Signing off

Unless we get some other miracle extension, this is it for my construction blog. They weren't all happy days, but i have learned a lot. One of the hardest things about construction as a subject is finding clear resources to study. I've found the blogs and the A+B gallery invaluable sources of inspiration and information. I'm gonna miss this little blog. Well, maybe not miss.....

Major project posters

Article Review: St Kilda redevelopment

The Age reported on Saturday that Ashton Raggatt McDougall have been awarded the contract for a $300 million dollar facelift for St Kilda. The development incorporates lots of green space, and an attempt not to turn the foreshore into a "Chadstone bu the sea". One of the features of the proposal is a large, sculpural wrough iron facade for the cinema complex. Sydney based developers Citta Properties will handle the construction.

Article review: Soccer stadium

The Age reported this week that the state government has agreed to spend $268 million on a new soccer stadium to be built in Edwin Park. The stadium is due for completion in 2010. The interesting thing from a construction point of view is that they have agreed to a capacity of 31000 seats, but with foundations that will support a future upgrade to 50000.

site visit: victoria parade

This site is on victoria parade, fitzroy. From the back it looks like it'll be a carpark, but perhaps with some offices or something at the front.
This shot shows the scafffolding for the concrete roof to be poured onto metal decking. The scaffolding remains in place until the concrete is set.
A whole bunch of C purlins ready to go.
The formwork and reo, complete with bar chairs, and ditches for edge beams, plus a waterproof membrane. Almost ready for the concrete pour.

The connection between the tilt up panels and the supports. I'm using brick at the moment for my warehouse, but I wonder whether Mies might have embraced pre cast concrete if they'd been around in his day?


here is one of the load-bearing, reinforced concrete columns. notice it is in place before the concrete slab footing for the rest of the floor is poured.

check out the tilt-up panels on this baby, with the supports still in place.

this shot shows the reo in the slab on ground and the plumbing sticking out.

site visit - car dealership

This is a car dealership on victoria parade in the city that i've noticed a few times but had never really checked out properly. It's a steel, curved truss system that takes advantage of its northern exposure. the building reminds me of a sold-out glen murcutt.

no safety mesh here. who wants to walk on a curved roof anyway?

i think this is quite a beautiful detail.


the camera and the truss.

site visit: St Vincent's hospital, Nicholson st, Fitzroy

Cheers to Vicki for pointing out these beautiful pre-cast concrete panels on Nicholson street. i hope i'm not cutting your lunch by posting these pics, i was in the neighbourhood and i figured what if you didn't get around to photographing them and then our fellow classmates would have missed out forever.

In thesecond pic you can see through the window how the internal cladding is bracketed to the concrete.

North Fitzroy High School

Another day, another portal frame. This bad boy features a hipped corner though, and extra safety mesh on the sides to absorb the impant of the kids' basketballs.

cut and fill for the warehouse

At the moment the site looks like this, with a bout a six metre slope from the back to the road.

I'm gonna make it look more like this, except with a warehouse and and an office where the white squares are. I hope i've made the ramps long enough for the trucks to climb two metres. i think it's at 1:15. i've used the cut and fill method to level out the site and put retaining walls to hold the dirt in place. this design has the buildings raised on a bit of a platform, so Mies would be stoked. i figured i could even squeeze in a little garden out the back for the workers to have their morning tea. why the hell not huh?

Article review: "Bridging the Void" - Southern Cross Station

Architecture Australia published an article on Southern Cross Station called "Bridging the Void" in their Jan/Feb 2007 issue. I was hunting for more information on the station because i pass through their every day, and as i mentioned a few blogs ago i remember it being widely criticised in the press last year. Oh, and the structure is pretty interesting too. And long span.

The article focusses on the urban planning strategies employed in the design of the station and the role of Public/Private Patnerships in large scale public buildings. It also notes the fluid nature of the roof form, and the irony in the technoligical complexity involved in creating such an organic looking building.

In terms of construction, the station had to remain functional during the course of the development, which put serious restrictions on the building and design process. As a result, the roof was designed as a series of prefabricated elements that had to be self supporting and able to span the tracks independently. The architects worked closely with several steel detailers around Melbourne to manage the risks invloved in such a complex project.

Raisbeck, P, "Bridging the Void", Architecture Australia, Architecture Media Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Jan/Feb 2007.

Mies van der Rohe Quote

"I believe that in architecture you must deal with construction directly, you must, therefore, understand construction. When the structure is refined and when it becomes an expression of the essence of our time, it will then and only then become architecture." Mies van der Rohe.

So there you have it. Construction is alright after all.

Article review: Fire safety engineering

The March/April edition of Architecture Australia contained an article on the relatively recent specialised field of fire safety engineering. The jist of the article was that some engineers are specialising in fire safety issues and have the expertise to come up with case specific solutions to problems that would otherwise have to comply with the more restrictive Deemed to Satisfy Provisions of the BCA.

Since 1996 the BCA has been performance based, so if an engineer can demonstrate that an alternative solution to a fire safety issue is viable then it will gain planning approval. This has a large impact on public, commercial and industrial architecture in regards to new possibilities in economy, time saving and architectural form. Examples of the rationalised approach to fire safety include structural steel members not neccessarily needing fire protection such as concrete to comply, and new possibilities for voids between floors where performance based smoke management systems are developed.

O'Meagher, T and Poon, L, "Fire Safety Engineering", Architecture Australia, Architecture Media Pty Ltd, March/April 2007, pp110-112.

Collingwood Swimming pool

The collingwood indoor swimming pool features this beautiful timber truss roof. The structure spans about 25 metres and as you can see it contains some fairly complex engineering. I'm not sure if the humidity of the pool causes a problem for the timber, but they did recently spend a whole lot of money repairing the roof. They gave me a special "audio visual equipment certified" sticker to wear while i was taking pictures, which made me feel a little less dodgy about hanging around half-naked people with a big camera.

Site visit: Warehouse in Clifton Hill

This is not an example of brilliant architecture, but it does show some standard construction techniques and had the advantage of being accessible because it houses a community circus that i know some people from.


An overall shot. I'm not sure what's inside the large boxed eaves, if anything?


A beautiful apex. This shot clearly shows the rigid connection of the rafters, as well as the purlins, the safety mesh and the under side of the insulation.

This is a photo of the corner stanchion to rafter joint. The girts are visible, as is the mechanism for the roller door.


This is the joint between the rafter and the stanchion. Note how the non load bearing brickwork has been set into the universal column.

The universal columns on the glass and metal clad facade are placed on the outside of the building.

Southern Cross Station

In contrast to the DFO, turn around and you see a rather more innovative approach to long span construction, the Southern Cross Station by Grimshaw Architects. I don't know much about this building, so i might review an article on it to find out more. Stay tuned.

DFO at Southern Cross

These aren't the best construction detail pictures of the DFO at Southern Cross Station, but here they are anyway. The detail shows a fairly complicated joint of column to rafters. I noticed the services were all quite exposed in the ceiling area, and the structure was fairly visible, although i think this may have been more for cost efficiency than any kind of Miesian philosophy. I remember reading an article last year in the age where a bunch of prominent architects publicly criticised this building, which is usually against the architect's code of practice. They were objecting to this kind of cheap, industrial and ugly building being so prominent in the city centre, and i would have to agree that it is out of place.

Residential Site

This is a small residential site I walked past in Clifton Hill. It's not long span, but it is a lovely image of a slab on ground with plumbing sticking out.

Brambuk continued

Here are some images of the Brambuk Cultural Centre being constructed from this website: http://oak.arch.utas.edu.au/projects/aus/163/cbram.html. They show the organic forms that can be created with a bit of ingenuity in the timber framing. The website also has technical information about the project outling the process and the materials utilised. Here is an extract:

"Local sandstone was used for the base of the walls and lower floors of the central area. The display area floor and the walls of the main gathering space are of consolidated earth.

Twenty four 200 mm diameter Grey Box poles, many with bark intact, encircle the hearth and carry parts of the roof structure as well as the spiralling ramp which winds its way up through the building. The principle roof structure is supported on the massive undulating segmented ridge beam which, like a back-bone, runs between two large timber posts at the extreme ends of the building, where the major space of the theatre and display room are located. The segmented ridge beam is constructed from short lengths of straight material (LVL) lapped and nailed to form the complex curve of the roof profile. Nail gusset technology, derived from industrial building practice, thus provides a role in the organic expression of the building.

The ridge beam supports one end of the series of inclined 360mm x 63mm LVL rafters, that form the roof profile. Segmented timber stud walls support the other. Pre-fabricated in 1200mm wide panels, the walls were designed as a tilt-up system that deploy Radiata Pine framing, and a plywood skin that also functions as the interior wall lining. The external cladding is Cypress Pine boards, steamed to fit the curve and fixed horizontally in a lower band and vertically above. All of the curved timber elements, including the Victorian Ash handrails of the spiralling ramp, were steam bent on site.

The rafters carry a timber board ceiling, insulation and the sheet metal roof".

So there you go. They said it all. Cool building.

Brambuk Living Cultural Centre

Here are some images of the Brambuk Living Cultural Centre in Halls Gap from when I visited a few weeks ago. It was designed by Gregory Burgess and engineered by Peter Yttrip and associates, as mentioned by Jeremy in the timber lecture a few weeks back. I wasn't allowed to take photos of the inside, but check the next blog for some further research.

More Mies

The New National Gallery in Berlin, The Illinois Institute of Technology Library, Crown Hall frame and a model of the Mannheim Theatre project.

Tutorial exercises and my schematic design

This is a gutter detail with a precast concrete wall panel.
Here is a gutter detail between two portal frames.

And this is a section through a portal framed warehouse and an attached office.

Here are some images of my initial design for the major project. The warehouse is in the style of the Crown Hall and the Mannheim Theatre project, featuring a steel frame with attached I beams on the outside of the facade and the roof suspended from external trusses. The sides of the facade incorporate masonry in the first two metres of their elevation, as Mies used in the Illinois Institute of Technology Library. The attached office space will be modelled on the New National Gallery in Berlin. The overall plan is reminiscent of the classic Mies layout of staggered rectangles, as seen in the Farnsworth House. I was also thinking of placing both on small podiums, as Mies would have wanted.