Transcript Slide 1

Floors & Floor Construction
•What lies beneath the surface that we see?
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•Concrete slab: is it ‘on grade’, or on a frame?
•Wood joist construction: what direction do the pieces run?
•Steel frame & steel decking: how easy or difficult is it to make
alterations in this surface?
•Why are these different materials used? What are the pros and cons
of using them?
Floors
What is a floor required to do?
A building's primary horizontal planar surface
Support live loads: people, furnishings, and movable equipment
Support dead loads: the weight of the floor itself, any non-movable,
built-in components on the floor
Flooring materials
• Flooring can be made of many possible materials.
• Building code requirements may dictate the performance
requirements of a floor material.
• The ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) specifies the degree of
friction, slip resistance, of flooring materials used in public spaces.
• We are probably most familiar with: wood, stone, concrete, sheet
vinyl, ceramic tile, and carpet as the surfacing materials on the floors
we encounter every day
The distance a piece of material has to span is directly related to its
size. The size of these steel floor trusses is based on the distance they
must span, and the load they must carry.
The Prada showroom in New York city
designed by Rem Koolhas.
Wood floor joists and wood flooring
in a house.
The direction of the floor boards
is a result of the direction of the floor joists.
Wood flooring
Concrete flooring
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Colored concrete floors were very
popular in the 1930's and 40's in the
desert southwest because they were
easy to clean and cool in the extreme
desert heat.
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The majority of the floors
were colored red and usually scored in
a grid pattern.
• Concrete floors have become very popular again, due to low
material cost, durability, and expanded design possibilites through
color additives.
Concrete colors, synthetic & natural pigments
• Concrete can be tinted different colors.
• When coloring concrete either natural or synthetic pigments may be
used.
• Synthetic pigments are chemically the same as natural pigments,
but there are other differences. Natural pigments tend to be less
expensive, but their range of colors is limited and they don't have
the tinting strength of synthetics.
• Natural pigments tend to produce warmer colors, which seem closer
to the colors you see in nature.
Concrete flooring
Steel reinforcing, called ‘rebar’
is placed to be inside the concrete slab
Steel rebar are numbered, 1, 2, 4, 5, 12, 16, et cetera.
Each number equals that many eights of an inch.
A number 12 rebar is 12/8”, or 1 ½” in diameter
Raised access flooring
• Raised access flooring consists of load bearing, easily removable
panels supported above the building slab on pedestals. The cavity
created is used to house services which may be safely concealed
and protected but which remain readily accessible for maintenance,
alteration and expansion.
Raised access flooring
Glass
• Glass is a practical and beautiful material that is strong enough to be
used structurally, even as flooring.
Floor panels are usually manufactured from two or more layers of
annealed glass laminated together.
Sandblasting or screen printing to the top surface not only gives
anti-slip properties but also design opportunities.
Glass interior wall panels
Glass flooring
Glass flooring
Glass block flooring
Glass flooring
Wood frame construction of floors
Wood frame construction
Wood floor system
Wood joists, (2 x10’s) on brick foundation, on concrete
footing
Steel construction
Steel framing
• Recently, steel framing has begun to make strong inroads into the
residential building market.
• The move to steel in home construction has been fueled by rapidly
increasing lumber prices and a need to conserve timber products.
• Steel homes use nearly the same framing techniques employed in
wood-framed buildings, and construction costs run about the same.
Unlike wood, however, steel is impervious to termites. It provides
added resistance to fire and earthquake.
• Steel ceiling joists can span greater distances than wooden ones,
allowing new design possibilities for architects and builders.
Steel in house construction
Steel skeleton for a house.
Most of the pieces of steel used here are called ‘light gauge’ steel, meaning
that the pieces are relatively thin, and light.
Steel skeleton for a house.
These steel pieces are much larger than those used in the previous images.
These are ‘I’ sections, made of thick, heavy steel plate.
Tile: a small, thin, modular piece of material.
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Porcelain floor tile
Quarry tile
Metal tile
Travertine tile
Granite tile
Marble tile
Limestone tile
Slate tile
Cork tile
Glass tile
Carpet tile
Cork flooring
Vertical Sections
Elevations
Plan (Plan-Section)
• an informative web site is:
• www.howstuffworks.com
• type in 'how house construction works' into
their search function.