ENVS10003 Studio Journal Week 8 Christian Virgona – 641276 This weeks tutorial was conducted as a workshop with Hamish, in groups, the obective was to construct a structure 400mm high with a 1 meter span which would be able to withstand the greatest weight. At first, our group thought that it would be wise to develop a truss-like structure. A struss is a structural frame based on the geometric rigidity of the triangle, this would allow for structural members to only be subject to axial tension or compression (Ching 2008 pp. 2.16) We began by cutting our span but we realised that this form of structure would not be effective considering our time frame and the fact that we would have to cut angles on the wood. Therefore we adopted a more simplistic, yet effective approach. We would have the same measurements for our span but we would have 12, vertical columns that would hold the structure together. We began by drilling holes (figure 2) into our base wood, these holes would then be fitted with screws which would connect our columns into our base. Figure 3 shows the development of our structure once we had screwed in our columns. Our columns were not all exactly level, but it did not matter because we knew that through compression and tension the top layer of wood would bend under load which meant that all columns would be supporting weight. We chose to use screws instead of nails because the screws could be drilled in tigher and because of their threaded shafts, screws have reater holding power than nails (Ching 2008) Fig 1. – Truss- Design by our group Fig 2 – Drilling to fit screws Figure 3 – Columns screwed into our top layer.