BUILDING RESEARCH AND THE 'NEW LOOK'
BBUILDINGS in Britain have taken
on a new look since World War II. Skyscrapers have been going up everywhere, even on London clay, hundreds of thousands of new homes are being built every year.
The new techniques which have made these changes possible stem from many years of building research, an activity pioneered in Britain which has now spread throughout the world.
The central organisation tackling the problems of building as a whole is the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research's Building Re- search Station at Garston, in Hert- fordshire, England. There more than 600 scientists, civil engineers, archi- tects and other professional staff are helping to bring about buildings which are both better fitted to the needs of their users and economic to build.
WIDE RANGE
The work covers building ma- terials, design and planning, efficiency needs, building of buildings, user methods and costs, design and per- formance of structures, and soil mechanics. Since 1948 there has also been a special section devoted to the problems of buildings in tropical climates.
Bricks, timber, sand and cement are still the most commonly used building materials in Britain, as they have been for centuries. Continuing research, leading to improvement of the traditional materials and develop- ment of new ones, has been going on at the Garston Station since it was formed in 1921. The Station is par- ticularly well-known for its work on cement chemistry which makes pos- sible the right choice of concrete for all conditions, A new type of brick has been devised, making it possible to form a cavity wall in one laying operation. Lightweight concrete, weighing only two-thirds of the con- ventional material, has great pro- mise, and research is now focussed on its behaviour when used for rein- forced concrete. Plastics are becom- ing accepted as building materials in their own right, but more research is needed to assess their long-term durability.
Housing, in all its aspects, has always been one of the Station's prime concerns lighting, heating,
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sound insulation, costs and the re- quirements of the occupiers. For instance, old people's housing has been given particular attention be- cause it demands special planning, both of the internal design and of its siting in the neighbourhood. work has been linked with surveys of the social habits and patterns of life of old people.
DESIGN PROBLEMS
This
With the extensive hospital build- ing programme now under way, the B.R.S results are helping the Minis- try of Health to solve several design problems. Running costs, use of materials with easily-cleaned surfaces, investigation of movement and com- munication within the hospital, en- gineering services, lighting, heating all these aspects are currently being studied, partly in the laboratory and partly on the spot in hospitals up and down Britain.
Comfortable living and working conditions depend very largely on good lighting, freedom from unneces- sary noise, and proper heating and ventilation. The physics division aims to translate these needs into precise terms. The problem of noise is now being accentuated by the trend towards lightweight construc- tion of buildings, and research is con- centrated both on understanding the basic mechanism of sound transmis- sion and practical means of reducing it.
Using a jet aircraft flying low over the Station, tests have recently been carried out on methods of improving the sound insulation of houses near airports.
TOWERING
Anyone visiting London today after an interval of five years or so, would scarcely recognise the skyline. Now it is dominated by a dozen or more buildings towering over 200 feet high. The clay of the Thames basin makes conventional foundations un- suitable for tall buildings, but ad- vances in foundation engineering, in which the B.R.S. Soil Mechanics section played a leading part, have overcome this problem.
Tall buildings have also brought problems for the structural
new
can
engineer. At these heights the pres-
wind sure of the
exert con- siderable strain on the building, and until now only limited data has been available from experience. The Station has designed special automa- tic instruments for measuring wind loading and installed these in several tall blocks in London, including the D.S.I.R. Headquarters and at the 600 feet Post Office tower, which is under construction.
NEW TREND
The demand for increased output of all types of buildings has given birth to a new trend industrialisa- tion of building methods. Much of the Station's work in recent years has anticipated this trend.
In par- ticular, various systems of large panel construction, which lend them- selves to industrialisation, are being investigated. Costs, structural be- haviour, waterproof joints and panel production have all been looked into, and soon a system of casting on site developed at B.R.S. is to be tried out in the construction of 17-storey blocks of flats.
Close contact is maintained with countries both inside and outside the Commonwealth by the Station's Tro- pical Building Section, whose staff spend part of their time overseas, investigating the special problems of In tropical climates at first hand. the last few years, for instance, ex- perts have visited Jordan to assist in housing problems, the Congo Re- public in connection with the design of educational buildings, Iraq to study thermal conditions, and Mauri- tius to advise on rehousing after the cyclone in 1962.
In addition, inquiries regularly go into the Station
on construction in earthquake areas, from Pakistan, Ghana and Cyprus; on sound insula- tion for a broadcasting station, from Uganda; termite resistance of ma- terials, from Nigeria; fire resistance of beams, from Kenya.
Special on-the-spot studies have re- cently been made of thermal discom- fort problems in the tropics, both in hot and dry and in equatorial climates, of the effects of solar ra- diation on building materials, and on paint performance.
THE HONG KONG & FAR EAST BUILDER-VOLUME 19, NUMBER 3
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