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ENVS10003 -‐ Amarjit Batra -‐ 638898
Constructing Environments Studio Journal – Week 1
The Mass Challenge: In groups of 3 – 4, using only a tub of small wooden blocks, make the tallest tower possible with an opening that was able to fit a toy dinosaur
Figure 1: Toy dinosaur Figure 2: Box of wooden blocks
Once in our groups, we started brainstorming ideas on how we could create an opening that would be big enough to allow for the toy to enter yet also strong enough to hold the load above it. Our group decided that we would create a facade, which would allow for the entry of the toy and then build the rest of the tower around it, shown in figure 3. Being novices at this task, our tower continuously fell over as we struggled to decide on what type of structural method would best distribute the load.
Figure 3: The idea
However as our building process went further along we all realized that our tower’s base would not be strong enough to hold and distribute large load, and since we were far into the activity time we decided to try create whatever we could, since the rest of the tute was already way head in terms of structure and
ENVS10003 -‐ Amarjit Batra -‐ 638898
height. The biggest weakness of our structure was that the front facade and the rear structure weren’t connected together very well and therefore the load from the top of the building didn't have a stable base to transfer to. Another weakness was that the blocks on the base of our structure were laid with the smallest sides to rest on and therefore the structure was very frail.
Figure 4: Weaknesses becoming apparent
Thus along the way we decided to widen the floor stance of the structure adding extra blocks for support. As seen in Figure 4 our sidewalls were well constructed however they weren’t properly connected in the corners and this meant that a removal of even one of the side connecters and the structure could fall apart. Upon this realization we started adding to the corners and as we built up a more solid structure at the rear end of the construction started to take shape, shown in figure 5.
Figure 5: Structure starting to take shape
ENVS10003 -‐ Amarjit Batra -‐ 638898
Since the rest of the tute class was way ahead in terms of height we started building our “Antenna extension” quite early to add to the building height. As figure 8 shows that though we added to height by simply adding blocks on top of each other; the solidity of the structure reduced as the top of the tower became extremely feeble with the load having only one singular beam to transfer through.
Figure 6: Feeble “Antenna”
As shown in figure 6, we realized that our facade and rear weren’t really connected and the stress of the building wasn't being transferred throughout the structure. We tried to rectify this by adding a better connection between the rear and the facade (figure 7).
Figure 7: Connection between facade and rear
ENVS10003 -‐ Amarjit Batra -‐ 638898
From this stage onward and up until the end of the time limit (figure 8) we just tried adding as much mass as we could to the structure making sure we didn't completely overload it and thus cause the building to fall apart.
Figure 8: Time up!
As we looked around at what the other groups had produced our weakness became quite apparent. The assembly of the other structures was much better, sharing some similarities with the rear end of our building. Here the wooden bricks were interlaced to provide the load different avenues to transfer through and despite taking out several blocks from the structure in figure 10, the building still stood as the load was able to pass through the side walls.
Figure 9 & 10: Solid Structures
ENVS10003 -‐ Amarjit Batra -‐ 638898
Figure 11 shows the strongest tower in the room, it followed the best structural rules for a tower of this kind: Sturdy base, cylindrical shape that had numerous robust load paths. The building was so strong that despite being as tall as the tutor it was able to withstand a large amount of weight without falling down.
Figure 11: The most robust tower in the room
This activity allowed us to examine how load transfers through building mass and what type of structure is needed to have a strong tall building that can withstand a large load.
Load Paths
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