BUILDING MATERIALS AND DESIGN
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- Versione italiana
- Academic year
- 2020/2021
- 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 concepts of design technological culture, construction process, buildings’ quality and buildings system through an examination of components’ performance in relation to the expected requirements.
• Preliminary theoretical principles and practices to know, understand and control training, transformation, recovery, maintenance and management processes of environmental and building systems.
• The concept of environmental, social and economic sustainability according to an interdisciplinary approach.
• The theoretical principles and methodologies to know, understand and control production and management buildings’ processes, as well as the role performed by technological innovation both in construction processes so as within production’s reorganization and rationalization processes as well as regarding business functioning, in order to improve products’ safety and performance quality.
• The materials that constitute technical elements and their related works, in their physical, morphological and performance features as well as their production processes.
• The proper use of material and energy resources and techniques in order to achieve optimal conditions to meet human needs and a high building quality.
• The role played by building materials, technical elements and construction procedures in design, construction, maintenance and management of a single building.
• The main families of construction technologies currently used, concerning the various parts of buildings, as well as the techniques evolutions.
• “Best practices” and standards for a proper building practice.
The main acquired abilities will be:
• Design and concept elaboration at different scales, with particular application to construction scale and up to the development of executive details, able to meet both technical and performance requirements as well as aesthetic-morphological control.
• The understanding and management of basic problems related to building envelope design in relation to confined 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.
• The interaction within working groups and the understanding of the importance of coordination with other specialists of alike sectors.
• The application of knowledge related to features and performance of building materials, products and components according to a comparative logic among different technologies, on the basis of the application context so as of the size and organization of building process.
• The attitude in examining the technical elements and their interfaces as complex devices derived from a mixture of functional requirements that 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.
Within the practical section instead, students will be asked to design a determined building, whose morphology will be defined only in its main aspects, on the basis of new assigned boundary conditions, in order to implement the concepts and operational tools learned from lectures in a wide-ranging operational logic. Didactic methods
- The course consists of:
• lectures on the topics of the course;
• practice exercises, composed of class’ tests – that deal with different parts of the same buildings - and of a final draft, completed and revised by virtue of the new acquired knowledge and abilities, on the same contents;
• reviews in class, about practice exercises;
• mid-term interrogation, to verify student’s preparation on the first part of the program. Learning assessment procedures
- The access to the final examination will be subjected to the compulsory attendance, recognized after: the correct enrollment at the course, the student’s participation at all the expected didactic activities as well as 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:
• Class’ tests, aimed at verify the learning of the needs-performance method through the analysis of main essential requirements that environmental units must have in order to satisfy end-users’ needs. 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 that ranges from 0 to 5, which will subsequently be converted in a 30th scale (from 18 to 30).
• Mid-term interrogation, in order to verify the learning of course’s theoretical contents.
• Final exercise, developed starting from the class’ tests, in which each student will summarize with technical drawings all the contents discussed during the course. Also this final exercise will be marked with a score that ranges 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, A., Cinti, S. and Conato, F. (2014), Elementi Costruttivi. Progetto e realizzazione, Bologna: Pitagora Editore
- Puglisi, V. and Cazzaniga, M. (2019), Costruire un edificio. Tecniche, sistemi e materiali costruttivi, Santarcangelo di Romagna: Maggioli Editore
- Various authors, Issues of the Course of Materials and construction components.
Complementary texts are those mentioned in the bibliography of Boeri et al. (2014), Elementi Costruttivi, Pitagora Editore.
