Questions tagged [architecture]
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Why do rainscreens require pressure equalization, but masonry cavity walls don't?
I'm not sure if this is right forum to post this, but if any engineer worked on rainscreens and/or masonry cavity walls and could tell me why some rainscreen systems are designed with pressure ...
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Are mutli-story structure slabs poured on-center?
What exactly does it mean to have a multi-storey building where each storey is 2.4 meters?
I've read a lot of descriptions of buildings that say each storey is "2.4 meters" or "3 meters&...
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How to calculate the height of the supporting structure of an arch and the thickness of an arch in relation to its span
Please refer to the attached image.
We know that if an arch is X unit wide then the supporting walls should not be less than X/4 unit width for the structural stability.
I would like to understand ...
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What is the name for the principle that multiple flexible lines between two points are geometrically equivalent to only one line?
I mentioned this idea to an architect and he immediately seemed to recognize it, but no amount of googling will tell me the name of it.
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Is my basement flooding because the city floods a neighboring field to make an ice rink?
I bought a house about a year ago that was built in 1952, and the original house has French drains and a sump pump which keeps the basement dry. There is an extension, however, which was added at some ...
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I want to cover a circular area with a sheet that is rolled onto a curved metal rod
My challenge is that the sheet gets bent in places around the rod making extension challenging. Another challenge is that since the metal rod is curved it turns in an awkward way that I want to ...
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65
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Examining the structure of old buildings
Generally speaking, many cities were built across long periods of time. When a city is expanded, still in general, the old part becomes the center, and the new parts increase the size of the city from ...
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How can I build a periscope window into a house, maintaining a high quality image at reasonable cost?
My family owns a plot of land on the top of a hill. AT the bottom of the hill is a lake. Between the plot and the lake is a house that completely blocks the lake view. However, it is only 10 or 15 ...
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does this building feature a brise soleil?
Is the curtain wall glass facade on the building in the following picture a brise soleil?
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Do glass windows reflect heat? If so, how to mitigate that?
Saudi Arabia is planning a skyscraper city which is 500 m tall, 200 m wide, and 170 km long. It'll have an all-glass facade. So, a concern is that the glass will reflect the heat until the ...
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What use are those glass panels?
I often come across glass panels that are attached to the edge of the ceilings of public interior areas.
What purpose do they serve?
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How to find building specs & blueprint(s) for an apartment complex?
For any given apartment complex in the U.S. (if you want to get specific, I am wondering about NYC), how does one track down the building's specifications. I'm talking about specs as detailed as the ...
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is a rebar arch structure a good idea?
I am thinking of building a simple shaded Arch for agriculture. I have an idea of building it with 30 ft sections of rebar that I will bend into a rough art shape. I would then weld rebar ...
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Freestanding wood frame inside masonry shell for noise?
I'm a lay neighborhood advocate, not an engineer.
Proposed is a three-storey multi-family housing project adjacent to an airport. A concern is that noise pollution will create higher tenancy turnover, ...
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What is the most structurally supportive 3D Tessellation? The sort of thing you'd use to build chambers for an underground mansion
Hexagons are considered the strongest grid pattern, I believe, and that's why bees use them? They're an efficient use of space, with maximal structural integrity. I was wondering what a 3-dimensional ...
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Sun exposure in room as a function of day and time?
Background (may be safely ignored): I am buying (most of) a rowhouse from the 1930s. I am now working with an architect to improve its energy efficiency.
Let us focus on the main room, which can be ...
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Looking for the name of a certain type of room
I don't know if this is the place to ask, but I am wondering about the name for a certain type of room in a building.
I am thinking about the ones where it is basically like a central room, but it is ...
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If you have unlimited space, how many toilets can you put into a public restroom? [closed]
Are there structural limits or legal limits of any kind?
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What is the lowest point below sealevel that we have built where a human can go?
According to google searches, the Jinping Underground Laboratories are the "deepest" building or buildings constructed, reaching 7900 feet (2400 metre) below the surface.... However, the ...
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How to estimate the number of elevators required in a building?
I've been asked to estimate the number of elevators in a mixed use building with 37 floors (4 basement-parking floors), & design their operation.
Are their any specifications/guides/manuals that ...
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Correct term for "Cabin Window"?
Like the ones in a:
cinema ticket selling point
purge contention chamber (sci-fi)
reception point of a public institution
police control point
(where one can attend someone else, behind a ...
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How does an arch transfer vertical load? [duplicate]
I am hoping that someone can explain to me how, physically, an arch transfers a purely vertical load (Fy) into a diagonal force to the abutments of the arch.
I understand that the y and x components ...
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What is the name of a half wall with posts on top that divides a space into two?
I am looking for specific terminology around a half wall that acts as a divider to split a space into two separate uses. The top half of this features a series of wooden posts. It essentially ...
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Why are the facades of historic residential buildings in Paris tilted backwards?
In any major city that features an historical center, the list of attractions advertised by tourist guides seldom includes what, in my opinion, would constitute the destination's most important part: ...
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Is the use of direct-expansion split systems to heat or cool exit enclosures permitted under the US model building Codes?
Most multistory buildings have enclosed exit stairways somewhere within them to provide safe egress from their non-discharge floors. In a building that relies on hydronic heating/cooling, steam ...
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What is the term for diagonal bars which are making rectangular frame more rigid?
For example in yellow:
if all bars were rectangular, the entige frame would tend to skew. To prevent this, these diagonal bars are mounted.
What is the term for them?
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Why did they move ancient Egyptian temples to prevent them from water damage instead of encircling them with a dam?
Specifically I'm talking about Abu Simbel temple and Philae temple. Which are close to a reservoir created by Aswan dam.
It seems to me easier to build a dam than to move a temple.
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Natural ways for passively cooling/heating a home?
I always think about how there surely must be natural ways to cool/heat a house, rather than using electricity, like solar panels, heaters, and AC. Does anyone have any good examples of houses/...
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How is fire risk reduced in dense contemporary timber neighbourhoods?
In the Middle Ages most buildings were made from timber. After large fires timber was restricted or outlawed altogether and brick and stone became the preferred building materials, e.g. in London ...
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Which is stronger, a round sign post or a square-cross-section sign post?
Which is stronger, a round sign post or a square-cross-section sign post?
I will be using one or the other to hold the top corner of a shade sail. I tried an aluminum pipe but a strong wind on the ...
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Converting multiview drawing to isometric drawing
Please help me answer this. There is more to this but I just need to know the trick so I can answer the rest please.
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What are the disadvantages of cylindrical residential buildings? [closed]
I've been spending an hour finding references for my research, but unfortunately I can't see useful information. So, I would really appreciate it if you could give me some references about the ...
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How to make an Idol always strictly face the rising Sun?
I recently came to know that the Sun rises on a different place in the horizon everyday : https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/q/39670/14624 To me the change in the direction of Sun rise seems ...
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Cheap material and construction to insulate balcony during the winter?
It's a long shot, but I was wondering whether there is any material I can wrap around my balcony to be able to use it like a sun room during the winter. A plastic-like material that I could span ...
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How draw sections of stairs in autocad?
I am trying to draw a section from the front look of the unit and I am struggling with the stairs. The stairs on the plan below are located on the right side and I wish to draw the view out of them ...
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Wood beam connection
Can someone please explain why the top left image is correct and the bottom left image is not? Both of these images have the bolts on the lower half of the wood beam (tension) side.
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Low slope roofing
I’m having trouble finding resources that explain/describe type of low slope roof for cold weather. Is single ply or metal standing seam or BUR better if we are considering all cold weather related ...
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How to calculate the clock cycle in relation to bytes per clock bus?
In wikipedia there is the following
With the speed of instruction fetch reduced by 50% in the 8088 as
compared to the 8086, a sequence of fast instructions can quickly
drain the four-byte prefetch ...
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What are the type of Equations that can determine if parabolas are better shapes to support structure or hyperbolas?
So it is taught that arches are good to support structure and most bridges are build out of arches, so I am curious to know how we can determine the internal forces of such complex shapes. Is it only ...
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Do the floorboards in timber beam floors have a structural function?
Timber beam floors with perpendicular timber floorboards as indicated in the drawing below are common throughout northern Europe. The floorboards are nailed onto the beams and are quite substantial ...
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What does Leonardo da Vinci mean in his statement on arches?
I was recently reading some of Leonardo da Vinci's notes on architecture. One passage on arches states:
An Experiment to show that a weight placed on an arch does not
discharge itself entirely on ...
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Where can I find a list of building codes to put on a set of blueprints for a addition
Most architectural companies have a template of blueprints they reuse for every project.
As an owner-builder, I need to make these blueprints from scratch
On page 1, I have to list all applicable ...
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Huge gap between ceiling and floor above
I guess this question would belong on an architecture page if Stack had one.
There is a 5 story building I was in recently that had fairly low ceilings (maybe about 8 feet) and a huge gap between ...
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How to calculate the dimensions of an ellipse in a multi-view projection
The following image is an example that will help to demonstrate what i am saying and this below is a blender image version of an object with a slant surface at the top.
to draw the multi view ...
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Heat storage mass vs. AIR in an ICF house
If we would want to build a family house (ICF) regarding operational costs, should we leave the insulation on the inside, or should we remove it from the inside?
If we would remove it, the walls ...
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From the viewpoint of a civil engineer, what was the purpose of this bridge?
I have been searching for historical structures in the province of Van, Turkey, by examining the publicly available satellite imagery like Bing Maps. There is a historic bridge near Kaçit, Çatak. Its ...
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Why would bathrooms have two layers of doors?
I work in a university building designed in the 1930s, located in western New York State (not in NYC). To enter classrooms, offices or labs one passes through a single door. However, the restrooms ALL ...
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Disguising tall exhaust stacks
While architectural features are oftentimes more aesthetic than they are technically complex, this still seemed like a suitable question for here.
I am working on a project for an industrial type ...
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What are the limits on building very high buildings using certain materials and architectural style?
I played some video games with beautiful environments filled with buildings which can't be found in the real world. And so I'm wondering, would such buildings be even realistically possible to exist ...
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Why don't public transport networks have more routes to each terminal?
When using public transport, we often need to change routes in the middle of the journey. These changes have costs – I can think of the following, but there may be more.
If we're reading, working, ...
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