Interpretation of Info-graph - Blog 9 - Yukta Yogeesh
William Strutt was
working in a mill, built with timber. He was a cotton spinner who wanted to
protect his mill from fire, because he was working with inflammable substances.
So, he encased timber with iron to make it fire resistant. Later this addition of
iron to building construction was expanded from casing the structure to making
it the structure itself! So, from then, building framework was made out of
Iron. This not only made the building fire resistant, but also very strong
compared to the previous one which was made of timber.
Later, this solid
iron framework was replaced by hollow sections. This not only provided
insulation, but also reduced the construction cost by 30%. Later this usage of
iron in construction was not just limited to the framework, but also started to
expose itself in facades.
All this was around
England and New York. In 1869, Chicago fire had crushed off around 17500
buildings and made a lot of residents homeless. So, they had to build a lot of
buildings, with less finance. So, they built with iron frame work, terracotta
walls, started building skyscrapers with vertical movement with elevators.
Later, Iron was replaced with steel, an alloy with Carbon. As the height of the
building increased, there was more wind load to handle. This was adapted during
the revival style of architecture. Later, there was realisation that it works
better when steel is composed with different materials like concrete and glass.
These compositions worked the best.
Later, there were so
many innovations made with steel as a structural membrane. They came up with
different sections that can be used as beams and columns in building
structures. Later, it was used to hold the building as a package of so many
levels in the race of building the tallest structures in the world during the
late 1870's. This gave rise to development of tubular sections[1].
Khan was one of the few architects who was so involved in using this
construction typology. He came up with 2 shells, in World Trade Centre, with
one carrying the load of wind and the other to carry the other loads by the
structure. But, after the crash, there was a question regarding the stability
of the structure. So, they came up with another interesting steel structure
called Bundled tube system[2]
giving the structure the stability it needs. This was furtherly improvised with
Diagrid framework [3]which
increases stability immensely and reduces the usage of other building materials
and surely, there will be more innovative structures in the future.
One might wonder why
all these innovations and structural experiments were a part of the West and
not India although civilisation and globalisation was prevailing during this
era. But then again, is steel climatic to tropical or hot places? Although it
is recyclable and can just be used for the framework and not for the filling,
it still leaves me a western-influenced impact. This might as well be a consequence
of globalisation. Now, in this sustainable timeline, we are relying on these
materials and are referring to go back and use vernacular materials. But with
growing population, we need space to live and we need vertical expansion which
can be satisfied with Steel!
No of words - 604
Images sourced by author
Image Interpreted sourced from Archdaily (https://www.archdaily.com/200801/infographic-steel-architecture)
Yukta Yogeesh
[1]
Rectangular or Circular Hollow sections (RHS/CHS) based on a collective set of
structural frameworks in a building.
[2] A
set of tubular sections with varying/same heights and load bearing capacities.
[3] A
framework that relies of two sets of frameworks for a single structure. One in
the form of horizontal and vertical supporting membranes and the other in diagonal
membranes, supplementing the strength of the structure.
Comments
Post a Comment