BUILDING MATERIALS AND DESIGN
Academic year and teacher
If you can't find the course description that you're looking for in the above list,
please see the following instructions >>
- Versione italiana
- Academic year
- 2017/2018
- Teacher
- FABIO CONATO
- Credits
- 9
- Didactic period
- Primo Semestre
- SSD
- ICAR/12
Training objectives
- The aim of the course is to provide students a first knowledge about building materials and construction systems, in order to study, analyse and apply the technologies in a wide-ranging building operation logic, according to the needs- performance approach.
The main acquired knowledge will be:
• Basic and fundamental technological concepts about design, construction process, construction quality and buildings system through an examination of components’ performance in relationship with expected requirements.
• The proper use of material and energy resources and techniques in order to achieve optimal conditions to meet human needs and high building quality.
• The main families of construction technologies currently used, concerning the various parts of buildings, as well as the techniques evolutions.
• The materials that constitute technical elements and the related works in their physical, morphological and performance features as well as their production processes.
• The role played by building materials, technical elements and construction procedures in design, building, maintenance and management of a single building.
• “Best practices” and norms for a proper building practice.
The main acquired abilities will be:
• Ability to analyze and employ construction technologies in a wide-ranging building operation logic as well as in relationship with characteristics and performances of building materials and components and depending on the application contest.
• Interaction within working group and understanding of the importance of coordination with other specialists of alike sectors.
• Employ of knowledge and operational tools useful for the technological design at the different scales, with particular application to construction scale and up to the development of executive detail, able to meet both technical and performance requirements and aesthetic-morphological control.
• Understanding and management of basic problems related to the design of building envelope in relationship with indoor spaces, including the interactions with the structural grid and the technological systems in order to coordinate the different skills involved in the construction of a building.
• Habit in examine technical elements and their interfaces as complex devices derived from a mixture of functional requirements which conform their logic matrix, which knowledge allows to consider the construction details as readable, understandable and editable entities. Prerequisites
- There are no specific requirements.
Course programme
- The course is divided into three theoretical sections - dedicated to the concept of building quality, construction systems and building materials - and in a practical section, in which are held exercises aimed at improving the theoretical information.
The topics discussed in the lectures are:
- Building quality and functional contents of technical elements (8 hours)
• Concept of quality in construction; housing quality, environmental quality, technological quality.
• The quality regulation: concepts of requirements and performance and methods of control.
• Performances theory: classes of performance requirements for building components, performance of use and wellness, performance of safety, performance of integration and of appearance, performance of maintenance and management, performance of duration.
• The building system: environmental system and technological system, environmental units and technological units.
• The concept of boundary.
• The technological system; definition of classes of technological units and classes of technical elements.
- Construction types of technical elements (14 hours)
• General classification of main types of construction technologies related to classes of technical elements.
• Structures; vertical structures.
• External vertical enclosures; external vertical walls, external window and door fixtures.
• Upper horizontal enclosures: roofing, roof coatings, external horizontal window frames.
• Lower horizontal enclosures: ground floors.
• Vertical internal partitions; vertical partition walls, vertical interior window and door fixtures.
• Horizontal internal partitions; floors/attics.
- Materials for technical elements and related works (18 hours)
• Limes, cement, pozzolanic ashes, casts.
• Ceramics, cotto-tiles and gres.
• Steels, foils and extrusions.
• Paints and dyes.
• Insulation and waterproofing.
• Floor coverings and claddings
• Works in reinforced concrete and metal, steel works.
• Works in wood.
• Works in brick.
• Works in natural stones.
• Works in glass and polycarbonate works. Didactic methods
- The course consists of:
• lectures on the topics of the course;
• practice exercises, composed of brief checks done in class - about different parts of the same construction - and of a final draft, completed and revised, on the same contents;
• reviews;
• mid-term interrogation, to verify student’s preparation on the first part of the program;
• conferences held by architects and / or external stakeholders particularly devoted to the use of technology in architecture. Learning assessment procedures
- The access at the final examination is subjected to the compulsory attendance, recognized after: the correct enrollment at the course, the student’s participation at the all expected didactic activities and the work carried out through the exercises.
The final result will be composed of the sum of the didactic components which made up the course, that are:
• Brief checks, with the aim of verify the learning of the needs-performance method through the analysis of the main requirements essential for environmental units to satisfy users' requirements. Subsequently students will have to design an assigned building, whose morphology will be defined only in the most significant aspects, on the basis of the external conditions and defining its most significant structural nodes. These exercises will be marked with a score ranging from 0 to 5, subsequently converted in a 30th scale (from 18 to 30).
• Mid-term interrogation, in order to verify the learning of the course’s theoretical contents.
• Final exercise, developed starting from the brief checks, in which each student will summarize with technical drawings all the contents discussed during the course. Also this final exercise will be marked from 0 to 5, subsequently converted in a 30th scale (from 18 to 30).
• Final examination, based on topics discussed in lectures, in supplementary teaching materials and in the texts specifically mentioned in the bibliography below. Reference texts
- - Boeri, S. Cinti F. Conato, Elementi Costruttivi, Bologna, ed. Pitagora 2013;
- C. Amerio, G. Canavesio, Materiali per l’edilizia, Torino, Società Editrice Internazionale, 2009;
- C. Amerio, G. Canavesio, Tecniche ed elementi costruttivi, Torino, Società Editrice Internazionale, 2009;
- Various authors, Issues of the Course of Materials and construction components.
Complementary texts are mentioned in the bibliography of Elementi Costruttivi, Pitagora, 2013.
