Image 6

“5” represents two window framing, to my observe and also refer to Image 6 above, that the window framing is made of aluminum; the benefits of which are to reduces carbon footprint, long durability and low maintenance etc.

“6” represents two joints that holding a spandrel in between, it is complicated as apart from the ingredients that clamping the glasses and spandrel, there are also a rectangular shape with a cross inside stands for timber; moreover, it is made a draining hole that when rainwater leaks in, it will then flow down and out.

“7” is the spandrel which is a white color glass (refer to Image 5), cover the construction that is not good in viewing it, in this case, it would be the concrete floor slab and so on. Besides that, it acts just like glass preventing moisture, rainwater etc. (this spandrel should look straight)

“8” refers to the shadowline which is a line that separate glasses and ceiling, so that it facilitate the cleaning method in both of them and makes it easier to uninstall any one of them without the other.