constructing journal

Constructing Studio Journal Possavee Chaichareon (640928)

CONSTRUCTING JOURNAL – WEEK 1

The aim of the first constructing studio task was to build a tall tower with small wooden bricks. Each group had 4-5 people and we had 1 hour complete the tall structure.

The base of our tower consisted with a basic brick pattern to ensure a stable tower base. After about five rows from the bottom, we realized that this is an inefficient way to build a high tower since it uses large quantities of the bricks. Therefore, as illustrated in the image above we left spaces in between each brick to reduce to amount of bricks required to complete each level.

Due to this continuous pattern, we were able to build a stable tower that can withstand a reasonable amount of downward force. The high density of bricks in the tower meant that we were running out of bricks. Observing around the room at this moment, we had the tallest tower but other groups were catching up at a fast rate.

CONSTRUCTING ENVIRONMENTS

As a result of the limited bricks that our group had, we had to change the brick layout from being double layered to a single layer. Consequently, the tower quickly became less stable the higher we built the tower. Since it became so unstable from the lateral forces we had to stack extra bricks from the lower floors to support the higher level as shown in the image. Time was running out and we had small quantities of wooden bricks left so our group decided to just stack single bricks on top of each other as high as possible. The final height of our tower reached approximately 1.10 metres until it collapsed.

After the rickety top half of the tower collapsed, the more secure bottom half of the tower remained intact. I was curious and decided to test its firmness and stability by sitting on the tower. It was able to hold my weight surprisingly (65kg) for about 5 seconds until it fell.



CONSTRUCTING JOURNAL – WEEK 2

This week, each group had one piece of balsa wood to construct a high tower by using the idea of skeletal frames to form the structure. We were allowed to use masking tape and super glue to attach the thin balsa strips together.

• By using a triangulation base structure, this will help reduce the amount of balsa strips required thus improving the efficiency of material and give the structure a stable base.

• We used super glue and masking tape

to join each joint together and this worked effectively as we progressed

• As our tower progressed higher and higher, it was harder to construct each layer by joining the joints and bracing for support.

• Signs of buckling from the lower frame were evident because of the weight of the tower.

• The tower started leaning towards one side due to uneven weight distribution.