Hi, it is not easy to be always
traveling but that it doesn´t mean that it is bad or unbearable, I, Rodolfo, usually
I spend my time reading a book in the airports (nothing of thrillers, of
course) or I watch some classic in my Tablet (a Nexus 9... Is it not on the
market yet? Is that you have already forgotten who I am?), the last movie was Ben-Hur the film is known for its horse racing and
because it has many differences with the novel but it is worth see Charlton
Heston in his 200 minutes of filming.
Well, the case is that I love
the films, I cannot remedy it, and therefore I travel a lot to Mumbai to see
with it surprise us in Bollywood (Mumbai was formerly Bombay). I have a few
friends working in the art society of Bombay (it situated there) and thanks to
them I found out that they were doing a building whose main singularity is the
form of the exterior... completely curvilinear! It would be impossible to
achieve if it we do not use the reinforced concrete...
The Third Stop: The Reinforced
Concrete.
If the previous article was
based on the Ecological Concrete, this it is based on the Reinforced Concrete.
The concrete is the most widely used material in construction but has a
characteristic "uncomfortable": it
works very well to compression (it supports loads directly on it) but it not
works very well to flexion (it not support attempting to fold) so it has many
limitations in structural systems. In the middle of the 19th century
emerged the reinforced concrete, which it consists basically to be included one
or more steel reinforcing rods within the concrete mass, this contributing to
withstand the loads to flexion of the constructive element.
Today, it is very difficult to
find a construction that it did not made with reinforced concrete: bridges,
buildings, pipelines or installations of certain scale... Even the urban furniture is usually made of this material!!
The two materials is complement
perfectly because they have virtually the same coefficient of expansion,
because when the concrete is solidified it shrinks around the steel and they
have to cooperate closely: the concrete protects the steel from corrosion (as a
father to a son) because the alkaline PH is acting and passive the steel (it
covering it with a film that prevents that external agents to attack it).
But I'm going around the bush
very fast: as I had said I'm in Bandra, Mumbai, India, and although you may not
believe it I have not come here to drink the Bombay Sapphire, I have come to see this spectacular and
unusual building: the Bombay Arts Society created by Sanjay Puri Architects in
a display of architectural pleasure rarely seen...
The building is public and it
intends to serve the community of artists, its owners are the institution
called Society arts of Bombay, which it is a society of art with centuries of
antiquity. It contains art galleries, a small auditorium, a coffee shop (a
public building without coffee shop would be horrible!), and offices for the
artists. The parcel where it is located has 1,300 square meters of surface and
the construction of building has 1,000 square meters.
Some persons liken the building with the cubist sculptures of
Henry Moore, clear that I won't do it among other things because it is an
absurd comparison. The characteristic shape is achieved making the outside structure
with concrete reinforced, with this it is shaping to the material and it is
make that the transmission of stress get to the foundations, so we avoid the construction
of pillars and corners on the inside;
this create spaces curved in both sides of the skin by setting some really
special stays.
Steel mesh in curved wall
Construction
This type of building is the nightmare of the formwork workers
and, at the same time, it is a challenge that will appeal to the most professional. The first thing that we must
do is to identify well the singular points and repetitive elements. Why? Because
we have to make unique formworks in the singular points and in the repetitive
elements we can establish a pattern and make molds which help us in our work.
We have to take into account: the steel bars are elastics, this implies
that if we bend it will tend to return to the position initial, in the
parts where this phenomenon exists we will have to tie them very well to bars
that maintain a position less stressed. So we avoid that in the future it can
break the outer layer of concrete that covers them.
It is also good that we can guarantee the continuity of the
concrete in the meeting point between ceilings and external walls, in other
words: we do not fill the walls of concrete below the base of the ceiling into
twenty or thirty centimetres; this will ensure a proper transmission of stress
at that point.
I shiver of excitement thinking about beautiful forms that I can
create with this material in my future construction! Bye bye!
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