Adobe is a building material made from earth and organic materials. Adobe is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of earthen construction, or various architectural styles like Pueblo Revival or Territorial Revival. Most adobe buildings are similar in appearance to cob and rammed earth buildings. Adobe is among the earliest building materials, and is used throughout the world.
A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member. The term column applies especially to a large round support with a capital and a base or pedestal, which is made of stone, or appearing to be so. A small wooden or metal support is typically called a post. Supports with a rectangular or other non-round section are usually called piers.
Retaining walls are relatively rigid walls used for supporting soil laterally so that it can be retained at different levels on the two sides. Retaining walls are structures designed to restrain soil to a slope that it would not naturally keep to. They are used to bound soils between two different elevations often in areas of inconveniently steep terrain in areas where the landscape needs to be shaped severely and engineered for more specific purposes like hillside farming or roadway overpasses. A retaining wall that retains soil on the backside and water on the frontside is called a seawall or a bulkhead.
A basement or cellar is one or more floors of a building that are completely or partly below the ground floor. Especially in residential buildings, it often is used as a utility space for a building, where such items as the furnace, water heater, breaker panel or fuse box, car park, and air-conditioning system are located; so also are amenities such as the electrical system and cable television distribution point. In cities with high property prices, such as London, basements are often fitted out to a high standard and used as living space.
A beam is a structural element that primarily resists loads applied laterally across the beam's axis. Its mode of deflection is primarily by bending, as loads produce reaction forces at the beam's support points and internal bending moments, shear, stresses, strains, and deflections. Beams are characterized by their manner of support, profile, equilibrium conditions, length, and material.
In engineering, a foundation is the element of a structure which connects it to the ground or more rarely, water, transferring loads from the structure to the ground. Foundations are generally considered either shallow or deep. Foundation engineering is the application of soil mechanics and rock mechanics in the design of foundation elements of structures.
Seismic retrofitting is the modification of existing structures to make them more resistant to seismic activity, ground motion, or soil failure due to earthquakes. With better understanding of seismic demand on structures and with recent experiences with large earthquakes near urban centers, the need of seismic retrofitting is well acknowledged. Prior to the introduction of modern seismic codes in the late 1960s for developed countries and late 1970s for many other parts of the world, many structures were designed without adequate detailing and reinforcement for seismic protection. In view of the imminent problem, various research work has been carried out. State-of-the-art technical guidelines for seismic assessment, retrofit and rehabilitation have been published around the world – such as the ASCE-SEI 41 and the New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering (NZSEE)'s guidelines. These codes must be regularly updated; the 1994 Northridge earthquake brought to light the brittleness of welded steel frames, for example.
In construction or renovation, underpinning is the process of strengthening the foundation of an existing building or other structure. Underpinning may be necessary for a variety of reasons:
A tie, strap, tie rod, eyebar, guy-wire, suspension cables, or wire ropes, are examples of linear structural components designed to resist tension. It is the opposite of a strut or column, which is designed to resist compression. Ties may be made of any tension resisting material.
The Utah State Capitol is the house of government for the U.S. state of Utah. The building houses the chambers and offices of the Utah State Legislature, the offices of the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, the State Auditor and their staffs. The capitol is the main building of the Utah State Capitol Complex, which is located on Capitol Hill, overlooking downtown Salt Lake City.
A girder bridge is a bridge that uses girders as the means of supporting its deck. The two most common types of modern steel girder bridges are plate and box.
500 Boylston Street is a 1.3-million square foot postmodern building located in the Back Bay section of Boston and part of the city's High Spine, completed in 1989. It is located next to the landmark Trinity Church, Boston. It dominates the western half of the city block bounded by Boylston, Clarendon and Berkeley streets and St. James Avenue. The building was designed by John Burgee Architects with Philip Johnson, with structural engineering by LeMessurier Consultants and MEP/FP engineering by Cosentini Associates, Inc. The construction project was managed by Bond Brothers. It cost $100 million to build. The site contains approximately 137,000 square feet (12,700 m2) of land area, with approximately 500 feet (150 m) of frontage on Boylston Street.
A deep foundation is a type of foundation that transfers building loads to the earth farther down from the surface than a shallow foundation does to a subsurface layer or a range of depths. A pile or piling is a vertical structural element of a deep foundation, driven or drilled deep into the ground at the building site.
A shallow foundation is a type of building foundation that transfers structural load to the earth very near to the surface, rather than to a subsurface layer or a range of depths, as does a deep foundation. Customarily, a shallow foundation is considered as such when the width of the entire foundation is greater than its depth. In comparison to deep foundations, shallow foundations are less technical, thus making them more economical and the most widely used for relatively light structures.
Pallet rack is a material handling storage aid system designed to store materials on pallets. Although there are many varieties of pallet racking, all types allow for the storage of palletized materials in horizontal rows with multiple levels. Forklift trucks are usually required to place the loaded pallets onto the racks for storage. Since the Second World War, pallet racks have become a ubiquitous element of most modern warehouses, manufacturing facilities, retail centers, and other storage and distribution facilities. All types of pallet racking increase storage density of the stored goods. Costs associated with the racking increases with increasing storage density.
The St Saviour's Cathedral is the heritage-listed cathedral church of the Anglican Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn in Goulburn, Goulburn Mulwaree Council, New South Wales, Australia. The cathedral is dedicated to Jesus, in his title of Saviour. The current dean is the Very Reverend Phillip Saunders. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 20 April 2009.
Prefabs were a major part of the delivery plan to address the United Kingdom's post–World War II housing shortage. They were envisaged by war-time prime minister Winston Churchill in March 1944, and legally outlined in the Housing Act 1944.
A grade beam or grade beam footing is a component of a building's foundation. It consists of a reinforced concrete beam that transmits the load from a bearing wall into spaced foundations such as pile caps or caissons. It is used in conditions where the surface soil’s load-bearing capacity is less than the anticipated design loads.
The Bingham Company Warehouse is a historic warehouse located in Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States. It was designed by the noted local firm of Walker and Weeks for the W. Bingham Company, and is one of the architectural firm's few utilitarian commercial buildings. For many years, W. Bingham Co. was the Midwest's largest hardware manufacturer and wholesaler. The W. Bingham Co. went out of business in 1961, and the warehouse was sold to a succession of owners of the years. The warehouse was sold to private investors in 2001, who converted it into apartments, known today as The Bingham.
A double-beam drawbridge, seesaw or folding bridge is a movable bridge. It opens by rotation about a horizontal axis parallel to the water. Historically, the double-beam drawbridge has emerged from the drawbridge. Unlike a drawbridge, a double-beam drawbridge has counterweights, so that opening requires much less energy.
