ENVS10003 Studio Journal Week 8 Christian Virgona – 641276 This weeks tutorial was conducted as a workshop with Hamish, in groups, the obective was to construct a structure 400mm high with a 1 meter span which would be able to withstand the greatest weight. At first, our group thought that it would be wise to develop a truss-like structure. A struss is a structural frame based on the geometric rigidity of the triangle, this would allow for structural members to only be subject to axial tension or compression (Ching 2008 pp. 2.16)

We began by cutting our span but we realised that this form of structure would not be effective considering our time frame and the fact that we would have to cut angles on the wood. Therefore we adopted a more simplistic, yet effective approach. We would have the same measurements for our span but we would have 12, vertical columns that would hold the structure together. We began by drilling holes (figure 2) into our base wood, these holes would then be fitted with screws which would connect our columns into our base. Figure 3 shows the development of our structure once

we had screwed in our columns. Our columns were not all exactly level, but it did not matter because we knew that through compression and tension the top layer of wood would bend under load which meant that all columns would be supporting weight. We chose to use screws instead of nails because the screws could be drilled in tigher and because of their threaded shafts, screws have reater holding power than nails (Ching 2008)

Fig 1. – Truss- Design by our group

Fig 2 – Drilling to fit screws

Figure 3 – Columns screwed into our top layer.

We then quickly began to screw the bottom side of our columns, this would further strengthen our structure (Figure 4). Once this was done we were quite confident in our structure (to the point where Warwick could easily stand on it). But we had a sheet of plywood that had not been used. From Glenn and I’s experience we knew that plywood is used to brace wooden frames on construction sites, so after we had screwed our columns, we hammered in our plywood using nails to connect them. Our structure ended up holding the most weight (600+ kilos) and we were quite impressed because when our structure broke, it broke around the screw which is generally what occurs when a structure is put under too much weight

The second aspect of our tutorial was to draw a section of the building we have been studying to scale on an A1 sheet of paper, whilst this was incredibly tedious, it meant that we were able to comprehend the overall size of something. For me I had to do the

Fig 4 – Screwing into the base layer

Fig 5 – Finished Product

framing of a window in the MLSE building and I began to understand how many different structural parts contribute to a window frame.

Fig 6 – Section Detail On Plans Fig 7 – Drawing Boards Fig 8 – Final Drawing

References:

• Ching F. (2008) Building Construction Illustrated, Fourth Edition, John Wiley & Sons, New Jersey