Structures > Buildings

From transforming a warehouse into an office building or reimagining a church as an entertainment venue, adaptive reuse is making old new again in cities across the country. Rather than demolishing structures that no longer serve their original purpose, adaptive reuse focuses on converting them into something new and useful to support sustainability and preserve history. Adaptive reuse has gained in popularity for a number of reasons, from the practical to the aspirational. These projects tend to be less expensive than ground-up projects and can be completed more quickly. By investing in neighborhoods that have been overlooked or neglected areas of a city, adaptive reuse can also serve as a […] Read More

A waffle slab is made of a thin topping supported by ribs running in both directions, giving it the appearance of waffle when looked from below. Waffle slabs are a special type of reinforced concrete slab, where aesthetics meet with certain structural characteristics. They have advantages such as the aesthetics, higher load capacity and longer spans. Since they are stiff due to their higher overall thickness, they reduce floor vibrations, which is also desirable in hospitals, labs. Their rigidity also enable better distribution of lateral forces. Contrary to the belief of many, waffle slabs don’t necessarily reduce material usage (and consequently dead load of the building) however, because overall thickness […] Read More

This is one of the posts in a series of our posts that we discuss failures. Also check out the other posts in constructmagazine.com, where we discuss failures in different contexts of civil engineering. A Brief Introduction of Earthquakes vs. Structures: Earthquakes are very important aspect of most design in civil engineering, and for any type of structure. The fundamental earthquake principles as it applies to structures are of course the same, although there are specific items that apply to each structure. Here we will discuss earthquake related failures in buildings. Earthquakes result from movements of large land masses, which in turn affect structures, by making them move too. Since […] Read More

In this post we will discuss various aspects when designing and analyzing Reinforced Concrete (RC) moment frames and behavior of structural members. Read More

In this post we will look at seismic strengthening methods of concrete buildings. Read More

Of course when we talk about structures, the first thing that comes to our minds is the buildings, as we live in them, and we see all sorts of them around. By buildings we mean all kind of buildings that enclose an area from outside and separates it with the outside… such as residences, offices, high rises, warehouses, factory buildings, sports halls, malls… Only after the architectural design is complete, which determines how will the building look, how big or small, what functions it will perform where, how will the interior spaces be allocated, how many levels it will be, only after that, the engineering design comes into play. The […] Read More