Use the comments to enter your reflections on Reading 2.
Arch 1231 BTech 1 D567, Fall 2019
A City Tech OpenLab Course Site
Use the comments to enter your reflections on Reading 2.
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Egress is the action of exiting a place or building. Buildings have always had a total number of people that can occupy a building or portion at one time. This is determined by breaking up the floor area assigned by the square feet. Building codes specify what is required for a building to have in order to be safe for occupants. For example, every building should have fire alarms, sprinklers, and other protection systems in case of a fire. Exits are important for every building, they provide a safe path leading outside a building in case of a fire or any other harmful situation. To sum up, every building should have mandatory safety measures in case of an event.
Stair design consists of the dimensions of risers and treads, a stairway should be balanced to accommodate people’s body movement. Building codes always regulate the maximum dimensions of each riser and tread. A stairway is an essential part of an emergency system to exit a building. Handrails are always required on both sides of a staircase. Ramps provide help to move up and down different levels of a building.
Stairs can come in all different types of ways. For instance, a Straight-Run stair goes from one level to another without any turns or winders. While a Quarter-Turn stair is an L-shaped stair that makes a right-angled turn to the next floor. Lastly, a Half-Turn Stair turns 180 or through two right angles at a landing. This is more compact than a straight-run stair. In conclusion, Stairways are one of the most important requirements for a building to be considered safe and functional.
This is a good summary however, I would like to see more person thoughts on the materials. ie anything new your learned any thing that might have clarified or answered the question why certain things are built the way they are.
Egress, the means of exit is comprised of fire rated materials, fire protection systems like sprinkler systems and the exit access, actual exit and exit discharge. It highlights to design always with safety first. Stair design is regulated to be comfortable to the human stride and there are formulas used to calculate the riser/tread pattern. I hope these calculations help me have an easier time than I had last semester calculating stair runs. Stairs are regulated by all its parts: width, treads, risers, landing, handrails, guardrails, ADA regulations and nosings. Six types of stair runs are: straight, quater turn, half turn, winding, circular and spiral. I wonder why an architect would choose to use a winding stair run/ winders when all the other options seem a much better choice in the long run and big picture. I am partial to always choose function over form, then make sure the form is maximized.
great reflections. the questioning of why an architect would choose a winding stair vs the other is great. a question to think about is should form follow function or should form be form and function be functions.
My first thought after finishing the reading was how technical something as simple as stairs and exits are. Whole systems were created to set standards and guidelines for how exit systems should operate. I furthermore appreciate the system created because of its ability to quickly evacuate buildings in the event of an emergency. I never really paid much attention to the fact that stairs need to have some level of fire resistance. I also never realized the landings needed to be at least as wide as the staircase and have minimum length equal to the stair width.
Great reflections
Egress is a path or an exit of a building where members of the building can leave when a fire or other destruction is caused. The definition of the this word “Egress” is “the action of going out or leaving a place”. For example, every building has an emergency exit to leave the building or fire exits near the window. Those elements are there to keep us safe and sure about our next move when a fire is caused. So, egress is the path to escape a dangerous event that can harm us. According to the building codes, all buildings require an egress in order to provide the safety to the members of the building.
The stair design is a combination of riser, treads, nosings , landings and handrails. There are also different types of stairs and that is why is takes longer in certain stairs than the others. There are straight run stairs where you do not have to make any turns in order to climb the stairs. The quarter turn stairs are a stair system with right angled turn in getting into the next stair. It’s often shaped like the letter L. The half-turn stair is two stairs connected by a landing and or meeting of two stairs on the same height. The winding stairs is basically the stair with a winder which offers less foothold than a landing. A circular stair has the inside radius of twice the width of the actual stair. It is less likely to have a landing since it is moving in the same circular phase. Last but not least a spiral stair is consist of an anchor that is wrapped around with stairs. It is mostly used for saving space. After reading this chapter and learning about new components that put a building together, I can finally say I have a better understandings of a certain parts of the building that people really do not pay attention to.
this is a good summary, in the future I would like for you to expand on the final thoughts, what did you learn or what where the things that made you understand things better.
After reading chapter 2, I am almost convinced there are more elements that go into the making of a building than of a human. The author explains that there is a “conceptual system of order” that goes into the creation of a building. An idea behind the purpose and use of a building. Buildings are made up of structural, mechanical, and enclosure systems. The structural system serves as a skeleton of sorts. It holds the building up, with the use of columns, beams, and load bearing walls. The mechanical system can be compared to the “organs” of the building. This system consists of all plumbing, electrical systems, vertical transportation, and fire fighting systems. The last element is called the enclosure system and this serves as a protective layer, like the skin on a human. It regulates what comes in and out of the building as well as protects the mechanical and structural systems.
Doors, windows and exterior/interior walls are all a part of the enclosure system. The enclosure system allows us to egress a building. This action is critical to a building or any structure; as the placement of exits and openings help the flow of traffic in and out of the building. Another important, special structure is stairs. Stairs allow access to other floors in a building. I never knew the complexities of such a mundane structure. Elements of stairs include treads, risers, width, landing, handrails, guardrails, and nosings. The specifications and dimensions for the riser and tread I thought were interesting, as I have walked up uncomfortably steep and shallow stairs. There are a few different types of stair runs; six to be exact: straight, quarter turn, half turn, winding, circular and spiral. I agree with the author, in that winder stairs are the most hazardous. The tread on the interior of the turn are far too narrow.
good reflection. next time less summary and more thoughts
There are building codes associated with the way staircases are made. They tell you the minimum and maximum dimensions tread and risers must be. Depending on the type of stairs and the location of the staircase, there is a difference in dimension, as interior staircases tend to be steeper than exterior staircases. Each type of staircase has its own flow. For example, there are six different types of staircases. There are straight-run stairs, which extends from one floor to another without any turns, quarter-turn stairs, makes a right angled turn along the way, half-turn stairs, turns 180°/has two straight flights with two 90° turns, winding stairs, staircase constructed with winders, circular stairs, has a circular plan configuration/ constructed with winders, and spiral stairs in which are wedge-shaped treads winding around a central post.
good summary, I would like to see more person thought on the reading
The paragraph about Means of Egress was pretty dry to be honest. It provided the information about some building code specifications in case of a fire. It also described the required means of egress like access to the exits, exits themselves, exit discharges.
On the other hand, the chapter about Stairs made me very curious. It gave a detailed description about the components of the staircase, and i was surprised to know that there are so many small and important details, like the height of the rising, the tread’s depth, steepness of the stairs, even location of the landing, are not only serve for safety but also for convenience of people. It made me to look at such an ordinary object like stairs at different angle – it very scrupulous and important work.
good reflection
Egress is sometimes used as means of evacuation in case of an emergency, by definition it means an unobstructed way to get from any occupied portion of a building to a public way of exit. From what I read there should be two or more way of egress from a building depending on the number of people that the buildings hold in total. Also, there are different types of Stairs if the building has more than two floors. Some examples of these types of egresses are the outside stairs used in the majority of residential buildings and the Inside emergency exits that are used in more complex and taller buildings like offices and colleges.
Stairs are used to get people from one floor to the other. The different types of stairs are, circular stairs, spiral stairs, straight-run stairs, L-shape stairs, U-shape stairs, ladders and there is a lot more.
Reymond Jimenez
good summary, in the future I would like to see more person thoughts of what you learned or what reinforced prior knowlede, etc
Mean of egress is a way to exit from a building in case of an emergency. It consists of three parts: the exit access, the exit and the exit discharge. Stair design is regulated by the building code as they are part of the emergency egress system and for this reason there are a lot of requirements that needs to be followed like the width, height and depth of stairway, landing, handrail, guardrail, treads, risers and nosings. There are six type of stair such as circular, spiral, straight-run, half-turn, quarter turn, winding and built out of different materials such as concrete, wood and steel.
for your reflections try to include more personal thoughts on the reading and move away from just a summary.
Egress is a means of exiting a building during some form of emergency (mainly pertaining to fire). Due to factors that pertain to these events, there are regulations and requirements for stair construction.
These include: the height and depth of treads and risers, the diameter of a handrail, the minimum width for stairways which serve 49- occupants, the minimum width for stairways that serve 50+ occupants, the minimum length of landings, etc.
this needs to be more personal in nature as far as your thought while reading, move away from just providing a summary of selected items.
Egress is the way of exiting a building. The building code explains how people should leave a building in an emergency. It also mentioned the requirements for a building in case of fire, such as fire alarms and sprinklers. The chapters about stairs were interesting because it shows a lot of details about stair requirements. For example, how high should handrails be, what are the required dimensions of riser and tread, and more. I realized that every stair should be designed not only for people’s safety, but also for their comfort.
Good reflection on the stair would be better if you can associate some of the reading to your everyday life
I never thought that something as simple as stairs could be so throughout and complex. I never took a second to stop and actually look at stairs until after the reading. The reading went into detail about how a well constructed set of stairs should be. I originally thought that constructing stairs should not be this hard nd complex but after the reading, anything made sense to me and every little detail had a purpose .