Architecture and Construction

TERREAL terracotta facades go global

TERREAL of France, a leading manufacturer of terracotta construction materials, specialises in terracotta facades for commercial and residential buildings and is currently looking for distributors. The company has demonstrated its international expertise by advising architects in Spain, England, the USA and China. TERREAL will be showcasing its latest product lines at various trade shows in the coming months.

TERREAL’s expertise is a major advantage in the terracotta cladding

Combining technologies leads to safer, more efficient crane

EUREKA project E! 2797 FACTORY MSETC (Mobile Self-Erecting Tower Crane) has successfully combined the technologies of mobile and self-erecting cranes to create a single crane that can do the work of five. The new crane features an anti-sway device which makes it safer as well as more efficient.

The Belgian lead partner, Arcomet NV, has developed self-erecting tower cranes for the building industry for many years. “These cranes were mounted and remained in a fixed position on

Sprinklers shown effective in slowing dorm fires

An automatic sprinkler system significantly increases a person’s chances of surviving a dormitory fire, according to a report issued recently by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Three NIST experiments,* supported by a U.S. Fire Administration (USFA) initiative for fire safety in college housing, compared the hazards of fires in smoke detector-equipped dormitories with and without fire sprinklers in the room of fire origin. Researchers started fires

Decorators Uncover Rare Architectural Find

An exciting find has been made by decorators working at A-listed Lilybank House, which belongs to the University of Glasgow. Hidden beneath layers of paint the decorators discovered colourful original stencilling work which experts are sure date back to 1863, when this addition to the house was designed by Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson.

The University of Glasgow immediately called in Historic Scotland’s conservation experts to investigate and manage the conservation process.

Horizontal Densification – Living Quality at a Low Cost

Courtyard houses and terraced houses are the central topics of a newly released publication on the forms of horizontal densification in domestic architecture. Besides the history of these building types, the various types, quality criteria and their implementation within the purview of the numerous concepts of urban development are dealt with in detail. The book, published in German with the aid of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), thus offers a unique review of a residential building type that –

Elegant shape of Eiffel Tower solved mathematically by U. of Colorado professor

An American engineer has produced a mathematical model explaining the elegant shape of the Eiffel Tower that was derived from French engineer Gustave Eiffel’s writings regarding his own fears about the effects of wind on such a structure.

University of Colorado at Boulder Associate Professor Patrick Weidman said Eiffel, one of the premier structural engineers in history, was determined to build the world’s first tower reaching 300 meters, the nearest metric equivalent to

Page
1 52 53 54 55