Oral+presentations+summary

(Andreina and Jose Javier)
 * Glass **

Glass is a hard, non-crystalline and solid material normally fragile and transparent common in our daily life.

These are the main characteristics of glass: - Solid and hard material - Disordered and amorphous structure - Fragile and easily breakable into sharp pieces - Transparent to visible light - Inert and biologically inactive material. - Glass is 100% recyclable and one of the safest packaging materials due to its composition and properties

Glass is used for architecture application, illumination, electrical transmission, instruments for scientific research, optical instruments, domestic tools and even textiles. Glass does not deteriorate, corrode, stain or fade and therefore is one of the safest packaging materials. These properties can be modified and changed by adding other compounds or heat treatment.

The main types of glass are: - Commercial glass - Lead glass - Borosilicate glass

Glass has a lot to offer, particularly in the artistic sense, this is proven by many examples of modern architecture: transparency, the possibility to decorate the surface, the way the building reveals different sides of its nature according to whether it is day or night, or how delicate divisions can be made with glass

he Glass House built in 1949 in New Canaan, Connecticut, was designed by Philip Johnson as his own residence and is a masterpiece in the use of glass. Modern skyscrapers with glass facades

(Andrea and Ana)
 * Wood **

Wood is a material found as the primary content of the stems of woody plants, especially trees. The woody tissue is formed by the plant for structural purposes, and because it is an effective and efficient structural material, it is useful to humans. Wood is used for many different purposes. Wood has been used as the primary material in the construction of houses and other buildings, also furniture is produced from wood. Perhaps the most important use of wood in terms of human development was the creation of fire. Wood is still used as a fuel in many areas.

Wood has many benefits in architecture like: natural beauty, it is easy to work with, durable, safe, light, strong, good insulation and offers a wide range of engineered solutions. Wood is a renewable resource. It is strong, light, fairly easy to work and work with, and it lasts pretty well. It is relatively inexpensive, broadly available, and can be adapted to make lots of wonderful things from kitchen spoons to houses. And when we look at the custom turnings or crafted wood furnishings produced over the years, we see some of the most wonderful grain and coloration in this ancient building material.

House – Modern Wooden Home by XTEN Arcitecture

(Joalbert and Fabiana)
 * Wall **

A wall is a solid structure that defines, enclose, divide ans protects an area. A wall delineates a building and supports its structures, separates space in buildings into rooms, o ptrotects or delineates a space in the open air. Walls are constructed in different forms and of various materials to serve several functions. The two types of walls are load-bearing, which supports the weight of the house above it (floors and roofs), and non-bearing wall, which supports only its own weight. - buildings walls: supports roofs and ceilings. A building wall will usually have the structural elements, insulation, and finish elements or surface. - exterior boundary walls:are used to mark territory and provide privacy. - retaining walls: are a special type of wall, that may be either external to a building or part of a building, that serves to provide a barrier to the movement of earth, stone or water. - partition wall: is a wall for the purpose of separating rooms, or dividing a room. Partition walls are usually not load-bearing.

The main purpose of the wall is to protect, without it probably we had no shelter, because it protects us from external factors such as weather and often supports the roof of a building.

(Alejandro, Eric and Stephanie)
 * Spatial Organization**

The City is a par of our lives and our language; we might say "I live in a city" or "I live near a city" or "I am moving to a city". That's why a good city is so important. A good city is the place that has an economic, environmental, structural, social and political organization in its space. When these characteristics are absent, the city is unsustainable but it is still considered a city. Spacial Organization is used to describe the location of places on the earth's surface. To spatially organize objects, some concepts are required. These concepts are: localization, distance, density, direction and spacial relationships.

(Francis and Patricia)
 * Properties and shapes **

the quality of a distinct object or body in having an externalsurface or outline of specific form or figure. Simple shapes can be described by basic geometry objects such as a set of two or more points, a line, a curve, a plane, a plane figure (e.g. square or circle), or a solid figure (e.g.cube or sphere)

The primary shapes are: square, circle and triangle. These basic shapes generates volumes known as platonic solids. There are only five platonic solids: Cube, Tetrahedron, Octahedron, Dodecahedron, Icosahedron. Organic shapes are shapes with a natural look and a flowing and curving appearance. Examples of organic shapes include the shapes of leaves, plants, and animals.

Squares, cubes and parallelepipeds are the most basic and employed shapes of construction and we can see in the structural elements, facades and inside the building. Also circles, cylinders, spheres, arches, triangles and pyramids are important forms used in construction. Architecture is based on all of these geometric shapes.

(Maria Carlota and Jorge)
 * Post and Lintel **

Post-and-lintel, a structure consisting of two upright or vertical members (posts, columns, piers) hold up a third member (lintel, beam, girder, rafter) laid horizontally across their top surfaces.

Lintel: bear the loads that rest on it without deforming or breaking. Failure occurs when the material is too weak or the lintel is too long. Lintels composed of materials that are weak in bending, such as stone, must be short, while lintels in materials that are strong in bending, such as steel, may span far greater openings. Post: support the lintel and its loads without crushing or buckling. Failure occurs, as in lintels, from excessive weakness or length, but the difference is that the material must be especially strong in compression. Stone, which has this property, is more versatile as a post than as a lintel; under heavy loads it is superior to wood but not to iron, steel, or reinforced concrete.

In prehistoric times until the Roman empire, post and lintel system was the basis of architecture. Over time the use of the posts and lintel developed and refined. Today is widely used this system for its simplicity and ruggedness that gives to buildings.

Stonehenge an example of early post and lintel construction

(Ainara, Teresa and Soriana)
 * Framed Structures **

A framed structure in any material is one that is made stable by a skeleton that is able to stand by itself as a rigid structure without depending on floors or walls to resist deformation. Materials such as wood, steel, and reinforced concrete, which are strong in both tension and compression, make the best members for compression. Masonry skeletons, which cannot be made rigid without walls, are not frames. The heavy timber frame, in which large posts, spaced relatively far apart, support thick floors and roof beams.