Resolving design issues

image of my resolved roof

With my design for the major assignment that greatest problem I had to resolve was with the roof to wall area.The above image shows my final design.When connecting the UC to the UB and adjoining roof features I was left with large gap,which could easily let water and wind in.Thus some sort of fascia board needed to be fastened onto the UC to close the gap.Instead I opted to replace a fascia board with a composite panel system such as Equitilt,which is a stressed skin sandwich panel with a prepainted colorbond steel skin laminated over a fire retardant treated expanded polystyrene core.Bondor who manufacture this product promise improved speed of installation without the hassle of precast or tilt up concrete systems.Furthermore Equitilt is lightweight and has great thermal insulation properties,which is why it is often used in cooling room applications.Equitilt is available in nominal thicknesses of 75,100,150,200 & 250mm.Cleats can be used to fix the panels to the structure.Pop rivets can be used to fasten the gutter straps onto the panels.Pre ordered cutouts can be made within the composite panels to accomodate and to not restrict steel connections to be made through as per usual without any restrictions

architectural application of Equitilt

Below is just an image of how the window will be fastened onto the UC using a steel angle

images of gutter straps

The image below shows a section of my model that depicts the first floor level floor.The large girter was bolted and welded to the UC.This ties the structure together and offers a fixing point to the UB that holds up the floor.Furthermore these girts can be designed and fabricated to order with steel plates welded onto them that provides a fixing point for the UB

Marketability of a building

The Cement & Concrete Association of Australia offers some interesting insight into effective construction and ongoing facilities management to ensure an efficient process in building design.For example inorder for a building to be marketable and hence successful it must be both aestheticaly pleasing and user friendly ie meeting requirements for access,adaptable and relatively column free to serve any owners/occupiers.Furthermore provisions should be made to either extend or create openings in a structure,which can often be simply achieved for example by removing say panels.

office/retail complex progress

Just a quick look into the very slow progress of an office/retail complex I visited earlier on this year.Roofing seems to be pretty much complete,downpipes are yet to be fixed into the box gutters.They have built up/boxed up a parapet to create a typical shopfront facade for ground floor, which will most likely form the retail section of the complex.It is most interesting how the partition wall frames have been fixed onto the ceiling rafters on the first floor.

facts on panel dimensions

Interestingly any factory precast panels tend to have a max width of around 3 metres,due to transporation limits placed on roads.600mm tends to form the minimum leg width of the panels

factory

This factory is the second i visited on Normandy drv.The business is primarily concerned with manufacturing.The structure adopts the typical portal frame structure -as has been previously described.However it is important to highlight the benefits of using clear fibrerglass sheeting in the roof to offer natural light.Clearly the greatest benefit of using it to me as opposed to glass is that manufacturing fibreglass involves a much less energy intensive procedure .In addition it can be easily installed and hence does not require glaziers and further offers a cost effective option.

My favorite site

I recently visited a relatively new yet established industrial estate in Sunshine.In particular I visited 2 factories on Normanby Drv.Below are photos of the first site I visited.The warehouse is used to mainly store pallets full of specialist mining equipment parts.This site found in fact most beneficial ,in particular when it came to dealing with the warehouse/office complex scenario which was presented to us in the major assignment.Again we see that consideration has been given to the requirements for transportation of goods,forklifts,pallet systems,security and appropriate levels of daylight.This building has been constructed using concrete panels,which we see increasingly being used for an entire range of buildings,whether the panels a pre-cast or cast on site.Moreover I liked the site as due to the warehouse being relatively small it was very easy to clearly see any typical steel to steel connections and features that could be associated with industrial design.The internal box gutter is particularly clear.Walls appear to be loadbearing as the loadbearing panel is carrying the rafters.Panels that are used as loadbearing tend to reduce overall cost due to the reduction in weight of any required structural steel work.However more roof bracing is required,but removing columns further only provides saviongs.For large panels,the joints between panels are generally located at rafter centres such that roof framing laterally supports both panels.As the permiter walls are located at the boundary alot of thought needs to be given to issues like the erection process,any base joint details,sealing of wall joints & flashings between buildings as work can only be completed from one side as adjacent buildings exist on the boundary.

maj ass submission

As the office complex is raised off the ground & sits on an external column it gives the impression that the structure is floating.The glass curtain walls used as cladding create a sense of transparency.