Experiment 2 Final Submission

Final Images

CryEngine Files and 3DS Files

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/geuppfjazm0rvek/I7cnN9JWGm

Video Clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAD_OrO3zdc&feature=youtu.be

Update

Strategy

My strategy for the decay of my building, is that after 100 years without any human interaction, mother nature will have almost completely taken back the entire planet.

Firstly the destruction of the Rudin House. It is made almost completely of reinforced concrete. This will last a long time, but eventually, water will corrode it, and plants will break it apart. The parts to be first affected will likely be those closest to the ground, so the 4 support columns and the stairs will be the first to go. Also, once one column breaks, the building will lose around 20% of its support, and so, with the other 80% support being weak as well, the whole thing will come down and break most of it apart.

There is also the wood and glass materials of the house to consider. In my opinion, wood and glass will not last 100 years, the wood will fall apart and be eaten by termites or something similar, and the glass will break apart and be ground into dust long before the structure gives way.

Once this has occured, with the building being even closer to the ground, mother nature will take hold. Moss will likely grow in great quantities, bushes will grow in corners where sedement builds up from rain, and trees will grow from the ground, through any cavities in the building.

Week 3 Lecture Reflection

This weeks lecture was on Abandonment. In it we looked at the effect that nature can have on man-made structures in short time spans, such as 5 or less years. To display this Russell showed us the effects of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans, Kolmanskop in Namibia (and the effects of sand) and Prypiat, Ukraine (and what a city would look like after nuclear waste exposure). As well we looked at images from artists impressions of the world after humans.

These examples help to visualise the first steps in the deterioration of buildings after a few short years from weather, and then what it would look like after nature takes back its hold. This will help me with the Rudin House as it is of basic materials and in a very soft landscape with mostly grass surrounding it.

Week 3 - Rayfire Test

EXP 2 Week 2 Lecture Reflection

In this weeks lecture we were shown a few select materials - that related to the buildings we will be using in EXP 2 - and how they act after given up for lost by humans. Interesting imagines were from the earthquakes in NZ and how bricks react to it compared to timber - the bricks collapsed quite easily, as they are more rigid whereas the wood bent under the pressures exerted on it. We also looked at steel corroding, especially abandoned ships next to or in the sea - they had practically disappeared in less than 30 years. Some even had completely new ecosystems growing on them.

Doing Rudins House, the material I am interested in is concrete, which lasts well over time, however it does get stained by weather effects quite quickly.

EXP 2 Week 2 Materials

Reinforced Concrete

A composite material in which concrete's relatively low tensile strength and ductility are counteracted by the inclusion of a high tensile strength reinforcement, usually steel reinforcement bars (rebars) embedded in the concrete before it sets. The concrete is usually pre-stressed to improve the behaviour of the structure under working loads.

The rebars have to be well bonded to the concrete and act well under thermal pressures (ie. don't expand and contract to much), and resist corrosion. Also, the thermal expansion of concrete is similar to that of steel, eliminating large amounts of internal stress.

Chemicals within the cement paste used in the concrete react with the steel to create a passivating film on the surface of the steel making it more resistant to corrosion.

How it Corrodes:

• Mechanical Failure - cracking allowing corrosive elements into the structure, poor design.
• Carbonation - carbon dioxide attacking rebars too close to the concrete surface.
• Chlorides - salts from salt water (sea) or from chlorinated water in concrete mix (now disused)

Glass

Glass used in architecture is soda-lime glass, made up of 75% silicon dioxide, sodium oxide, lime and several minor additives. It is melted in gas fired units, homogenized and refined (bubbles removed), then formed. For windows, the float glass process is used - molten glass is floated on a molten metal surface. The top surfaces are then subjected to nitrogen under pressure to obtain a polished finish. It is finally annealed to remove stresses.

Glass is quite corrosion resistant. Only a few chemicals actually attack glass - hydrofluoric acid, concentrated phosphoric acid, hot concentrated alkali solutions and super heated water. However, in architecture, these acids do not usually come into contact with glass.

The most common way glass corrodes is by water. Alkali ions in the glass are extracted by hydrogen in water, leaving a silica-rich layer on the surface of the glass. More and more pH will touch the glass, rapidly increasing the corrosion process.


Timber

The making of timber is a simple process. Trees are felled, transported to a saw mill and cut into pieces of timber.

Timber is widely used in construction as it is one of the few natural building materials. It is renewable, low in production cost, a good insulator, readily available and easy to work.

However, wood destroys easily, mainly from fungal effects and being eaten by insects, mainly termites. Termites do not have a huge effect on timber structures at the moment, but without people to keep termites away from buildings, termites could eat an entire timber structure within a year. Timber is also susceptible to fire. Usually timber is the first material to corrode in a building, however it does stand well against things such as earthquakes.