Wood

The video on wood that we had to watch is a British Columbia video. This company is a world leader in wood construction, export and research on this subject. This video talk about all the benefits of woodframe construction, in this entry i`m going to do a summary about the video:

The construction with wood (Woodframe construction) trhought the years have proved to be strong durable and eficient. This have been prove, because the British Columbia Company, have made a lot of research in this subject and have constructed hundreds of houses and buildings of wood in the countries that have to support big earthquakes, severe winds, and extreme climate changes. This researchs have shown that the products that BC Co. offers are strong, accuracy, and have a long lasting performance. Because of this the demand of wood structures is growing rapidly around the world.

So we have that the wood homes and buildings are safer, more reliable and have more strenght to the forces of nature than those constructions made with concrete and steel.

The first menace to the woodframes constructions are the earthquakes, but studies have shown that this constructions can support earthquakes of 5.7 - 8.4 in Richter scale, and that wood constructions have better performance than concrete or stell ones in an event like that. This beter performance is because: first wood is both strong and light weight, and this means that less forces are exerted on the building; second wood is flexible so it is capable to absorve anticipated forces; and last but not least this constructions have many members and nails conection sso it has a lot of back up load pads to absorve the energy of the earthquake.

In this same line, all of the factors that I have said before made the wood structure capable of give protection against tyfoons and cyclones where the wind speed normally reach 180 kilometers per hour, and this depend on how the structure is attach to the foundation.

So we have that woodframe constructions are capable to support two big events of nature, but those are not the only advantages that wood constructions have. Other advantage is the ability to resist moisture. The constructions of BC Co. can support moisture because they put in practice four strategies to it, this are: deflexion, dreaning, drying and the use of durable materials.

Other techniques that BC Co. use are the ones to fight the termite problems, this are: supression, physical and chemical barriers, and the use of treating wood. Also this constructions have the same level of safety that stell or concrete when we talk about fire, because they put in practice a lot of techniques to fight that, and these same techniques made that those construction have a lot of acustic quality. Another advantage that woodframe construction have is that these material have the characteristic to stay warmer in winter and cooler in summer.

So as we can see, woodframe constructions have a lot of advantages, and this BC Co. have made important research in this subject, and they have put in practice a lot of techniques to made this constructions maybe the best of all.

Chicago Video

I really enjoyed watching the Chicago Video, it was really interesting. I really liked how the video was made and all the things that the showed. I didn`t know that before the great fire, Chicago was almost all made of wood, and that the fire started only with a spark. Also i didn`t know all the great buildings that Chicago have, even thouhg I have been there I didn`t know the architectural characteristics of them. The building that I enjoyed the most was the Auditorium building.

Concrete, ¨glass and wood

Concrete, glass and wood, are other materials that you can use in construction, beside brick, stone and steel. In this entry i`m going to tell you about the caracteristics of concrete, glass, and wood, and the uses that they have in architecture and in urban planning. Concrete is a structural masonry material that is made by mixing broken stone or gravel with sand with water, this materials has a lot of uses in construction but the main use in to make columns and plaques, and also you can use it to make sidewalks, roads, etc. Concrete has the structural properties of stone, that is great strength under compressive forces and almost none under tensile ones, also this material is kind of cheap and you can find it almost anywhere. The mainly weakness about concrete is that usually takes about five days to cure, or reach acceptable hardness, and for this the science have created a technique called steam saturation can shorten that curing time to less than 18 hours. Another disadvantages of concrete in my point of view is that this material is not to prescious, but that is only a insignificant one. Glass is a hard substance, usually brittle and transparent, composed chiefly of silicates and an alkali fused at high temperature. This material is used mostly to make windows and sliding doors. This material is very delicate, because it can break very easyly, that is the main weakness of it, but instead and on the contrary of concrete this material is very beautiful, and also you can make mosaics with to decore the buildings. Last but not least we have Wood, this material is obteined of course from the woods, and throught a process you put the wood into uniform pieces and you used them to make houses, floors, roads, etc. This material is used to create an imitation of old spaces, and when you used it to construct houses you used it in houses in the contry. The main advantage of the material, is that, as i said before it give you a feeling of comfortableness, and also is very prescious. In other hand, the material is very likely to be burn, i mean that this materials it has a lot of possibilities to get burn that other materials. LINKS: http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/sci/A0813170.html http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/society/A0820970.html http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/sci/A0861992.html

Timeline Metals

Timeline Metals
Originally uploaded by giselamleal.

Photos... Use of bricks in Urban Planning

Photos... Use of bricks in Urban Planning
Originally uploaded by giselamleal.

Photos... Use of bricks in Urban Planning

Photos... Use of bricks in Urban Planning
Originally uploaded by giselamleal.

Photos... Use of bricks in Urban Planning

Photos... Use of bricks in Urban Planning
Originally uploaded by giselamleal.

Photos... Use of bricks in Urban Planning

Photos... Use of bricks in Urban Planning
Originally uploaded by giselamleal.

Photos... Use of bricks in Urban Planning

Photos... Use of bricks in Urban Planning
Originally uploaded by giselamleal.

Use of Bricks in Urban Planning

In Urban Planning, the brick has a lot of uses. The first use that i´m going to tell you, is that of course the brick is used in the construction of buildings, and those buildings are an important part of the city. Also, you can used it when you are creating public spaces, like sidewalks, local streets, boulevards, parkinglots, squares, etc. Also, bricks have a decorative function in the city, you can create mosaics and different designs in the spaces that I said before. And it also gives you a way to mix nature with constructed spaces. But i think the most important use of bricks in urban planning is when you want to create a certain type of space, I mean, a space that is not to rigid and not to fragil, and this is a space that give you a different sensation that when you´re in the city or in the country, because it makes you fell comfortable.

Brain map... Stones

Brain map... Stones
Originally uploaded by giselamleal.

Stones

Stones are a very good material that is been used for building since the stone age. This material has very different uses in construction. It is used for floor support, beams and lintels and also to provide monolithic support. You also can used it on roofing, and this is the art of creating the roof. Using stone in construction can give a lot of advantage (for example: it is durable, adaptable, and you can used it in its natural state) but it also can give you disadvantages, because this material it is difficult to transport, quarry, and cut. There is a lot of different types of stones that you can used in construction, some of them are: the Rubble, this is the simplest and cheapest stones; and the Ashlar Massory, which is the most strongest and suitable for monumental architecture. As you can see stones can be very usefull at the time to construct, but it used it´s really up to you.

A good paragraph

To write a good paragraph, you´ve got to have in consideration several important things. First of all you will need a topic to talk about. Then, you will have to express that topic in one sentence, this sentence is called topic sentence. After you write, and express the topic sentence you most have to write other sentences that complete and add information of the topic, this senteces are called Comments. To put the comments together, you must use words called transitions, this words will help you to connect all the ideas that you want to express of the topic. It is important to say that this four things that I recommended before are not rules that you have to fallow in that exactly order, they are only a few things that you´ve got to have in mind before writing a paragraph. I mean, you can first write the comments and then the topic sentences, whatever you want, but you always have to write coherent things.