Monthly Archives: November 2016

Newport transporter

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Day 1:
Firstly we got our briefs and read through them to get an understanding of what we are doing for the next week which is to design a bridge to cross over Lewis road to make it safer and easier for everyone. We then got put into groups and went through the brief again in more detail to get a better understanding of what we need to do. We then went out to the site to take pictures

we then went back to the room and had a lecture about different kinds of bridges. After that we had a lecture about different kinds of structures and the difference between primary and secondary structures.

Presentation day – Ponte Vecchio

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Presentation Day

Friday was presentation day so we brought everything over to the drawing studio to set up. Each group took turns in presenting their work based on the project. It was interesting to see how everyone got on in the week and I was surprised at the diversity of designs shown throughout. We were given 12 minutes to speak and then 5 to answer questions. This was a good way of learning as it allowed people to elaborate more in certain areas which they hadn’t talked about hugely during the presentation. When it came to our presentation I feel like it went really well however we did run out of time so therefore should of time managed a bit better. However I feel like we got some good feedback and overall I was really pleased with everyone’s effort. This was a massive learning curve for me as I have never worked on a project like this before but I thoroughly enjoyed the week.

 

Ponte Vecchio Diary

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Day 1.

Day one started by being put into groups to work on a group project throughout the week. My group included me, Alex, Jennie, and the three students from hazelwick school. We was briefed on the project and what we needed to produce by Friday. This was an architectural technology project where we had to come up with a bridge design to provide a footpath for people to cross the road located at Mithras house, a scale model of the bridge, a detail as well as a poster which we would have to present on Friday. This would require a good deal of thinking with a mix of trial and error as we had such a short time and limited amount of recourses. Many things were needed to be considered during the design process:

Who was going to use the bridge? This was important because this would govern our orientation of the bridge. We all decided that it would mainly be university students that would use the bridge but we also wanted to incorporate a cycle path for cyclist as well.

Buildability? How easy would it be to build a bridge in this location? This was another key factor of the design process as the topography of the site has many different levels and we wanted to design a bridge which would be easy to build using the existing ground without having to make too many amendments. In terms of the modelling we also wanted to make a design which wouldn’t be too hard to make as we were very limited in terms of materials and tools.

We began our research into precedent studies and we all come up with some interesting examples and concept designs. Upon discussion we all decided that the helix bridge would be the best design to incorporate in our own design. I then did a concept sketch to show the orientation of the bridge and essentially what it might look like. I put forward the idea of using colour in the bridge design to draw away from the cagey look which I felt would be the outcome due to the lack of materials that we could get hold of.

For the rest of the day we experimented with materials. We first tried to shape straws in the design we have in mind. The properties of the straws meant that we couldn’t create nice round curves without the material itself folding or impairing. This lead to the quick conclusion that straw wouldn’t be a strong enough material to use for our model. We then played around with other materials such as wood and cardboard however didn’t manage create the shapes we needed of our structural elements. We then decided to think of metal materials which could be used for a scaled model. I suggested we get chicken wire and some form of metal ties. Taking this into consideration I was then able to sketch up with a step by step construction methods for our scale model of the bridge. The day was over and we all had a good understanding as to where we were heading with the project and all decided that we would commit to the helix style design.

 

Day 2.

The second day came and we took a trip to B&Q to pick up the materials which we needed for the project. We brought chicken wire, galvanized wire and some form of metal mesh. We then picked up some foam board and card from Mithras house. Other materials and tools where at hand already such as a PVC soil pipe, glue gun, plyers, fairy lights and so on. Once back at university, me and jenny quickly made progress on the model. As I had already come up with the methods of construction it was easy to really push forward and get the main parts of the bridge built. Using my experience on site, I knew the best way to form the chicken wire around the pipe would be to snip off the ends so that there is loads of little bars which can be hooked and tied so hold the shape which we are forming. This worked really well although it took time and effort.

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Picture 1 shows a sketch diagram to show how we hooked the chicken wire back on its self.

Picture 2 shows what it looked like once finished. As you can see each join looks really neat and tidy which me and jenny was really pleased with. The day was nearly up so we set out our plan of action for the next day and we were happy with the progress we were making.

Day 3

With only two days to go we was hoping to really pull everything together on day 3. Yet again me and jenny went straight to the modelling studio and continued to make progress with the model, accompanied by the hazelwick students. We made quick progress by completing the helix pattern using the galvanized wire. We then cut the pipe 2/3rds of the way down. This give us the bottom base of the bridge. Myself and the hazelwick students continued to make the bridge. First we installed little battery powered lights into the frame work. I decided on adding colour to the bride during the design process. We decided to cut lots of triangle shapes out of a clear plastic bottle and coloured them using sharpie pens. These would then act as glass sections that portray the internal light in a different colour. We also added mesh into the remaining over top space to represent the remaining covering of which would be needed in the design. Using the glue gun we secured everything. We then got the hazelwick students to start adding a pattern on the bottom side of the pipe so that is could be sprayed later on. The day soon come to an end and by now we had the whole caged frame ready with the lights and coloured panels. All that was left to do was the deck and supporting system. Jenny took the section of the pipe home with her that day and drilled and sprayed it. img_7587img_7590

Day 4

As soon as we got in we focused on the model and getting it finished. By using bolts we were able to create the supporting legs of the model. We ties two legs together for each one as this was included in our design which Alex looked into furthers details on. Now the pipe had been sprayed everything was really starting to look good and the lights really brang the model to life. We glued the deck onto the model and it was pretty much done. me and Alex then moved onto the topography. By creating layers of cardboard we was able to create the desired levels that we needed. We used foamboard and card to face the surfaces. Jenny added little details like the labelling of the road and Mithras house. We then build little blocks out of wood to represent the foundation blocks. This now meant that the model and topography was finished. Jenny then took all our research and findings and put them all onto a poster of which she printed out in a1 form for the presentation.

 

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Friday 11th November – Presentation and Review of the Week

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Friday

Smita had finished the final model just in time, the poster was ready and the section detail was also ready it was time to put all our hard work on show.

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Workshop with Poster and Model

We went around each workshop presenting our bridges, posters, and models. It was very interesting to see everyone’s hard work and different ideas. it seemed like everyone had worked very hard and all had different visions, ideas and focuses.

We presented our workshop last it went well but could have gone better. The problem with only having one week to come up with all this work is that you do not get enough time to do everything perfect, we could have done with a practice presentation but just did not have the time. The model, research and poster all went so well but our presentation could have gone better.

Overall design week has been brilliant by working with another student and someone with industry experience it has really given me a taste for what is required on a project like this. I feel that I have grown and that i am ready to tackle my next project even better with the skills I have picked up from Smita. Although the week has been stressful it has been so nice to see the final product.

If we were to do this project again the only think I would change is the amount of time we had, I would have like to have practices the presentation before presenting but other than this I think Design week had been a huge success.

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Final Model with Team

Wednesday 9th – Thursday 10th November – Design Week

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Wednesday

It was now time to start our model! Smita had gathered together her materials and jumped straight in with the construction of the main model. I could tell she had experience in this before as she knew exactly where she was and what was required, as for myself I was slightly unprepared. As I jumped in to start the detailed model I had realised the important for some scaled plans as guessing measurements as I went along was not a good idea. By this point I was slightly stressed so knew that I had to take a step backwards and sketch up some draft ideas.

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Draft Sketch with Dims

I quickly sketched the measurements to scale of each material so that I had some visual ideas to go off, I am very glad that I did this! It now made the model a lot easier to in vision and get going. I had Joe working with me who today was very productive, I was very impressed with all the Hazlewick students within our group as they had put in a lot of effort to help us, without them we could not have achieved what we did today.

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Modelling Pictures (By Newport Transporter)

 The whole day consisted of model making and by the end of the day I had completed the to scale detail model, it was a section of the bridge walk way showing the structure and detail of our bridge.

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Detail Section of Bridge (By Newport Transporter)

 

Smita was still working on the main model as this was a lot more demanding than mine and after a discussion at the end of the day it was agreed that tomorrow I would work on the poster for our presentation and Smita would continue the model.

Smitas hard work and dedication to getting everything perfect had rubbed off on me! Model making has never ever been my strong point but I feel that this experience had made my final model and incredible piece compared to anything I had done before. Yet again another day with Smita who had pushed me to achieved better in my studies.

Thursday

Today Smita continued the main model and I started the poster presentation information, I gathered together everything we had gone through and listed it in the different stages. I felt now that everything was coming together and we were almost ready for our presentation tomorrow.

Smita had some good experience on the programme “Indesign” so we agreed that Id gather together all the information required for our presentation and she would put it together neatly. Yet again another advantage of being team up with someone with a various array of skills.

Smita had left early to finish the model at home as she knew that she would be working into the night. Before I left University today I had gathered up all the information and sent it to Smita for editing, all what was left now was the presentation.

 

Tuesday 8th November – Design Week

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Tuesday

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Concept Sketches (by Smita & Damian)

After a morning of sketching ideas inspired by my precedent studies the night it was time to meet Smita. We spent the morning discussing our research and putting our ideas together. It was safe to say we both agreed on the idea of a cantilevered design as it gave us the freedom to design over the road with minimal construction in the road.

After our discussion Smita and I had a conceptual idea of what we wanted to create now it was time to go through the Design Development stage. Luckily as well as putting together sketches Smita had done some researching into Building Regulations Part A, H, K, M, N and the Design Manual for Road and Bridges Part 8 – Design Criteria for Footbridges. These two documents were vital in determining if our bridge design could be built.

We had 3 main issues with our design after researching through the Design Development Stage they were…

 

  • Design Manual for Road and Bridges Part 8 – Design Criteria for Footbridges Section 6.14-16 states a gradient ramp higher than 1 in 20 will require landings at every 650mm. Any gradient ramps at 1 in 20 will only require landings at 2.5m.

 

This is something we did not allow for, these standards meant that our ramps now needed to change in gradient effecting their placement and location that they were to be installed so that we only required one landing.

 

  • The Design Manual for Road and Bridges Part 8 – Design Criteria for Footbridges Chapter 12.4 states that for a cycle track to also be incorporated into the bridge footpath it needs to be segregated by at least 1.5m for pedestrians and 1.5 for cyclist.

 

This requirement was minor as all it required was for the bridge to be increased in width slightly to accommodate both paths.

 

  • The Design Manual for Road and Bridges Part 8 – Design Criteria for Footbridges Chapter 7.1 (e) states that if glass is used it shall be laminated and toughened to reduce risk of glass being smashed onto the roads below.

 

This effects the specification of our glazing to the bridge which is not much of an issue but may become more expensive.

We were easily able to design these all out but the biggest issue was the ramps and landings. The issue with tramps and landings were now determine where our bridge and ramps could go.

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Sketch of Proposed Location

Originally we wanted our bridge to go diagonally across the cross road and have ramps go either side across the two smaller roads as this would mean that pedestrians could get to the 4 different parts of the path. But we needed a clearance of 4.8m from the road to the underside of our bridge which meant we would no longer be able to proceed with our idea. This ultimately determined the final location of our bridge.

We had now determined the location and the requirements for our bridge it was time to work out the details and finishes of our bridge. We spend the afternoon sketching and developing our ideas into scaled sketches playing around with ideas and bouncing ideas and information of each other.

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Sketches of Finish’s/Detail

We had finalised our ideas by the end of the afternoon with a few main points of our design…

  • Prefabricated steel design
  • Laminated glazing
  • Slim design
  • Two 23m cantilever spans meeting in the middle to create a 46m span
  • Supported from cables either side

 

It was now time to prepare for the model making, the Hazlewick students would be back tomorrow and we needed to utilise their time to make maximise production of our bridge. We had agreed what materials we needed to get and would gather them together for the morning. It was agreed I would work on the detailed model at a scale of 1:10 with Joe and Smita would work on the main model with Katie and Taylor.

Today has been a very important day for me in my learning on this project, working with Smita has been very beneficial for me as she has opened my eyes to what is required and the process in how it is done. I like the way she values the importance of Regulations to insure the bridge can be built as this is how it would be done in industry.

Monday 7th November – Design Week

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Monday

Monday marked the beginnings of Design Week, we had been given a brief that nobody knew what was involved. it a was fast paced day of lectures and getting to know each other as just after 9am we were joined by 3 students from Hazlewick School. Our team now included Smita (our team leader), Joe, Taylor, Katie, and myself (Damian). We started by getting to know one another and we shared email so that we could stay in contact as Joe, Taylor, and Katie would only be in University Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Now that we had introduced ourselves it was time to outline the brief between us so that we could ensure that all of us understood exactly what was expect. The brief stated that we were to design a pedestrian foot bridge linking the two sides of Mithras House and Mouslecomb Buildings. The bridge was to be a design that could easily be installed without disruption to the road, safe, sustainable, functional, and finally aesthetically pleasing. The bridge also needed to be installed in a location that would support the new development around the area and benefit students/pedestrians the most.

The next part of the morning included a site visit to Mithras house, this was to look at our site and get some inspiration as to what to do for our bridge. Together our team got prepared and headed out to Mithras House.


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At this point while out on the walk I was now starting to have visions and ideas, this walk had benefitted me and the team as we could all see the real-life situation and task at hand which could now feed our concept ideas.

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Crane in University Building Site

One interesting experience I had on our walk was the site of the crane located on the building site next to the University. Earlier Smita had mentioned Kings Gate Bridge and how it was constructed in two sections then rotated into place, at this point I was yet to research it but the crane had given me inspiration into an idea of building the bridge in a crane like section at two ends of the road and rotating them into place thus solving a made part of this brief (minimal disruption to the road).

The walk had also given us an idea of the location of where our bridge should go and the awareness of space we had for our design proposal either side of the road.

After lunch we returned to the studio, by this point we did not get much of a chance to discuss between us what we had thought about on the walk as we had lectures planned, so Smita assigned the 3 Hazlewick students the job of doing 3 precedent studies on bridges after having the walk as inspiration into their concept ideas.

Over the afternoon we had lectures from Noel Painting, Dr Pierfancesco, and Dr Poorang. The lectures were perfect to give us knowledge, inspiration and ideas for our research. I felt by this point I was on the right track to fuel my research for the evening.

By the end of the afternoon the Hazlewick students had left early so Dr Poorang took us for an induction in the workshop. The workshop was important as tomorrow we would be starting our models for the bridge.

Once we had finished with the workshop induction Smita and myself discussed what we were going to do for our studies this evening and once we had finished our discussion it was time to go home for an evening of precedent studies.

My evening at home had included research on the following precedent studies…

Millau Viaduct

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Millau Viaduct Launching System – http://www.slideshare.net/paurinshah3/millau-viaduct-35054304 

What I liked about this study is the deck launching system, with the deck launching system it meant that the bridge could be built over a large span without the requirement for scaffolding. This idea could be incorporated into our project reducing the need to shut the road. The only problem I had here is the cost and time although this idea worked great on a large-scale project, for a small project like ours it would not suit the clients brief.

Forth Bridge

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Forth Bridge Annotated (By Damian Bolton), 07/11/16, (image) https://wayzgooseways.wordpress.com/2012/04/21/a-peninsular-walk/

What was interesting about this study is the span, it was the second largest cantilever span in the world which made me think we could use the same design idea for our bridge to limit construction in the road.

Kings Gate Bridge

This is the project Smita had mentioned which sounded very interesting and I can confirm it was very interesting a design by Arup which was unique and different. It involved designing two cantilever bridge sections then rotating them into place which meant there was no requirement for scaffolding or anything below.

Ponte Vecchio – precedent studies and design consepts

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2016-11-13-6Concept 1 – This is a sketch which is inspired by Nesciobrug Bridge located in Amsterdam which incorporates a split cycle and footpath. I found this example whilst doing precedent studies and really liked the design, therefore decided to sketch my interpretation of it by including the split pathways at the start of the bridge but both paths joining in the middle. The Pathways will then split back off into two ramps one leading along the road for cycle access and one across Preston barracks for pedestrian. I put forward this concept to the group and we all agreed it would be a good design and one of the candidates for our final design. 2016-11-13-5Concept 2 – This concept is inspired by the peace bridge located in Georgia. I was really intrigued by the design and shapes seen in the covering over the bridge and therefore drew up my own interpretation of it showing how it would be positioned in the proposed plot for our bridge development. Again I presented this to the group and we all agreed that the design is fascinating however may be too visually intrusive and may not fit in with the surrounding environment. Perhaps something similar but on a smaller scale would be more adequate.

2016-11-13-4Concept 3 – This concept was drawn up by myself after the study of the Helix Bridge in Singapore. As a group we all really liked the design of this bridge because of the shapes and how modern/futuristic it looks. When thinking about putting this style of bridge in the proposed location I started to think would this bridge stand out or not fit in with the surrounding environment. So I started looking at local architecture and quickly saw that this type is similar to the Brighton pier which is made out of metal and is long with lots of cross pattern structures supporting itself. As a group we all decided that we would design a bridge of similar qualities to the helix bridge in Singapore. My concept shows how the bridge would be constructed and its orientation. At the foot of the bridge (Mithras house access point) there will be a slight ramp leading to the bridge. The bridge will have a combined two cycle and two footpath lanes. At the end of the bridge it shall have two ramps, one goes to Preston Barracks and one bares of towards the Watts site. Sticking with the helix theme we decided that installing lights to our model would be an added detail which will boast our design. I then went on to think of maybe incorporating different colours. I have represented this is my concept sketch.

 

 

Part 4 – Design Development

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With the acquired information, we set out designing a bridge footprint that would tick all the necessary boxes.

Our initial design was an L-shaped bridge, connecting Mithras Car Park, Preston Barracks and Watts Car Park. While this img_2281proposal met all requirements set by the brief and regulations, we concluded that it could be more inclusive to the general public by simply providing a method of crossing the road rather than only landing on university sites.

 

 

 

 

We then revised the design and added a branch which lands directly onto the Lewes Road walkway to encourage public use:

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