model frenzy

have spent the last four days sticking together very small pieces of wood….

went down to visit my dad to shut myself away and concentrate on making stuff without distraction. not going to badly, but a very slow process – good to have time to consider the actual construction sequence for the building by working through the details at model scale, especially the way that the stacked timber should be replaced easily and where extra insulation is required (needs a little more thought about insulating the back of the units where they meet the access gap before the timber piling against the bank).

pleased with the outcome of the stacked timber though – looks really interesting with a sort of mottled texture, very cosy and solid.

british library virgin

very exciting visit to the British Library today for the first time.

the books suggested for information by Mr. Henderson the Geology consultant were from there, and i had my little interview to be accepted entry and joined the corduroy wearing beardy brigade….. (except without a beard).

bloody ugly building from the outside, but the sun was shining, the plaza was relaxed, and the set-up there is astounding. found the books required and was pleased to have had an excuse for the experience.

useful meeting with consultants : hooray

Francesca – an environmental consultant from ARUP and a second meeting with ‘Toby the engineer’ :

Francesca is currently working on a long running school complex project being built in Ladak in the Himalayas, and so was a really useful person to talk to about the details and practicalities of my project and location. some suggestions and improvements, both environmental and practical and also some reassurances on some of my design decisions and studies.

questions put to francesca :

is copper the right material to be using for the roof cladding in this environment?

individual heating systems and wood stoves (charcoal) VS communal systems? – heating, hot water, cooking.

what issues should i consider with a large glazed opening – heat loss/excessive heat gain?

any ideas for local materials to design internal partitions from?

feedback/discussions:

the mass heating/hot water system is by far the most efficient, but due to local lifestyles cooking and an open fire is needed to be a focus point in each home as well. the heating plant room should be at the top of the stack of houses to have an un-obstructed flue pipe. the charcoal burners are less of a worry as they are practically smokeless if the charcoal is made right (which will also be produced on site).

i discribed the idea for the integrated GSHP system that could be gripped into the hillside by the roots of the willow planted on the banks, but it was decided that from her experience of working with local people in the region that a system so radically different to what they are used to is unlikely to be used correctly due to it’s complexity if a fault occoured and therefore may be a waste of time. as i am all for workking to keep simplicity and practicality i agreed that the bio-mass burner combined with charcoal cooking stoves was the best soloution.

the deep balconies that i took from the tibetan and the austrian mountain houses are apparently perfect for the location – and i need not have worried – if i provide an additional material somewhere within the building that provides thermal mass, then the deep sheltered balconies provide protection from overheating in the high summer sun, but allow in the lower winter light.

the copper that i proposed for the roof was mainly for aesthetic reasons and neither of us were sure wether this material would be available locally, so we thought about what materials are used locally, and this is mainly a heavy curved ceramic tile – unsuiatble for walking on. but if the infrastructure and materials are there to make these tiles, it should be possible to make a thick, flat version – this would not only assimilate the buildings better with the existing local constructions, but would privide the greater thermal mass required.

pile discussions with toby :

i had been reading up on the timber piles yesterday and found ‘timber pile specification manual’ that was a riveting read…. but informed me enough to be able to discuss with toby how best to pin my buildings to the dusty, rocky, gravely mountainside.

the section i had drawn with a double row of timber piles (one row acting as sheet piling for the banking and the second offset by about a meter to support the back of that levels house unit). we figured out a new (again, more simplified) system with only a single row of timber piles per terrace, and more reliance on ground anchors.

each row of houses will be supported across the hill on three rows of piles – one part way down a pile, one in the middle of the unit, on top of a pile, and the third point indirectly, by resting on top of the lower unit where the force is transfrerd down to the top of a lower pile.

to avoid a single shear-point line where a whole section of soil could slip down the hillside if the piles all finish in the same plane, i propose to anchor back onto the hillside to a deeper depth with a fan of ground anchors (platypus) connected by tension cables.

according to the document i found, the piles do not need to be touching, but can be up to three times the diameter of the pile apart. toby judges that the piles would be between 200 – 300 mm in diameter, but if smaller due to sustainable timber available in the region, could be compensated for with more/deeper/larger ground anchors.

all in all a really useful discussion – now i just need to draw it all up….

site section workings : pretty bloody huge! (site at 2600m)

model :

going to put in a concerted effort to crack on with a model later this week, as my rendering skills are still leaving a lot to be desired, it has been suggested that a model would help to describe my overall vision of the scheme.

blog entry about recent landslide and blame issues:

this article is from a blog called http://daveslandslideblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/landslide-in-alesund-norway.html

it shows the interesting sequence of discussions and blame after a recent landslide in a town in Norway, and some of the mitigation programmes that had been put in place. this is relevant as i am trying to find out what sort of contract would be necessary to cover an architect in this situation and in relation to my project – as suggested by Carsten in my discussions with him on ‘management practice and law’.

(1st April 2008): Landslide in Alesund, Norway

Over the last thirty years or so there have been a series of nasty landslides under apartment blocks on the edge of cities. Examples that spring to mind include:

1972: Po Shan Road, Hong Kong – 67 fataltities
1993: Highland Towers, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: 48 fatalties
1997: Lincoln Mansions, Hsinchu, Taiwan: 28 fataltites

On 26th March 2008 there was an interesting landslide in the picturesque town of Alesund in Norway, once again on a slope under an apartment block. The slide is well captured in this EPA image:

EPA Image of the landslide in Alesund, from the Monsters and Critics website

The impact on the apartment block is evidently devastating, as this image shows:

EPA Image of the aftermath of the landslide in Alesund, from the Monsters and Critics website

According to reports, the landslide has moved the building forward by about 6 metres, triggering collapse of the bottom two floors. About 20 people were in the building at the time, of which 15 escaped by five are believed to be buried in the rubble. Given the collapse of the lower floors and a propane tank fire, which was still burning 24 hours later, their chances of survival are negligible .

The timing of the landslide is interesting as there was no significant rain recorded. This is however the snow melt season, so perhaps the slide was triggered by this. The presence of that large hillock behind is slightly intriguing. I would be very interested to see what stabilisation measures were in place on the steep slope above the apartments. Unfortunately the Google Earth imagery is too low resolution to see.

This type of slide does illustrate the hazards of building on sloping ground on the edge of urban areas, something that humans are doing increasingly often. If catastrophic landslides like this can occur in a country with a high level of regulation and expertise, such as Norway, the hazards in less developed countries should be clear.

Update:
Aftenposten has an interesting article on, and a revealing of, the landslide here. This picture is this one:

Aftenposten image of the aftermath of the landslide in Alesund, taken from the air

The image shows that the slope was indeed very steep and that the building has indeed been pushed forward. The article indicates that a row is breaking out over who is to blame:

“Speculation over the cause of the landslide continued to rage. One geologist said he’d warned that the hill behind the building, completed just four years ago, could give way. Others, however, said it had been secured and the building’s developer and contractor claimed all regulations and re-enforcement measures had been followed. City officials had issued building permits after approving plans submitted.”

I would suggest that there is a clear need for a genuinely independent investigation of this event, with an emphasis being placed not on blame but on learning the lessons in order to prevent future accidents like this.

Update 2: 28th March
Aftenposten has a second article about this slide here. A few issues emerge:
1. The land owners upslope from the landslide are now understandably concerned for their safety
2. Apparently “Parts of [the hillside] had been blasted away six years ago to make room for the building at Fjelltunvegen 31, and questions are being raised over whether that weakened the ground and contributed to the landslide.” I am not sure that the blasting would have weakened the ground, but it was certainly have been over-steepened.
3. “The blasting experts, developers and builders of the complex all have been quick to contend that they followed all rules and regulations for such projects, which are common in Norway. They also point out that they had reinforced the hillside behind Fjelltunvegen 31 with as many as 123 bolts.” So it appears that rockbolts had been used to stabilise the slope. Given the size of the failure, I wonder how long they were? There is certainly no evidence of pulled out rock bolts on the photo, which suggests that they didn’t reach the surface that failed. The first picture above shows that sliding has occurred on a remarkably planar surface – this is surely a pre-existing discontinuity?

Update 3: 1st April 2008
Aftenposten has now published another image of this landslide:

Aftenposten image of the aftermath of the landslide in Alesund showing the material and the block

This picture is very helpful as it shows that:

1. The landslide has occurred in bedrock;
2. The failure has occurred on a pre-existing joint that is inclined towards the building;
3. The joint surface appears to have either weathered material or gouge on it. The strength of this is certainly much less than that of the intact rock mass;
4. The lateral boundary of the slide is another joint;
5. There is little evidence of the rock bolts on the joint surface

on site…

have been having a bit of a block about how best to show the project on site, so this is a first attempt to just sketch something out :

Paul Henderson – Advice from Geology expert @ UCL

my site is at quite high risk from landslides, and is in an area of steep mountains carved by glaciers about 10,000 years ago – which is quite recent in geological terms apparently. this carving has left large deposits of surface debris which is dusty and gritty. the debris is much more stable than clay for example that expands and contracts in wet and dry conditions, and when the debris is dry it is good for foundations, but on a steep slope, when wet can slump down the hillside into the river below. the point of the project is to minimize the risk of local landslides to the project by re-foresting the slope and and providing sufficient piling under the houses to pin them in place to the more solid rock below.

i approached an expert for advice on how landslides occur and how best to minimise the risks – also what the geology of my site might look like in section as detailed maps of the area are very hard to come by.

From: Paul Henderson <p.henderson@ucl.ac.uk>
Sent: Tuesday, 8 April, 2008 6:21:01 PM
Subject: Landslides

Dear Anna

I will post you a Xeroxed page from a book which shows types of landslides. You could judge the type or types that matches your locality and then make a revised sketch. I think you would want to focus on those types under the heading ‘Debris’. Also, I will send a scrappy piece of paper with the titles of three books about landslides. The first is the one from which I copied the diagram. It is also probably the easiest book to find in any university or whatever library. The other books are more specialist. They are all in the Brit Lib but you would have to have a reader’s ticket to get in.

I have attached a table that is to go into the book by Gideon and me. It comes (modified) from the same book as above. You could use it in an appendix to show something or other – and possibly assess the likelihood of your locality being in a particular ‘landslide velocity class’.

It has to be said that landslides are a difficult topic. The advice I would give is for you to write rather generally about the broad situation and the needs for some preventive measures re. averting the risk but you should also say that a proper survey on landslide hazard/risk should be undertaken on a local scale at the actual locality before giving the go ahead for the building. The local depth of ‘burden’ (i.e. the debris, such as glacial outwash deposits) needs to be known as well as the nature of the solid rock beneath before one starts to put in piles etc.

I think I have done all I can. Interestingly (?) none of the three books I consulted today had any mention of glaciated valleys, glacial debris etc. in the indices. Well I never.

Paul Henderson

Earth Sciences

University College London

Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT

p.henderson@ucl.ac.uk

p.henderson@btinternet.com

coppice research and mucky faces

a beautiful day in a wood in a Dorset – with the ‘dorset coppice group’ – learning some of the processes and details of coppicing to enable me to plan for my house construction – give timelines and suggested additional products that could come from the proposed woodland that is so much a part of my project in the chinese mountains and to work to the greatest advantage for the families who live in the villages of tiger leaping gorge.

a big feature of the day in addition to learning the life cycle of the woodland management and the coppiced trees, was to make charcoal from the gathered coppiced wood.

the cycle of benefit from including woodland planting on my housing site :

willow products:

1 coppiced willow for the insulation of the walls of the houses

2 coppiced willow seasoned and stored on site to be used in biomass burners in conjunction with a GSHP system to heat the houses and provide hot water

3 coppiced willow for onsite charcoal production to be used as smokeless cooking fuel in the houses

4 hillside soil stabilisation and GSHP pipe ‘rooting’

5 forest warden/management jobs for the farmers

6 meets chinese government regulation for re-forestation of all land over 25 degree gradient

presentation tomorrow…

lots of last minute things keep popping into my head that i feel should be included in tomorrows IDS report presentation – but 10 mins is such a short time…. and i know i can get carried away – so a keep-it-simple plan is what i need to stick with.

i think that i seem to work best to a deadline – as i have produced more focused work in the last two days than i feel i did over the majority of the easter ‘break’.

feeling very weird and very sad about the death of Raphael. such a shock, and such a strange feeling that i will never bump into him again. what a loss. makes you feel very lucky to be healthy and alive, and a strong sense of making the most of things – because it is a horrible cliche, but it really could happen to anyone.   miss ya mate. x