Structure Design and Degradation Mechanisms in Coastal Environments

General Introduction 

Any type of construction must ensure, from its inception, certain safety conditions for its users. This primarily occurs due to the mechanical performance of the structure which must be designed to account for cost optimization. Therefore, man has, over time, built structural codes based on the advancement of knowledge in the mechanical behavior of component materials of structures. These codes were designed to ensure safe behavior of the structure under mechanical stresses of its environment: supporting its own weight, excessive misuse and extreme climates (mainly snow and wind), while optimizing the cost of the structure. These codes have evolved to incorporate, in a modulated way, the hazards of accidental mechanical stresses such as seismic activity. Thus, we have seen established in these codes criteria dealing with the geophysical knowledge determining the geographical zoning of seismic activity. 

The evolution of the landscape sector in construction over the past few decades can be schematically described in the following way:

– The advancement of knowledge in the mechanical behavior of materials coupled with the design of increasingly reliable building materials has allowed us to initiate more important construction projects with more gigantic structures, requiring increasingly important production costs. 

– The continual aging of building heritage generates increasingly important maintenance and repair requirements. 

– The extension of entropic areas leads inexorably to saturation and to the occupation of other areas which are climatically less secure: flooding and/or submersible zones, for example. Added to this is climate change which currently tends to emphasize the hazards and make extreme conditions more frequent (rainfall, storms, hurricanes, cyclones, etc.). 

– The increase in the globalized competition in economic and financial management continually tends to improve the optimization of project costs. 

All these elements lead to a main requirement in the construction sector: the resistance over time, i.e. the durability of structures, including environmental stresses. This requirement is gradually being integrated into the specifications of international design codes. 

Coastline buildings are among the most exposed to these environmental burdens and hazards. They simultaneously bring together two types of continuous attacks: (1) physical and chemical attacks such as chlorides and sulfates present in the seawater and (2) mechanical attacks of waves in coastal zones, particularly on protection structures such as dikes. Recent events (2010) that took place on the French Atlantic coast (Cyclone Xynthia) have testified to their violence, which, though temporary, generated substantial damage and casualties. 

Thus, issues of material and structure durability and that of environmental hazards were echoed from the research community worldwide, with academic research prevalent in different national, European and international programs. The literature is becoming more abundant on the various aspects involved in these phenomena: from fundamental approaches in fluid mechanics and transport in porous media at microscopic scales up to applications in structural calculations on degraded structures, with monitoring concepts of residual performances and performance thresholds according to repair actions. 

Far from being exhaustive, this book aims to provide a summary through the presentation of examples of scientific approaches on research topics related to the physical, chemical and mechanical processes involved in the mechanisms of degradation or destruction of structures located in coastal zones. This book is organized into six chapters: 

Chapter 1 is devoted to the description of microstructure materials widely used in built structures and the techniques of its investigation at the laboratory scale. For this purpose, a presentation of the different tools used is addressed. Then, different methodologies of the literature are given. They allow us to numerically build the microstructure of a porous medium and determine its associated transfer properties. 

Chapter 2 focuses on heat and moisture transport since water is the vehicle of the transfer of aggressive agents from the atmosphere to porous materials by diffusion and advection. In unsaturated cases, wetting/drying cycles of the material also induce heat transfers. All these aspects are presented with some applications on concrete materials. Download Ebook

Chapter 3 deals with chloride transfer, mainly in saturated media. Given the well-known heterogeneity of porous building materials, the homogenization techniques used in the literature on porous media are discussed first. Then, the periodic homogenization technique has been chosen for its application to the case of chloride ion transfers in saturated materials. The electro-capillary phenomena involved in this kind of ionic transfer are integrated and parametric studies are supplied. 

Chapter 4 studies chloride transfer through unsaturated materials by integrating advection phenomena in addition to electro-capillary phenomena mentioned above. In this chapter, the volume averaging technique is used to establish the macroscopic equations governing ionic transport coupled to liquid water transport leading to the obtainment of water and chloride profiles through the material submitted to a marine environment. 

Chapter 5 focuses on the action of the second aggressive agent, i.e. sulfates present in seawater. The degradation mechanism is different from that of chlorides since sulfates act by modification of the hydrates formed in concrete. They induce some crystallized phases that are expansive. Also, they induce strengths that give rise to cracks in the materials. These cracks weaken the material and make it more permeable to any other agents, such as chlorides themselves. This leads to the facilitation of corrosion processes in reinforced concrete. 

Chapter 6 deals with monitoring of structures. It expands the scale of the study to encompass the structure or the building and focus on the monitoring of the structure’s performances according to its degradation state. According to safety conditions, it also aims to define a critical state of degradation depending on loading conditions and stresses coupled with a probabilistic approach, including the uncertainties on these parameters. 

In order to be complete regarding structures in marine environment, Chapter 7 deals with a different kind of structures. This concerns protection systems against marine floods such as dikes or earth-fills. This chapter describes mechanism and mode degradation of these kinds of structures. 

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Graphic Standards Field Guide to Home Inspections

Introduction

Welcome to Wiley’s Graphic Standards Field Guides! 

We know that when you’re on a job site or in a meeting, questions come up.Even the most seasoned professionals may wish they could look up that one piece of information that is just outside their instant recall or just beyond their current experience.

There is a real need to make immediate on-site decisions—to access information on the spot,no matter where you are. Graphic Standards Field Guide to Home Inspections is designed to be a quick and portable reference for busy professionals like you.It focuses on just the information you need away from the design desk, wherever you are.

Who This Book Is For

We have tried to give you a good mix of required information,easy onsite reference, and some common sense and direction, both for the new inspector and for those with years of experience under their belts. If you’re actively inspecting homes, you will find much of this information helpful, and perhaps it will steer you to a better understanding of some inspection topics.We hope it will allow you to find new ways to deal with this ever-expanding business, which entails both knowledge of construction and solid detective work.If you are interested in becoming a higher-functioning inspector,and looking to increase your inspection and environmental menu of services, this book is for you.This book contains the critical core information you’ll need when working away from the office. It’s like having the jobsite knowledge of your firm’s most experienced professional in your pocket. In addition, it has some tips and common-sense ideas from the author’s years of experience.

How This Book Is Organized

The content of this book is organized according to a logical path that a home inspector might follow taking into account state requirements and the standards of practice of the American Society of Home Inspectors (ASHI®) standards of practice.Each chapter covers a specific component of a residential building, and includes topics appropriate 

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Urban Rhythms: Mobilities, Space and Interaction in the Contemporary City

Chris Shilling

The publication of a Sociological Review Monograph on urban issues and processes is timely, both sociologically and politically. With the global recession of 2008 placing cities near the top of policy-making agendas, urban environments came to represent an ideal medium through which to explore the conjunction of ‘public issues’ and ‘private troubles’ that had exercised the discipline since its inception (Mills, 2000 [1959]). 

There are several reasons for this. Economic crisis has prompted a growing concern about the capacity of cities to retain, attract and command new sources of capital. Just as important for sociologists, however, is that the organization and lived experience of urban life appears to be associated increasingly with renewed waves of social unrest and protest. Such conflict has been generated in significant part by systems of governmentality in which the proliferation of ‘gated communities’ and repressively policed ‘red zones’ of exclusion, characterizedbyanenforcementoflawrequiringasuspensionofdemocraticrightsfor some (Agamben, 2005), exist uneasily alongside the exacerbation of inequalities and rising levels of poverty. 

This focus on the city is not, of course, entirely new: sociology has long recognized the importance of urban centres to those social, economic and culturalissuesthatlieattheheartofitsdisciplinarypurview.Contemporarystudies may be yielding new insights into the modern functioning of major cities as command and control hubs in the global economy (Sassen, 2001), the deleterious effects of city life on social capital (Putnam, 2000), racial separation and urban abandonment in the US (Wacquant, 2007), moral issues associated with cultivating sympathy for ‘those who are other’ in metropolitan contexts (Sennett, 1994: 18, 376), and a wide range of other issues. Nevertheless, these analyses continued to resonate with the significance placed on city life by the founding figures and early developers of the discipline.

Engels’s (2009 [1845]) explorations of urban industrial life in the 1840s, for example,providedanearlyandstillinfluentialstudyofthephysicallydamaging and spiritually dehumanizing conditions of life for working people living in urban enclaves characterized by overcrowding and lacking basic amenities. Weber (1966 [1921]) explored the differences between contrasting types of cities, and distinctive ways of city living, and located urban forms as integral to wider social, political and religious developments. Simmel (1971 [1903]) had earlier

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Sustainable Construction 2

Foreword

The Roman architect, Vitruvius, once defined the purposes of architecture as creating commodity, firmness, and delight—roughly translated as usefulness, stability, and beauty. To that list, we now must add a fourth purpose, harmony, by which I mean the fit between buildings and the built environment broadly with the ecologies of particular places. In contrast to architecture as utilitarian orasformmaking,placemakingposesuniquechallenges.Thefirstruleof place making is to ruin no other place. This requires considerable care, competence, andforesightinmanagingtheupstreamandthedownstreameffectsofbuildings from materials selection and construction to long-term operations and maintenance. 

The challenge of creating commodity, firmness, delight, and harmony will be tougher in a world of 7 billion people predicted to grow to 10 billion by 2100 and facing worsening climate destabilization and its collateral economic, social,and politicaleffects.Inotherwords,ecologicaland economicconstraints in the years ahead will limit what can be built, where, and how. Higher temperatures, larger storms, stronger winds, longer droughts, and rising sea levels will require more planning, better design, and more stringent engineering standards. Financial and climatic constraints could interact to diminish the role that architecture has played historically as a source of delight at a time when we will need a great deal of it. Vitruvius emphasized the importance of careful site selection for buildings and cities in order to maximize the salubrious effects of sun, wind, water, and shade. Those factors will become more important but less predictable in an age of rapid climate change. Moreover, designers can no longer assume that energy will be cheap and reliable. Military planners have said repeatedly that the US electric grid is highly vulnerable to terrorism, operator error, technological accident, and larger storms. Much the same could be said of the systems that provision us with water and food.

We have entered the rapids of human history and will need to respond with a new era of design. How architects, engineers, builders, and building managers respond to the new realities will have a larger impact on the human prospect than we thought even a few years ago. Building construction and operations are responsiblefor roughly40percent ofglobalcarbonemissions.If we aretomake the necessary transition to climate stability, that number will have to decline dramatically as the number of buildings increases to accommodate a projected 40 percent rise in population. At the same time, the capacity of governments to respond to the climate emergency is being challenged both by those who want less government and by increasingly difficult economic circumstances. The upshot is that a great deal rides on the design and building professions and the private sector. 

Against this background, the green building movement and the remarkable rise of the US Green Building Council and its counterparts elsewhere is a great success story, in no small measure due to the work of Charles Kibert and the Powell Center at the University of Florida in Gainesville. From modest beginnings in the 1990s to the present, the art and science of high-performance building is becoming the default for renovation and construction worldwide. It is now well documented that high-performance buildings have lower operating,maintenance, and environmental costs and generate better long-term economic values and higher human satisfaction and productivity. 

The next design challenge is to take the logic, methodology, and economics of green building to a community, city, and regional scale with the goal of improving resilience, which is defined as the capacity of the system to “absorb disturbanceandtoundergochangeandstillretainessentiallythesamefunction, structure, and feedbacks.”1 It is a concept long familiar to engineers, mathematicians, ecologists, designers, and military planners. Resilient systems are characterized by redundancy so that failure of any one component does not cause the entire system to crash. They consist of diverse components that are easily repairable, widely distributed, cheap, locally supplied, durable, and loosely coupled. The goal of resilience raises questions that go beyond the specifics of single buildings to those having to do with how entire communities are provisioned with food, energy, water, materials, and livelihood in a more constrained and less predictable world. 

Resilience as a design goal includes much of what is subsumed in the words “sustainable design,” but differs in one critical respect. Sustainability is sometimes described as an end state as if it can be achieved once and for all. The goal of resilience, on the other hand, implies the capacity to make ongoing adjustments to changing political, economic, and ecological conditions. In practical terms, resilience is a design strategy that aims to reduce vulnerabilities by shortening supply lines, improving redundancy in critical areas, bolstering local capacity, andsolvingfor adeeper pattern of dependence and disability. Theless resilient the country, the more military power is needed to protect its far-flung interests and client statesand hencethe greater thelikelihood of wars fought for oil, water, food, and materials. Resilient societies, on the other hand, do not send their young to fight and die in far-away battlefields because they lack wit, foresight, and design intelligence.

The goal of resilience presumes but does not end with sustainable building practices.Itmakeslittlesense todesignhigh-performancebuildingsthatexist as islandsin alargerseaof unsustainabilityandthatrestonascaffoldingof supply chains and infrastructure dependent on cheap fossil fuels. Design, accordingly, must be broadened to encompass a full spectrum of issues at a community and regional scale, including water, food, energy, education, economic development, policy and law, and urban planning. The challenge to designers now is to create the methodologies and practical tools to integrate diverse sectors, professions, and interest groups into systems so that each of the parts reinforces the resilience and durability of the whole community. “Full-spectrum” design is a fancy phrase to describe design strategies implicit in the writings of Lewis Mumford and Buckminster Fuller, as well as more recent work of contemporary architects and designers such as Bob Berkebile and William McDonough. It is a strategy rooted in the ancient meaning of the word “religion,” which means “bind together.” It is manifest in law and policy in the National Environmental Policy Act (1969) and in practical grassroots work such as the Transition Town movement that began in Totnes in the United Kingdom. In every instance, it is predicated on the belief that the whole is more than the sum of its parts and that we should take thought for the morrow.

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The Built Environment

Editors’ Notes and Acknowledgments

he built environment is a challenging subject. It is pervasive and relevant to all who live in the human-made or arranged world—to all who live on this planet. A healthy built environment makes significant contributions to human life. It fulfills human needs and values; it extends and increases comfort, productivity, and enjoyment. A quality environment can foster a greater sense of belonging, involvement, and pride. An environment created without supportive qualities can have unfortunate influences on people, decreasing the ability to learn, perform, and enjoy life’s activities. An unhealthy built environment breeds high levels of apathy, crime, vandalism, and disease. 

The built and natural environments are shaped by many human, environmental, and technological factors. The character and quality of the built environment is dependent on everyone, and effective design and planning are critical to an inclusive, proactive process. It is important for everyone to be aware, involved, and responsible. Each of us is an influential part of the ongoing story of the built environment. 

“Built environment” is a relatively new term and an inclusive concept. It emerged in the 1980s, and its importance awaits fuller appreciation and comprehension. In reality, the built environment is as old as the beginning of time, dating back to when humans first fashioned stone tools, created clothes and discovered (utilized) fire for warmth, modified caves for shelter, and formed cooperative communities. The term embodies all human creation—past, present, and future plans. 

The primary purpose of this book is to explore and clarify the many interrelated aspects of the built environment and to demonstrate that design and planning for human, environmental, and technical needs overlap many fields of interest and study. Interdisciplinary, collaborative design and planning are critical to understanding and resolving the many societal human-environmental prob

lems, locally and globally. This need to integrate across traditional specialized boundaries is expressed not only in students’/readers’ and authors’ interests, but also in professional and societal concerns found in contemporary literature and mandated by state and federal policies. This book is dedicated to the elimination of apathy and, conversely, to the encouragement of people to become aware of and involved in the life-supportive qualities of the built environment. Awareness and involvement are important prerequisites for all responsible citizens. The book attempts to develop an interdisciplinary forum for collaborative study of the built environment. It encourages people from all disciplines to enter into an inclusive study of the built world in which we all share and live, work and play. It demonstrates the importance of collaborative effort in dealing with complex subjects in a unified and holistic framework, fostering constructive ideas and positive developments. 

The genesis of this particular collaborative investigation began at Washington State University. A graduate-level, collaborative, special topics seminar in Environmental Science was first offered in 1974 to explore the related interdisciplinary aspects of the built environment. The seminar met with considerable enthusiasm from a diverse group of students and faculty. They concluded that this subject was critically important to everyone and should be offered earlier to beginning university students from all disciplines. This evolved into the development of another experimental course for undergraduate students in 1975. The same positive results occurred, and in 1979 the course achieved permanent status as an interdisciplinary, team-taught course in Architecture/Interior Design/Landscape Architecture. In 1984, it was approved as a class, which fulfills one of the General University Requirements in Humanities. 

Early on, our collaborative group carried out an exhaustive search for appropriate books for this new study. We determined that libraries were full of definitive references on each component of the built environment, but few addressed the important overlapping aspects of the humanly created world. None existed that were appropriate in scope and integrative enough in concept to be useful to our work. Consequently, we developed the first collaborative book on the subject—The Built Environment: A Creative Inquiry into Design and Planning, published by Crisp in 1994. The book has been used by a number of colleges and universities throughout the country. 

In 1997, the University of Idaho’s Architecture Program redesigned their introductory course offerings. They carried out a nationwide investigation of introductory courses, their syllabi and textbooks. This study concluded that the course and book at Washington State University best matched their needs. In 1999, they implemented a similar interdisciplinary, team-taught course using the above textbook for beginning students in all the design fields. 

In 2002, the coordinators of the University of Idaho and Washington State University investigated the feasibility of updating the original book. We carried out a series of discussions on the future of the courses and the textbook. We concluded that the fundamentals of the first book were sound but that it could be updated with more state-of-the-art advances in environmental design/planning. The editors carried out a four-year development process for this new, updated book. 

We, the editors, would like to express our sincere appreciation to the many past and present participants who have collaborated to evolve this book into its present form. All the authors, individually and collectively, have made critically important contributions to this work. The authors have been able to convey their important part in context with the whole, their chapter within the framework of the book. Their willingness to collaborate effectively in this integrative process was fundamental to this interdisciplinary process and was very much appreciated. The following Contributors List identifies the authors and their affiliations. The reader is encouraged to do a Web search of their distinguished resumés and the continuing contributions they have made to the design and planning of the built environment. All the authors and editors have personally absorbed the costs of developing this manuscript and have agreed to donate all royalties to a university development fund.

The collaboration between environmental science and environmental design has been an important interdisciplinary thread and a unifying influence on this work. There exists a challenging but compatible relationship between environmental science, which deals primarily with the natural but humanly impacted environment, and this study, which focuses on environmental design and planning and the built or humanly created world. We are particularly appreciative of the scholarship and wisdom of Gerald L. Young, a human ecologist and coeditor of the first edition of this book. His interdisciplinary understanding of environmental science, ecology, and design/planning has made a major integrative contribution to this work. 

Special thanks are also extended to the students who, over the years, have provided constant feedback through their interest and encouragement, and their concerns and complaints—challenging us to do a better job. The hidden but extensive work of Sandra Tyacke needs recognition. She, and others, have been most helpful in typing and retyping a seemingly endless array of written drafts, outlines, references, letters, and memos. Sandra’s remarkable patience, professionalism, and word processing skills have made this whole process run smoothly. We express our sincere appreciation to our families, who have patiently seen this volume through many drafts—and many hours, days and nights “away.” We thank them for years of caring and support. 

The graphics and illustrations are the responsibility of the authors of each chapter, unless otherwise noted. The graphic design of the circular logo and linear formats are by Sarah Recken and Jon Singleton of Washington State University. We express our appreciation to David Lim, Peter Wolfe, Karl Heitman, Janet Archer, and Zulqaisar Hamidin, students at Washington State University, for developing many of the graphic diagrams and sketches and Jarod Hall of the University of Idaho for his development of the cover design. Finally, we express our gratitude to Pamela Overholtzer, graduate student at the University of Idaho, for her technical editing, graphic and photographic skills, which she generously shared during our final push to the finish line. Read More Or Download Ebook

Sustainable Construction

Introduction and Overview 

In the short quarter century after the first significant efforts to apply the sustainability paradigm to the built environment in the early 1990s, the resulting sustainable construction movement has gained significant strength and momentum. In some countries—for example, the United States—there is growing evidence that this responsible and ethical approach is dominating the market for commercial and institutional buildings, including major renovations. Over 69,000 commercial building projects have been registered for third-party green building certification with the US Green Building Council (USGBC), the major American proponent of built environment sustainability, in effect declaring the project team’s intention to achieve the status of an officially recognized or certified green building. The tool the USGBC uses for this process is commonly referred to by its acronym, LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). Thus far, 27,000 commercial projects have navigated the LEED certification process successfully. Nowhere has the remarkable shift toward sustainable buildings been more evident than in American higher education. Harvard University boasts 93 buildings certified in accordance with the requirements of the USGBC, including several projects with the highest, or platinum, rating and including more than 1.9 million square feet (198,000 square meters [m2]) of labs, dormitories, libraries, classrooms, and offices. An additional 27 projects are registered and pursuing official recognition as green building projects. The sustainable construction movement is now international in scope, with almost 70 national green building councils establishing ambitious performance goals for the built environment in their countries. In addition to promoting green building, these councils develop and supervise building assessment systems that provide ratings for buildings based on a holistic evaluation of their performance against a wide array of environmental, economic, and social requirements. The outcome of applying sustainable construction approaches to creating a responsible built environment is most commonly referred to as high-performance green buildings, or simply, green buildings.

The Shifting Landscape for Green Buildings

There are many signs that the green building movement is permanently embedded as standard practice for owners, designers, and other stakeholders. Among these are four key indicators that illustrate this shift into the mainstream. First, a survey of design and construction activity by McGraw-Hill Construction (2013) found that, for the first time, the majority of firms engaged in design and construction expected that over 60 percent of their work would be in green building by 2015. South Africa, Singapore, Brazil, European countries, and the United States all report this same result: that green building not only dominates the construction marketplace but also continues to increase in market share. This same report suggests that around the world, the pace of green building is accelerating and becoming a long-term business opportunity for both designers and builders. The green building market is growing worldwide and is not isolated to one region or culture. According to McGraw-Hill Construction, architects and engineers around the world are bullish on green building. Between 2012 and 2015, the number of designers and building consultants expecting more than 60 percent of their business to be green more than tripled in South Africa; more than doubled in Germany, Norway, and Brazil; and increased between 33 percent and 68 percent in the United States, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and Australia. The reasons for the rapid growth in high-performance green building activity has changed dramatically over time. In 2008, when a similar survey was conducted, most of the respondents felt that the main reason for their involvement was that they were doing the right thing, that they were simply trying to have a positive impact. Fast-forward just six years to 2014, and the reasons had changed significantly. The most cited triggers for green building around the world are client demand, market demand, lower operating costs, and branding/public relations. Green building has become simply a matter of doing good business, and has entered the mainstream in both the public and the private sectors. Although those interviewed indicated that they were still interested in doing the right thing, this reason moved from the top of the list in 2008 to number five in the six-year period between the two surveys. 

A second illustration of the green building movement’s staying power occurred at the Arab world’s first Forum for Sustainable Communities and Green Building held in late 2014. Mustafa Madbouly, Egypt’s minister of housing and urban development, told the audience: “Climate change forces upon us all a serious discussion about green building and the promotion of sustainability” (Zayed 2014). According to the United Nations Human Settlement Program (UNHSP), cities in the Arab world need to introduce stronger standards for green building and promote sustainable communities if they are to have this chance of tackling climate change. The UNHSP estimates that 56 percent of the Arab world’s population already lives in cities and urban centers. This number quadrupled between 1990 and 2010 and is expected to increase another 75 percent by 2050. In short, applying sustainability principles to the built environment is essential not only for the well-being of the region’s population but also for their very survival. According to the World Bank, the unprecedented heat extremes caused by climate change could affect 70 percent to 80 percent of the land area in the Middle East and North Africa.1 Green building and climate change are now inextricably linked, and the main strategy for addressing climate change must be to change the design and operation of the built environment and infrastructure to reduce carbon emissions dramatically. 

Third, in the United States, activity in sustainable construction continues to increase, some of it marking the continued evolution of thinking about how best to achieve high standards of efficiency in the built environment while at the same time promoting human health and protecting ecological systems. The state of Maryland and its largest city, Baltimore, provide a contemporary example of how strategies are being fine-tuned to embed sustainability in the built environment for the long term. In 2007, both Maryland and Baltimore, the 26th most populous city in the United States, adopted the USGBC’s LEED rating system, requiring that most new construction be LEED certified. At the time, this move was considered groundbreaking, and it paralleled efforts by many states and municipalities around the country to foster the creation of a much-improved building stock. Baltimore, along with 176 other American jurisdictions, mandated green buildings and supported their implementation with a variety of incentives, including more rapid approval times, decreased permitting fees, and, in some cases, grants and lower taxes. In 2014, in a move that is likely to become more common, both Maryland and Baltimore repealed the laws and ordinances requiring LEED rating certification and instead adopted the International Green Construction Code (IgCC) as a template for their building codes. A construction or building code such as IgCC, in contrast to a voluntary rating system such as LEED, mandates green strategies for buildings. This turn of events marks a significant change in both strategy and philosophy because it indicates a shift .... Read More Or Download Ebook

MATERIALS FOR ARCHITECTS AND BUILDERS

PREFACE

Materials for Architects and Builders is written as an introductory text to inform students at undergraduate degree and national diploma level of the relevant visual and physical properties of a wide range of building materials.The third edition has been significantly enhanced by the incorporation of full colour images throughout, illustrating the materials and in many cases their use in buildings of architectural merit. The text includes the broad environmental debate with sections on energy saving and recycled materials. There are seventeen chapters covering the wide range of materials under standard headings. Each chapter describes the manufacture,salient properties and typical uses of the various materials, with the aim of ensuring their appropriate application within an awareness of their ecological impact. 

European Standards are taking over from the previous British Standards, and for most key materials the European Norms have now been published. Generally, this has led to an increase in the number of relevant standards for building materials. However, in many cases, both the British and European Standards are current and are therefore included in the text and references. 

New and rediscovered old materials, where they are becoming well integrated into standard building processes are described; other materials no longer in use are generally disregarded, except where increased concern for environmental issues has created renewed interest. The use of chemical terminology is kept to the minimum required to understand each subject area, and is only significantly used within the context of the structure of plastics. Tabulated data is restricted to an informative level appropriate to student use. An extensive bibliography and listed sources of technical information are provided at the end of each chapter to facilitate direct reference where necessary. 

The text is well illustrated with over 250 line drawings and colour photographs,showing the production, appearance and appropriate use of materials, but it is not intended to describe construction details as these are well illustrated in the standard texts on building construction. Environmental concerns including energy-conscious design, and the effects of fire, are automatically considered as part of the broader understanding of the various key materials. 

The text is essential reading for honours and foundation degree, BTEC and advanced GNVQ students of architecture, building, surveying and construction, and those studying within the broad range of built environment subjects, who wish to understand the principles relating to the appropriate use of construction materials. Read More Or Download Ebook

Architectural Knowledge

Preface

To the social historian the record of the professions in the twentieth century has been one of continuous and indeed accelerating success. My own experience as president of the Royal Institute of British Architects for two years in the mid-1990s felt very different. From this particular perspective, whatever collective successes the architectural profession may or may not have achieved over the last few decades seemed totally unimportant to individual members. Why was this? Could it be because, as so many architects made a point of telling me, they felt bitter personal disappointment that the expectations stimulated by a long and arduous training had never been fulfilled? How can this contradiction be explained? Is the sense of individual failure and alleged collective success peculiar to architects? Are the criteria for individual and professional success inherently different? Is there, indeed, any relation between the two? 

The difficulties so many individual architects face have made them demand that their professional institute should be doing much more for them—generating new work, advertising architectural services to an ever-widening public, making a compact with the government, neutralizing or, even better, annihilating the competition. Underlying this question are deeper and more general ones: what should a professional body be trying to do for its members? What is a profession actually for? 

As we approach what promises to be a golden age of professionalism—an information-rich period in which access to specialized knowledge will be valued more highly than ever before— answers to these questions are critically important, and not just for architects. The papers in this collection were written hurriedly over three decades and to mark many occasions. Despite this scattered provenance, the contribution they make to this debate is oddly consistent. This is the argument, repeated and developed in many ways, that it is not so much the possession of knowledge that justifies the existence of the professions but rather the degree of success with which professionals have found better ways to develop their own particular kinds of knowledge. Professionalism flourishes to the extent that professionals work openly together in the context of action to augment and develop the bodies of knowledge peculiar to their own disciplines. Conversely, if professionals squirrel knowledge away for themselves or fail to share what they know, in order to gain some temporary and illusory advantage for themselves as individuals or as groups, then professionalism decays. Free access to knowledge, transparency in its application, sharing, developing and handing on knowledge in an open-ended way—these are the essential means of making professionalism work. It is these qualities, only fully comprehensible in the course of continuously having to exercise fine judgement in generally quite stressful circumstances, that keep professionals straight, intellectually as well as ethically. And for the architect—as I combatively argued in the pages of Building Design in 1992—that knowledge is based on design and unites, in the context of action “past and future, science and art, demand and supply, decision making and reflection. Consequently the husbanding of that body of knowledge, its continual improvement, and its passing on through education to future generations are the essential functions of the architectural profession— our raison d’etre, our responsibility, our collective destiny.” 

The classical hallmarks of professionalism—restricted entry, standardized and visible qualifications, fixed fees, the publishing and policing of codes of conduct —are more concerned with keeping things as they are than with developing an intellectual programme. It is, unfortunately, still true that many, if not most, professionals continue to define professionalism defensively, in terms of “keeping standards up”, usually through procedures that tend to promote exclusivity and encourage boundary maintenance. The consumers of professional services tend to see things in a reciprocal but very different way— and, certainly, without the same warm self-regard. Clients stand outside the professional barricades looking in. How they interpret professional behaviour and professional institutions is less as a struggle against the forces of evil than a conspiracy against the public interest.

BACKWARD GLANCE 

The papers collected in the three parts of this book are a record of the growth of an idea about the nature of professionalism and also a record of major shifts in British society that fundamentally changed the position of the professions within that society. The realization of the development of knowledge as both the basis and guarantee of professionalism came to me gradually—which justifies, I hope, the perhaps over-emphasis on my own professional field in this selection of essays, and legitimizes the reprinting in part of three pieces previously collected in a 1992 work of mine, The Changing Workplace, looking at the impact of ideas on the design of the workplace. The gradual unfolding of this idea of professionalism is reflected both in the tripartite structure of this book and in the selection of entries—which, with a single exception, record my witness to events chronologically and contemporaneously: this is what I felt and saw at the time. 

The first set of papers describe the development in the 1960s and 1970s of my own professional knowledge base: learning how to use office design for the benefit of international corporations and their employees. What is striking, in retrospect, is how quick those commercial corporations were to exploit for their own purposes research and programming methods, many which had been originally developed in the planned economy of the British Welfare State, where user research, brief writing, planning and design were, in theory at least, highly integrated for the benefit of all. This was the period in which I and my colleagues at DEGW were learning not only how to conduct design-based research in the context of practice but also, more importantly, discovering that research-based design was certain to become increasingly important to knowledge-based enterprises. The essays reflect a residual belief in the importance of design to a society based on centralized planning. For architects, this belief was not only ideological but financial, since at the beginning of the 1970s over half of the profession was employed directly or indirectly by government. Although at that time I was largely working for international corporate organizations, there is little of what I wrote that would not have been equally applicable had I been working for the state. Indeed, the underlying assumptions in DEGW’s work were formed in that era of centralist planning: all architectural problems can be solved by better user research and better programming. 

The essays in Part Two reflect the violent swing in the 1980s towards a totally different basis for government policy—that planning was unnecessary because market forces could always be relied upon, if not to pick up the pieces, at least to make sure that the fittest survived. While this new policy was fundamentally against the interests of all professions—no group should have a special place in society— architects were particularly vulnerable. Unlike doctors, they had not negotiated in the 1940s a politically unbreakable contract with the government. Unlike lawyers, they were not smart enough to make vast amounts of money both from victims and survivors of the new policy. Unlike accountants, they were not able to take advantage of the globalization of business. Instead, architects were numbered among the chief victims and did not have the collective wit to understand that many things they had idealistically taken for granted as the basis of their professional self-esteem were being washed away. The most successful architects in this period—and there was plenty of talent— began to rely increasingly on their own individual design skill rather than on collective action as members of a united profession. A handful of supremely talented, and spectacularly unclubbable, individuals became part of the growing star system. Others in the commercial sector were too busy to look over their shoulder until the mid-1980s property boom began to collapse in 1989, revealing the full weakness of their individual positions. Many, including the unhappy people I referred to earlier, simply could not understand why no one seemed willing to use their hard-won skills any more. 

This group of papers shows a growing confidence in making generalizations on the practice of architecture based on the experience gained as DEGW developed, in the Thatcherite 1980s, into a large, specialized firm with a network of European offices. By this stage, DEGW’s very particular and original attitude to the relationship between consulting and design had matured. We had wide experience of the changing nature of architectural practice in several countries. It did not seem likely to us that sophisticated clients would tolerate for much longer the individualistic, craft-based and unreflective kind of service that most of our fellow professionals at that time seemed increasingly content to deliver. Something altogether more imaginative, responsive and predictive was required. 

The papers from the 1980s record what sometimes seemed at the time to be a deeply unfashionable position. It was obvious that the old regime of centralized planning would never return. The over-simplifications, even scientism, that had propped up the modern movement in architecture had been exposed. Nevertheless, it was clear to us in DEGW that architecture needed a more sophisticated intellectual basis, one that would not deny the importance of design invention—far from it—nor of cultural relativism but which would be robust enough to allow the majority of non-star architects to resist what was so clearly destroying their work: severe short-term pressure from under-informed clients to build ever more cheaply. Research about what design was for, and what value design could add, seemed to be the obvious answer. The course we in DEGW chose, as will be apparent from these papers, was to affirm the relation of design to user research, including user feedback, so that the benefits of design invention could be demonstrated to clients and users, in the hope of eventually allowing architects to regain the influence so many of them had lost on the processes of procuring and constructing buildings. 

The final papers—Part Three, written in the 1990s—are very much the product of my presidential period at the RIBA. To come to terms with a scale of problem that I had not been able to comprehend before, I was driven to think not just about how architectural services could be reconstituted to meet the needs of the changing clients whom I had learned to understand but to explain in the most practical and fundamental terms how the whole range of professional architectural services could be justified throughout the whole of the society that had been irreversibly, if not totally, shaped by Margaret Thatcher’s government. The task faced was no less than to help practising architects discover, define and overcome the limits of the efficacy of the market economy. 

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Sustainable Construction Processes

This text follows the process of sustainable construction from an idea to the creation of a sustainable building. When a client or architect imagines a sustainable building, there are a myriad of systems, processes, guidelines, and standards that are negotiated in the journey from blueprint to completed building. Sustainable Construction Processes: A Resource Text provides a source guide along this journey, whilst also discussing the challenges and uncertainties that arise when constructing a building worthy of its sustainable credentials. The idea for this book came from the need for a text, suited to Plymouth University’s students, that would cover sustainable construction as a  process rather than simply focusing on the needs of a designer. It complements but does not duplicate the many other texts on sustainable construction that focus on the design of buildings, procedures, links to  sustainable development, climate change, or sustainable cities. Rather, it is concerned with how the best‐laid plans of designers, planners, engineers, consultants, and project managers come to fruition, and the process though which buildings are (or are not) constructed in a fashion that makes these plans work in practice. This is a fast‐moving field of study, and inevitably different  policies, facts, figures, and assessment systems change with a remarkable rapidity. However, the underlying principles of how we build sustainably and the basic tools that are required for this task remain relatively static. This book introduces the rationale and history that lie behind the drivers for sustainable construction. Decisions inform even the earliest stage of a build, such as the client deciding whether they require a new or refurbished building. From this beginning, the text follows the decision‐making process for each stage of a building’s life cycle to illuminate the requirements and challenges of designing, constructing, and occupying sustainable buildings. It leads the reader through the areas of sustainable procurement: how we can obtain buildings that will meet the needs of our clients, as well as the broader needs of society and the environment, without costing us and our communities too much. The elements of building design related to energy, water, and materials are examined to demonstrate how construction processes can ensure that our buildings are truly sustainable. Assessment systems are introduced and their basic underlying principles discussed. The challenge of anticipating the behaviours of occupants and the practicalities of building with some of the new sustainable technologies are considered. Finally, we consider potential areas of growth and present some contrasting visions for the future of sustainability. Read More Or Download Ebook

Steve Goodhew is Professor of Environmental Building and Discipline Leader of the School of Architecture, Design, and Environment at Plymouth University. He has carried out research and taught in the area of sustainable construction for over 20 years. His main focus has been the assessment and monitoring of existing buildings specialising in the in situ measurement of the thermal properties of building materials, particularly the use of thermal imaging. Steve is the Associate Head of Research and a fellow of the RICS and the CIOB. He studied at Bristol Polytechnic, London University, and Cranfield Institute of Technology, gaining his PhD from Plymouth University. 

Super Tall Building Design Approach

Thornton Tomasetti Inc. is a Registered Provider with The American  Institute of Architects Continuing Education Systems.  Credit earned on  completion of this program will be reported to CES Records for AIA  members.  Certificates of Completion for non­AIA members are  available on request. 

This program is registered with the AIA/CES for continuing professional  education.  As such, it does not include content that may be deemed or  construed to be an approval or endorsement by the AIA of any material  of construction or any method or manner of handling, using,  distributing, or dealing in any material or product.  Questions related to  specific materials, methods, and services will be addressed at the  conclusion of this presentation.

This presentation is protected by US and  International Copyright laws.  Reproduction,  distribution, display and use of the presentation  without written permission of the speaker is  prohibited. 

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