Week 01 Journal Lecture •
Brief descrip+on of the subject was introduced and the required assessments are also discussed. It was men+oned that this subject is focused on the materials and how they are used in the context of construc+on.
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Structural principles and the fabrics of natural and constructed environments would also be explored in this subject. We will develop the skills and knowledge in construc+on through the introduc+on of common materials and structures language and many guest speakers that will be invited from different fields within the industry for example architects, builders, engineers and developers etc
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We will also have the opportuni+es in tutorials and in assessment tasks to visit construc+on sites, to first-‐handedly experience what it’s like to work in the construc+on field and what process must be done in the construc+on of a building/structure.
Tutorial •
In the first tutorial, we spent most of the +me working on the ‘compression’ ac+vity, which required us to build a structure as tall as possible in groups of 3 to 4. I was allocated to a group of three and we all had a mutual agreement on that the base of our structure would be the key in building a tall and stable structure (tower) and we have trialed two different shaped bases: circular and square.
Constructing Environments 2013 Sem02 636903 Ka Wing Lee
Week 01 Journal Tutorial •
Then we discussed how we are going to build the body of the tower, and we all thought the method of compression with the bricks lying horizontally would allow us to build a stable tower since the surface area is rela+vely large compared to placing bricks ver+cally also the weight of each brick would be supported by the boOom bricks on the two sides.
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Since the task required the tower to be able to let a toy (our case, a dinosaur) have access into and out of the structure, therefore we had to build a doorway. We were not sure how to create a hole in such tower since it would possible cause the whole tower to collapse due to a part of the tower having no support to the base. In the mean+me we have also iden+fied a problem that we would face later on which was the roof, we were not certain if the top of the tower would meet at one point if we con+nued to stack bricks on top. Therefore one member suggested to build a roof that’s completely unaOached to the tower and place it on top of the tower in the end, I wasn’t sure about the prac+cability of this idea since the bricks in the middle of the roof would have no rigid support and would most likely collapse. But since this tower is quite a small-‐scale structure, I was not sure if my thoughts would be accurate, hence I did not disagree with her sugges+on.
Constructing Environments 2013 Sem02 636903 Ka Wing Lee
Week 01 Journal •
At this stage of the ac+vity, our group was basically ‘lost’ and feeling unsure about everything, and I suggested to test out the different structures that we were not sure of, this included whether the circular-‐ based structure and the square-‐based structure would have a point of intersec+on eventually. We then agreed to have one group member ‘just keep doing what we’re doing’, one member to try out the completely separated roof and me building small prototypes. This has led to a finding that the structure would narrow as we keep building up but due to gravita+on, the building would get unstable and might collapse if the en+re structure just keeps narrowing down. At this stage the roof was tested and it was not rigid enough to sit on top of the tower by itself with the mere support from its four sides. Therefore we have disregard the method of having a separated roof and decided to again, keep doing what we’re doing and see how it goes’.
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Lastly we have ran out of +me and couldn’t build a roof for our tower, we ended up tes+ng how much weight could be held by our tower and found that it could not only hold on to the thick textbook but also two boxes full of wooden bricks. We were also told that according to the physics of structure and forces, the structure of the tower we built would be able to hold up many more boxes without collapsing. Also our group did not have the smoothest building experience in this ac+vity but I have learnt to trial different design and structural ideas, as I believe I would learn a lot more through mistakes than success.
Constructing Environments 2013 Sem02 636903 Ka Wing Lee
Week 01 Journal Tutorial •
The tallest tower was built by another group of three; their design did not keep narrowing down but was in a curvy shape. I believe this would enable them to ignore the gravita+on issue that was discussed earlier on as the weight of the tower was evenly distributed in all areas of the tower, making it stable and able to achieve the height at the same +me. I also discovered that three out of the four groups used the same brick laying method, which indicates that this method enables the structure to be extremely stable.
Constructing Environments 2013 Sem02 636903 Ka Wing Lee