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Most Beautiful And Interesting Buildings In History Construction Essay

Paper Type: Free Essay Subject: Construction
Wordcount: 2091 words Published: 1st Jan 2015

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During modern era nowadays, exciting new innovations in the world of building construction has brought soaring skyscrapers and fresh new approaches to building design. Actually since many years ago building construction was a significant part of our industrial field. If somebody asks what is the most significant, most beautiful and most interesting of the past 1000 years, there will be no single correct answer for this question. Some will choose the Taj Mahal or Eiffel Tower while others might choose the soaring skyscrapers as the most significant building. Perhaps the most innovative building is not fixed for the grand monument only but sometimes obscure home and temples also. These are some of overlooked treasure that still exists till now.

The first one is Forbidden City in Beijing,China or some people called it as Purple Forbidden City or Gugong Museum in Chinese. It is one of the largest and best-preserved palace complexes in the world. In Gugong Museum there are over a million rare and valuable objects. It is built between 1406 and 1420 during the Ming Dynasty by a rectangular area of more than 720000 square meters. The Forbidden City was the imperial home for 24 emperors of the Ming ( 1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties.

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Next is Basilica Palladiana building. The architect who was Andrea Palladio gave the Basilica in Vicenza, Italy two styles of classical columns which are doric on the lower portion and ionic on the upper portion. Originally, the Basilica was a 15th century Gothic building that serve as the town hall for Vicenza and also contained shop. When the old building collapsed, Andrea Palladio won the commission to design a reconstruction of this building. He grabbed this opportunity and created a great stunning transformation covering the old gothic facade with marble columns and porticos modelled after the classical architecture of ancient Rome.

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Eiffel Tower in Paris is also one of past greatest building construction. Eiffel Tower was built on 1889 and pioneered new uses for metal construction. Perhaps it was the most famous example of this new use for metal. With 324 feet, Eiffel Tower was measured as the tallest building structure in the world for 40 years. The metal lattice-work formed with very pure structural iron make the tower both extremely light and able to withstand tremendous wind force. During the construction, the Eiffel was considered as an eyesore for the French but the criticism died down once the construction was completed.

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The Fuller Building in New York is one of the world’s earliest skyscrapers and has been designed by Daniel Burnham architect. It was built on 1902 with a height of 285 feet. The wedge shaped like a clothing iron of this building make it became known as Flatiron Building. This unusual shape of building is because to maximize the use of the triangular lot. A sturdy steel skeleton that has been used during the construction of this building allowed it to achieve record-breaking height without the need for wide supporting walls at the foundation.

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Nowadays, there is many and more big challenge facing us. The technology shifts had made the construction technology today more advanced and the world is getting smarter. The construction methods, structure or sustainable building, design and the construction system are rarely important not only at national level but also globally. The example of advance construction building in the world now are the CCTV headquarter in China, Bird Nest Olympic Stadium, Khalifa Building at Dubai and some of other buildings. One of the form that being used today is insulated concrete from construction technology.

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Insulated concrete form are lightweight, highly durable foam blocks or forms composed of an expanded or extruded polystyrene and recycled materials. These are the formwork that stay a permanent building insulation fore cast in place, reinforced concrete walls, floor and roofs. The forms are consisted of interlocking modular units that are dry stacked and concrete filled. The forms just like LEGO bricks that create form for structural walls or roofs. The concrete is pumped into cavity and stacked in shape. The reinforcing steel bar is placed inside to give flexural strength. The forms are left permanently for the reason of thermal and acoustic insulation and the space to run electrical conduit and plumbing. The advantage of insulated concrete form is that it reduces the consumption of energy, the concrete will absorb solar heat and release it slowly so that heat is distributed throughout the home. Besides it create lower noise from outside world as it high in sound absorption and the system contribute to more peaceful and healthy environment.

Over the past 30 years, construction practices had not really changed much because many people thought that there are no problems using the traditional practices. However, for current situation the old practices might be not practical anymore due issues that involved limited area and construction costs that continue to rise in the country and also around the world. Therefore, by using the effective method of construction, we actually can overcome these problems. After several researches that consider all of the elements, there are some methods that believe can practices in the future such as modular construction and sustainable construction (green construction). By using these methods to construct a building, a lot of benefits we could gain in terms of time consuming, capital cost, labour cost and so on.

In Malaysia, modular coordination or construction in building had been practiced such a long time ago. It is well documented in Malaysian Standard MS 10064: Part1-10 2001. This practices can provides dimensional basis for the coordination of the dimensions and of those buildings incorporating them, however it also acts to rationalization and industrialization of the building industry. In addition, modular construction can be applied by adding or reducing the size or removing certain components.

For developing country likes Malaysia, this method will help the contractor to face the project that running in busy area or high capacity area because it is speed construction and faster returned in investment. In common method of construction, once projects might need to be done in 12 months but by practicing modular construction the work can be done in 90 — 120 days only. This is because, the buildings are sectional prefabricated buildings that consist of multiple modules or sections which are manufactured in a remote facility and then delivered to the site. Modular construction allows the building and the site works to be done simultaneously and this will reduce the time until 50%. Furthermore, the quality of modular buildings is made to match and adhere to all the same building codes as standard construction. Thus, when the building is rebuild the structure become high in quality compared with the previous structure. Moreover, by using this method, all problems involve weather delays, logistical problems and legal hassles increase in turn can be solved because the structure is not build in the site. A lot of advantages we can gain based on modular construction and it is not hard to imagine if the future commercial developments are completed by using this method.

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Modular house by Broadway Malyan for Sime Darby Property as a first carbon zero house in Southern East Asia.

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The house not only pushed costs expand but also speed up the construction process

On the other hand, sustainable construction is one of the practices that might be used widely in future. It involves a greater emphasis on the environmental implication of policy and business decisions in addition to the traditional focus on economic and social objectives. Sustainable building can include measures to reduce energy consumption and associated emissions of carbon dioxide, minimize the use of resources such as water, construction material, etc., reduce the release of pollutants, maximize the use of sustainably sources and recycled materials likes timber, promote sustainable travel choices through public transport and cycling provision, save and enhance biodiversity. Example of sustainable building is building that use sunlight through passive solar, active solar and photovoltaic techniques and using plants and trees through green roofs, rain garden and for reduction of rainwater run-off. Besides that, by using packed gravel or permeable concrete instead of conventional concrete or asphalt to enhance addition ground water, are used as well.

Nevertheless, based on the study done by some researchers, the department usually failed to achieve target ratings and environmental assessment by the government. 80% of the projects are not attained the required standards. Various factors lead to these problems are lack of coherent monitoring on the progress of the projects by the government bodies, lack of sufficient knowledge and expertise in sustainable procurement among those department staff responsible for them, negative perception about the conflict between sustainability and value for money and so on. However, this barriers can be solved by establish a clear information to the division of policy that responsible on sustainable construction to the public sector so that the public will acknowledge clearly about the policy of sustainable construction. Then the responsible division can also establish a source of expertise that available to all departments to provide advice on sustainable construction for smaller construction and refurbishment projects.

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Bird Island is currently developed in Kuala Lumpur. Designed by Grafts Lab Architect for YTL Green Home Competition.

In a nutshell, for future building construction, all elements of environmental friendly must be considered in order to construct a building or structure. This is because as we know, we need to save our Earth by reducing energy costs such as electrics, reduce air quality and construction materials and many more. Therefore, by applying modular construction and green construction will lead us to help our nature.

 

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