As one of our two sessions with engineering consultants for technology was cancelled in the run-up to lockdown, and as we have been granted a four week extension on our technology module, Keith Andrews organised two opportunities for consultation over email with engineers from Arup instead. The first of these was with a structural engineer, and the second with a mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) engineer.
As my technology study is focused on the fabric formwork construction process, the correspondence with the structural engineer was of particular help to me. I have been lucky to have now had input from three different structural engineers at different stages this semester, which has allowed me to feel secure about the validity of my proposal.
One of the aspects that I asked about, as I had briefly discussed with with Peter Corbett but had then run out of time to go into detail on it, was regarding creating openings or oculi in the structure, to let light in, create courtyard spaces, and possibly to enable stack ventilation.
Rhino/Grasshopper model demonstrating concept of an oculus in the vaulted structure
The advice on this was that it certainly is possible to do, and that having a small upstand, as Peter had suggested, would stiffen this and prevent it from becoming a weakness in the structure.
From the MEP side, it was confirmed that this kind of form could work work stack ventilation. I was given some rules of thumb to follow to give the building the best chance of this working effectively:
Openings (top and bottom) need to be of sufficient size – between 6 and 10% of the floor area.
Distance from opening to the stack should be no more than 5x the height of the space.
The engineer did note that for a building of an unconventional form such as this, it would require Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tests running on it to check this and optimise the design accordingly.
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