Week 4

This week we spent a lot of time finalizing our agenda in regards to when to finish our CAD drawings  and how we want to proceed with the 3D printing part of the project. We researched more about the history of the CCTV Tower as well and are making strides in the project. We finally finished our biographies after technical difficulties with logging into Blogger. Next week we hope to finish our CAD drawings and dive further into researching the history of the CCTV Tower and begin writing our report.  We will use the blueprint designs we found online in aiding us with the scaling and design of our structure.

Figure 4:  View one blueprint

Figure 5:  View two blueprint

Source:
http://www.arcspace.com/features/oma/cctv-headquarters/

Week 3

This week we were able to gain valuable information that will go towards the construction of our model, as we were able to find blueprints of the structure online.  This will give us the dimensions so that we can scale our model appropriately when we make our CAD design.  We also found out that before the tower was put up it was put through three tests conducted by The Seismic Administration Office.  The first test was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the joints in the structure, the second tested the steel columns, and the third test tested the overall structure under the conditions of a Level 3 Earthquake.  The building past the tests but their was concern in the beginning that the high concentration of steel would reduce the buildings ductility (1).  We may use this concern as a place for improvement in the structure but will still search for more weaknesses.  This week we plan to start the basic outline of our CAD design and research with the purpose of finding a true weakness in the structure and how we can improve it.

Here are some general dimensions of the tower:

Figure 3:  Dimensions of structure

($5 billion budget) (2)

Sources:

1. http://www.ctbuh.org/TallBuildings/FeaturedTallBuildings/ArchiveJournal/CCTVHeadquartersBeijing/tabid/3322/language/en-GB/Default.aspx

2. http://www.slideshare.net/peterbach/cctv-building-a-structural-design-overview

Week 2

This week we used the majority of our time in lab to research the CCTV Tower and to update this blog page.  We added the "Project Overview", "Biographies", and "FAQ's" pages to our blog.   We also gained valuable information regarding our structure.  We discovered that the area in Beijing where the tower is located does have to account for the effects of seismic waves in the form of earthquakes.  The CCTV Tower uses a diagrid structure where rods are connected to each other at nodes (1).  The junction points or the corners carry the majority of the load.  This makes for a strong structure that is not as interdependent as other structures ( that is to say if one portion fails the whole structure does not necessarily fail).  The design is also very practical as it allows for most of the construction to be on the outside of the building, leaving the middle sections for plenty of floor space.  The tower actually contains two towers that make sharp 90 degree turns in mid-air to connect as a bridge (2).

Figure 2: Example of Diagrid structure 

Sources:

1. http://www.slideshare.net/peterbach/cctv-building-a-structural-design-overview

2. http://archrecord.construction.com/projects/portfolio/2012/11/china-central-television-oma.asp

Week 1

Week 1
This week we decided on our magnificent structure: the CCTV Headquarters Tower in Beijing, China. The tower is created from mostly cement and glass. The loads we have to account for are slim to none but we will examine the effects of earthquakes in our research.

Figure 1: Night View of CCTV Tower in Beijing, China

Sources:
http://www.designbuild-network.com/projects/cctv/

https://spfaust.wordpress.com/2012/05/22/daringly-engineered-cctv-tower-beijing-opens-after-10-years/