Major Project

there are some of my final drawings and renders for my warehouse design. it comprises of a composite floor system supported by post and beams. precast concrete panels are used for the part of the walls and curved roof, poly-carbonate is also used in the non-load baring walls which not only allows light in but also is impact resistant. it also has a green roof which can be accessed from the office area, this visually enhances the view from the office as well as providing a nice out door area that can be used by workers, for example. it also makes the building more environmentally friendly and act as insulation. the vegetaion system used is ultra-light weight to minimise the size of the structural members needed to support such a system.

CONSTRUCTION SITE VISIT

i was unable to visit my last site again due to the distance away from me and the business of this last week. i do plan on going their once it opens to have a look at the completed building. i would have like to go now but the CM i have contact with has changed sites and so i am unable to get on site again.





so for my last construction site visit (since i thought my last one could not really be counted) was to the building across the road of uni.





Location: Brougham Street Geelong


Building: TAC building

the top picture was taken when we went on the site visit to the woodshed site visit while the others were taken just the other day. we have been watching this building go up for some time and were lucky enough to see a precast concrete panel being lifted into place. this building also contains a composite floor structure which second image. the upper floor in the image show the floor still supported by the false work while in the lower floors the false work has already been removed leaving the bondek. it also shows precast concrete columns and panels which are used in conjunction with other material. also while we were there the was concrete being pumped into the building we were unable to see exactly where the concrete was going to however it was interesting to see how so many different things were going on at once independent from each other.

Site Visit

i went on another site visit the other day...i thought is was going to be a construction site however it will be finished in a few weeks, there are just a few fit out things to do...i was talking to a CM on site and even though i was not able to get really good photos i was able to have a good look around....firstly this building has a green roof as seen in the photos so it has relevance to my major project also. the structure supporting the green roof area is a suspended concrete slab with concrete columns, this is not near the scale as a warehouse. there are a few things of interest. the roof structure is on a pivot, theoretically the angle of he roof could be altered if it had not been bolted in place...also the far wall which i was unable to take photos of is angled and changes high which is complicated. i might go back within the next few weeks so i can take a few photos of the structure....(since i was unable to do this without permission from Major Project)

the top plan is of the existing structure while the lower plan is of the of the part under construction there are a few 3D models of the building at their website

http://www.cox.com.au/1105.aspx?projectId=2256&disciplineId=1203

building: Hepburn Spa complex

architect: COX architects

developer: Major Project

completion date: June 2008

location: Hepburn Springs

Federation Square

Building: Federation Square

Architect: Lab

Location: Finders Street

Completion date: 2002

i was in Melbourne the other day and had a bit of time to spend so i went and took some photos of Fed square, so i though i would post them...(this was not one of my planned site visits)

THE STRUCTURE

the deck of Fed square was built before the planning of the building was resolved so there was a bit of guess work...the crash walls, not shown in my photographs, are continuous walls that support points at random, with every second beam picking up a column load, which allows a certain amount of flexibility, the outer skin of the walls are precast concrete with an concrete in-situ infill slab...the facade wraps around the building and is purely decorative....materials used are zinc, Kimberly sandstone and glass.... just an interesting fact the (live) load are 500kg/square metre

this information is from a lecture by structural engineer Stuart Jones....that i was given notes on

IMAGES

in my images i tried to capture the complicated structure of Federation Square...as noted above the facade is not structural , the reverse of the facade can be seen in the bottom image and i have tried to show the in the middle image....

for more information there is a good article on Fed. square on the following web site...its worth a look....
http://www.architectureaustralia.com/aa/aaissue.php?article=7&issueid=200303&typeon=2

Major project research

these are just a few images of the structure of our inspiration building and the initial drawings....we are still planing to have a garden roof so we will need to do a bit more research on the roof structure need to support such a weight...we decided to use a steel post and beam system to achieve a flat roof. we still need to work out spans and sizes as well as column placement. i am trying to find some good details of grass roofs but am not having much luck, not when it comes to the system that supports such roof...i will see what i can find.

Site Visit - Southern Cross Station

building: Southern Cross Station

location: spencer street

redeveloped by: Civic Nexus

year: 2006

architect: Grimshaw Architects

this is a complicated structure but i wanted to compare it with the more simple, and smaller, Geelong Carousel pavilion. the elements such as the columns, purlins and roofing material can still be identified however the curves make it a lot more complicated. it is a steel structure but it is clear that adding curves makes things a lot more complicated. aesthetics have also been considered in the both the overall design and the structure however i personally think that the roof is visually nicer from above which it is not normally seen from, i took the photo from the apartment tower when i went to the convention center. ventilation is a problem with the design, this may not be really relevant to this subject but i thought i would note it anyway, the ventilation seems to be a problem as i have noticed that the fumes are sometimes unbearable on the country platform.

GRASS on the ROOF

above an example of grass on a roof in Britain (Britain's greenest warehouse)

information on growing grass on roofs

LAYERS

• waterproof layer
• drainage layer
• filter mat
• growing medium
• vegitation

http://www.hydrotechusa.com/start.htm

http://www.grassroofcompany.co.uk/Press/landscape%20mag.pdf