Week 4 JournalConstructing Environment634 066 Cheuk Sing Cheung

Week 4 - Timber workshop and Introduction to working drawings

Week 4 consist of 2 component, the timber workshop and the drawings analysis. While timber workshop

gives us a more practical sense of construction and intro-duction to working drawings shows us the industrial stand-ard drawings and also to get familiar with the basic con-cepts and codes used in construction drawings.

Week 4 - Timber workshop

In the timber workshop, we are asked to use particular set of materials to

build a bridge to resist a point load. It is a really useful exercise as this can let us try out the structural concept learnt from previous lectures and tuto-rials.

Material strengths and weaknesses

However, for any materials, there are strengths and weaknesses,

which is critical when dealing with ac-tual construction as materials are the fundamental elements for a construc-tion. For example, the photo shows the knot of one of the wood beam, this is a weakness of wood which will be considered when designing the bridge.

Week 4 - Timber workshop

Designs

Design is problem solving. The agen-da for this little project is to build a

bridge with series set of woods, which are to be subjected to a point load. Several designs are made by different groups, and it is critical, maybe hav-ing the same materials but one design can be several times stronger than the other. As designs for such bridge are mostly deal with dividing and transfer-ring the load.

The top one is stacking of 3 wood beams with 2 sheets of ply wood

aside; the left one is two long wood beams on top and bottom, short wood beams on one side and a sheet of ply wood on the other side; right one is also two long wood beams on top and bot-tom, with ply woods on the sides; the bottom one is using ply wood as the top and bottom part, and wood beam as the support component.

Week 4 - Timber workshop

Flaws

Each designs are subject to a point load. The fracture reason for each

design is different, and it is also impor-tant to analysis how it fracture as it helps us to understand the principals behind that.

On the previous page: the top design is fracture because the ply

wood fails when loads apply as there were too much pins on it, however as the middle part didn’t subject to any joint, it appears to be the most elas-tic member which holds the structure together with not much failure in the end. The left design I think is placed in a wrong direction, it should be placed as portrait instead of landscape as that provides more supports. The right design is due to failure of wood beam and also on the pin joint of woods. The bottom one is due to failure of ply wood.

Week 4 - Introduction to working drawings

Throughout the studio we are asked to have a look on the working drawings of buildings

and also fill in the exercise given to us. This exercise help us greatly in the future because such codes and symbols are universal.

Reference

Boag, W 2005, Centre for Theology and Ministry/Joint THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY ORMOND COLLEGE, drawings, viewed 7 Sep 2013Ching, F 2011, Building Construction illustrated (fourth edition), John Wiley & Sons, Canada.