Your Design Journal entries for this module should highlight:
- your overall strategy and the features of the structural system
- the material and framing system selected
- the locations of structural columns and major framing elements
- any special structural challenges
For the framing materials, for the sustainability performance, I only considered steel and wood because concrete has a relatively high embodied carbon. Steel and wood have different advantages and disadvantages, wood is a renewable material and has a lower embodied carbon, and steel can be recycled and allowing us to have a longer span length. For the purpose of this building, I think steel is more suitable because we can use less number of columns which is important for the visitors of the exhibition space to have a wide-open view. Most interior columns are enclosed by architectural walls. The exterior patio has wood framing because the size of the patio is relatively large, if we simply extended the beam will require larger beams and columns to support it, so I added wood framing to support the exterior patio. Wood is a biophilic material and I use it to connect the natural views.
The structural framing system is shown in figure 1 with the following features:
Column Size: W12 x 40 & W 10 x 19.
W12 x 40 is generally used and W10 x 19 is only applied for small span lengths.
Span Length: 6.5 ft - 37 ft
Beam size: W12 x 26
Joists: W12 x 26
Foundation: 72’’ x 48’’ x 18’’ Rectangular Concrete Footing
Exterior Patio:
Column: Timber-Column 14x14
Beam and Joists: Timber 12 x 24
Span Length: 17 - 19 ft
Special structural challenges:
The challenges include connecting the wood framing to the steel framing for the exterior patio, and the triangular shape of the building on the northwestern side. To place the columns on the triangular shape of the building I added some extra grids to better represent the building shape and used some smaller columns for the small span length. When I checked the clashes in the model coordination, I found most issues are associated with the intrusion of the interior walls and can be fixed later.
Interior Views:
