Construction of a House Cont'd

Siding-
This house uses standard vinyl siding. The siding is made from thin, flexible sheets of plastic about 2 millimeters thick, pre-colored and bent into shape during manufacturing. The sheets are 12 feet long and about a foot high. You start at the bottom and the sheets interlock into each other as you go up. Because vinyl expands and contracts due to temperature and sunlight, it fits into deep channels at the corners and around windows and doors. The channels are deep enough that as the siding contracts it remains within the channel. The area extending out from the house under the roof is known as the soffit (parallel to the roof). The fascia boards are perpendicular to the roof. The soffit is perforated so that air can flow into the attic and up through the ridge vents to ventilate the attic. Note that all exposed fascia wood is capped with a sheet of painted aluminum that was bent into shape on the site. At this point, the house is "dried in," meaning that it is completely protected from rain. Now interior work can begin.

Plumbing-
Let's say you want to put a toilet in a house. Two-hundred or 300 years ago this was not an option -- everyone used outhouses. If you visit the governor's mansion in Williamsburg, VA, you will see that in the 1700s even England's high colonial governor used a pair of three-holer outhouses located at the back of the formal garden. Eventually, public water supplies and pressurized well systems allowed people to have indoor plumbing, and this allowed for the addition of indoor toilets. A toilet has to flush somewhere, so sewer systems evolved.
Why can't you run the sewer line from a toilet or a sink out of the side of the house so it spills on the ground? That certainly would be easy and inexpensive, but people learned fairly quickly that human waste spilled on the ground smells bad and leads to incredible disease problems. Septic tanks and sewer systems take care of this. The uniform plumbing code lists hundreds of rules for septic-tank installation. These rules ensure that tanks work properly over many years.
Once you have a septic tank in place, you can add sewer lines from the sink or toilet to the septic tank. Say you tried to put a pipe straight from the sink to the septic tank. The problem with this approach is that as the septic tank fills up with stuff, it produces a rather malodorous cloud of fumes. These fumes float from the septic tank up the sewer line to the sink and into the bathroom. Therefore, plumbing codes require a "P-trap" at every drain opening. You may have wondered why you find these funny loops of pipe under every sink in your house. The idea is that water gets trapped in the "P." This water blocks the fumes from the septic tank and keeps them from entering the bathroom. Unfortunately, a P-trap alone does not solve the problem because it turns out that the fumes in a septic tank are under pressure. The fumes simply bubble through the water in the trap and cause the same problem. Therefore, there is the concept of a vent pipe, which allows the pressure to escape. You may have wondered why houses have pipes sticking up out of the roof. They are vent pipes to relieve the pressure so that P-traps can do their jobs. It turns out that vents also break vacuums so water flows down the pipes faster. Besides covering P-traps and vent pipes, the uniform plumbing code specifies all sorts of other things:

• The required diameters for pipes
• The allowed materials for pipes
• The types of joints you can use
• The necessary supports for pipes
• The angle at which pipes must fall
• The longest distance for lateral pipes
• And on and on and on through hundreds of pages

When plumbers follow all the rules, they are able to create extremely reliable and safe plumbing systems. Over time, new rules get added as people realize funny little quirks and nuances. These new rules prevent problems in the future, and each one makes the code a little bigger and better. This is all a nice way to say that, even though plumbing looks simple in this section, there are many subtleties and nuances dictated by code that plumbers know and neophytes generally do not. (The same holds true for electrical systems, by the way.)

Construction of a House Cont'd

Porch-
The crew builds the porch, starting with the frame. The frame goes on top of short brick (or another sturdy material) pillars. Then a floor goes on top of the frame. That's it.

Windows and Doors-
Inside the house, things begin to look enclosed. The next step in enclosure is windows and doors. The windows and doors arrive in one shipment and are unloaded from the truck into a stack. Plastic stripping is stapled to the inside of all the window and door openings on the house structure. A common window used is a standard vinyl window. They are placed in each rough opening and stapled in place on the outside.

Roofing-
This house uses standard asphalt shingles for the roof. The first step is to cover the roof with building paper (tar paper) .The shingles then go on very quickly (sometimes in less than a day). There is a vent along the peak of all the roofs that acts as a vent to allow hot air travel up and out of the house. This object is called a ridge vent. This vent replaces the triangular "gable-end vents" found in older homes. Ridge vents give better circulation (especially when cathedral ceilings are used) and also prevent bats and squirrels from getting into the attic. The aluminum flashing keeps water away from the walls at the points where the shingles touch the walls. At the edge of the roof, the shingles are cut off with about 2 inches of overhang.

Construction of a House Cont'd

Roof-
Some houses use trusses for the roof framing. Trusses are pre-fabricated, triangulated wooden structures used to support the roof. The alternative is to build up the roof's frame with 2x8s and 2x10s. Trusses are quite common these days because they have five big advantages from the builder's standpoint:

• Trusses are incredibly strong.
• Because they are built strictly from shorter lengths of 2x4 lumber, they are generally a lot less expensive than the alternative.
• You can have just about any shape custom-built, and this allows interesting features like cathedral ceilings at low cost.
• You can span a large distance with a truss and the truss transmits all of the weight to the exterior walls. Therefore, none of the interior walls are "load-bearing," so they can go anywhere and are easily moved later.
• Trusses go up quickly!

From the homeowner's standpoint, the one big disadvantage is that you don't have any attic space. C'est la vie...
Trusses come in several standard configurations:

• "W" truss
• "M" truss
• "Scissors" truss
• "Gable" truss

Gable trusses are used at the ends of the roof (the outermost trusses on either end). The vertical pieces are 16 inches on center so that siding can be nailed on. The left-hand side will provide a cathedral ceiling over the living room. Scissors trusses are used for the front room, and M trusses are used over the garage. Gable trusses are used at the ends of the three rooflines. The trusses are fist stacked on top of the walls, either by hand or with a crane. These trusses went up in about four hours. They are on 24-inch centers. The trusses are tied to the walls with small metal plates. Once the trusses are up, the roof is covered in plywood or OSB, which gives the roof tremendous rigidity. There are two small custom roofs in this situation: the roof over the porch and the roof over the breezeway. Roof framing without trusses is actually fairly complicated. The angles found in anything but the simplest roof become intricate.

Construction of a House Cont'd

Floor-
The framing crew is the next group of people on the site. They start by building the floor (unless the house uses a slab foundation, in which case the slab is the floor). The floor starts with a sill-plate made of pressure-treated lumber in direct contact with the bricks of the crawl space wall. One interesting thing to note is that this house literally "sits" on the foundation -- it is not held on or bolted on in any way. Then the floor is constructed on the sill with 2x10 lumber. The brick posts hold a beam that runs down the center of the house. The beam is also built from 2x10 lumber (three pieces thick).All of the "joists" (as the 2x10s in the floor are called) meet on the center beam. (In many houses the meeting of the joists is somewhat better organized!) A funny little cantilevered section of the frame will eventually hold the fireplace. Once the floor framing is complete, it is covered with 1/2-inch or 5/8-inch plywood or OSB (oriented strand board). And the floor is finished.

Walls-
The framing crew next starts on the walls. Walls are assembled on the floor...
...and then raised into place. The wall is made of 2x4 lumber and covered on the outside with an OSB sheathing. Using plywood or OSB as the sheathing gives the wall rigidity -- you may have seen diagonal pieces used at the corners of older homes (homes built before plywood was widely available). The plywood does the same thing, but it provides much more strength.
The 2x4s are placed on "16-inch centers," meaning that the center of one 2x4 is 16 inches away from the center of the next. In this wall, two things interrupt the consistent 16-inch pattern:

• Windows
  
• Special framing that will accommodate internal walls once they are built
  

The plywood will be cut out of the window openings as construction proceeds. Above the window is a 2x10 header, which is actually two 2x10s with a piece of 1/2-inch-thick plywood sandwiched in between and a 2x4 along the bottom. The reason why the header has plywood in the middle is simply to make the header as wide as the rest of the wall. A 2x4 is really 1-1/2 inches by 3-1/2 inches, and a 2x10 is really 1-1/2 inches by 9-1/2 inches. When you sandwich two 2x10s together they are only 3 inches wide. Adding the piece of plywood in between makes the sandwich 3-1/2 inches wide. A 2x10 header is a beam. The headers over all windows and doors give the wall enough strength over the window or door to support the roof. When a header spans more than 5 feet, you find double full-length studs on either side of the header instead of the single studs. All of the exterior walls go up following this same basic pattern. In the corners, the top plate on one wall overlaps the top plate of the next, and the walls are nailed together to bind the corner. Then the interior walls go up, fitting into the top plates of the exterior walls. Some houses have a garage and a breezeway connecting the garage to the house. The walls of the garage are built slightly differently (because the garage will have a slab floor). The walls are bolted directly to the brick foundation walls. The framers sometimes cover the outside walls in pink house wrap.

Construction of a House Cont'd

Basement-

A house with a basement starts with a hole about 8 feet deep. At the bottom of the hole is a concrete slab, and then concrete or cinder-block walls form the outer walls of the basement. Actually, a basement is poured in three pieces in most cases: the "beams," then the walls, and then the slab inside the walls. This approach helps keep the basement waterproof. The L-shaped piece is a steel reinforcing bar to bind the beam and the wall together.

Crawl Space-

A crawl space has several advantages over basements and slabs:

• It gets the house up off the ground (especially important in damp or termite-prone areas).
• It is a lot less expensive than a basement and comparable in price to a slab.
• Duct work and plumbing can run in the crawl space, meaning that they are easy to service and move over the lifetime of the house.

Most of the time, a crawl space is made of cinder block with a brick facing. Noticedthat the concrete work for the crawl space was not done with much precision at all. One of the neat things that the mason (bricklayer) does is carefully adjust the height of the cinder blocks and bricks with mortar thickness so that the crawl-space walls end up exactly level all the way around.
One problem that arises in crawl spaces and basements is dampness. In order to keep water out, perforated pipe and gravel are used in a trench around the crawl space to route water away. In a house with a basement, this same sort of drainage system is added along the bottom of the walls. The basement walls are then generally insulated with rigid foam board and then heavily waterproofed before dirt is backfilled against the walls.

The Construction of a House

This is giong to be a multi-part post, because it is so big.

The construction of a house is a very detailed, step-by-step process. This process is site preparation, foundation, basement, crawl space, floor, walls, roof, porch, windows and doors, roofing, siding, plumbing, rough plumbing, rough electrical, insulation, drywall, garage slab, and finishing up.

Site Preparation-
The first crew on the site handles site preparation. Often, this crew and the foundation crew are the same people, but sometimes not (especially if there are a lot of trees on the lot). Houses are generally built on a foundation that is either a basement, a crawl space or a slab. The site-preparation crew typically arrives on the site with a backhoe and/or bulldozer. The crew's job is to clear the site of any trees, rocks and debris, level the site if necessary and dig as necessary for the foundation being built. The example house shown here is built on a crawl space. For a crawl space, the site preparation crew digs a set of trenches and holes. Concrete is poured into these trenches and holes and will act as the interface between the foundation wall and the ground. The concrete in the trench is generally about 18 to 24 inches wide (45.72 to 60.96 cm) and 18 to 24 inches deep. Once it hardens, it forms a massive concrete "beam" on which the house rests. The width of this concrete beam is controlled by the compressibility of the soil. In light soils, the beam will be wider to try to spread out the load, while in heavy clay soils it can be narrower.
If the site slopes, the concrete beam is stepped. Concrete takes approximately four weeks to cure to full strength (depending on the weather), so once the concrete is poured nothing will happen for some period of time while the initial curing takes place. If this house had been built on a basement, the site-prep crew would have dug a square hole about 8 feet deep. If this house had been built on a slab, the site-prep crew would have trenched around the outside approximately 2 feet deep and then completely leveled the area for the pad.

Foundation-
Slabs, basements and crawl spaces are the three main foundation systems used on houses. In wet and coastal areas, it is sometimes common to put houses up on posts as well. The slab is probably the easiest foundation to build. It is a flat concrete pad poured directly on the ground. It takes very little site preparation, very little formwork for the concrete and very little labor to create. It works well on level sites in warmer climates -- it has problems up north because the ground freezes in the winter and this freezing can shift the slab at worst and at least lead to cold floors in the winter. Around the edge of the slab, the concrete forms a beam that is perhaps 2 feet deep. The rest of the slab is 4 or 6 inches thick. A 4- or 6-inch layer of gravel lies beneath the slab. A 4-millimeter sheet of plastic lies between the concrete and the gravel to keep moisture out. Embedded in the concrete is 6-inch by 6-inch wire mesh and steel reinforcing bars. You will often hear this sort of foundation referred to as a "floating slab" -- it "floats" on the soil, with the deeper concrete around the edge holding it in place. In northern climates, the concrete around the edge has to extend deep enough to remain below the frost line in winter.
One thing about a slab is that the sewer pipe, and sometimes much of the electrical conduit, has to be put in place before the concrete is poured. The sewer pipes are actually embedded in the slab.

The Old and the New...

The original World Trade Center was comprised of seven buildings. These were the Marriott World Trade Center (3WTC), the 4 world trade center (4WTC), the 5 world trade center (5WTC), the 6 world trade center (6WTC), the 7 world trade center (7WTC), and the two twin towers (1 & 2WTC). These 7 buildings housed such things as the United States Customs Service and the U.S. Commodities Exchange, the PATH station, office buildings, and underground shopping mall. Only three of these buildings still stood following the 911 attacks but they were subsequently demolished because they suffered a lot of damage.

The new site of the world trade center will contain 7 buildings again but these will be Freedom Tower (Tower 1) 200 Greenwich Street (Tower 2) 175 Greenwich Street (Tower 3) 150 Greenwich Street (Tower 4) 130 Liberty Street (Tower 5), and 7 World Trade Center. It is not known what these buildings will be used for as of yet, but it will probably house a few businesses just as it was before.

Freedom Tower

1 World Trade Center, or the Freedom Tower, is the main building of the new World Trade Center complex currently under construction in Lower Manhattan in New York City. The tower will be located in the northwest corner of the 16-acre (65,000 m²) World Trade Center site, bound by Vesey, West, Washington and Fulton streets. Construction on below-ground utility relocations, footings, and foundations for the 1,368-foot (417 m) Freedom Tower began on April 27, 2006. On December 19, 2006, the first steel columns were installed in the building's foundation. Three other high-rise office buildings are planned for the site along Greenwich Street, and they will surround the World Trade Center Memorial, which is currently under construction. The area will also be home to a museum dedicated to the history of the site. The Freedom Tower's program includes 2.6 million square feet (241,000 square meters) of office space, as well as an observation deck, world-class restaurants, parking, and broadcast and antennae facilities, all supported by both above and below-ground mechanical infrastructure for the building and its adjacent public spaces. Below-ground tenant parking and storage, shopping and access to the PATH and subway trains and the World Financial Center are also provided.
An 80-foot-high (24 m) public lobby topped by a series of mechanical floors form a 200-foot-high (61 m) building base. 69 tenant floors rise above the base to 1,120 feet (341 m) elevation. Mechanical floors, two floors to be occupied by the Metropolitan Television Alliance, restaurants and observation decks culminate in an observation deck and glass parapet that mark 1,362 feet (415 m) and 1,368 feet (417 m) respectively — the heights of the original Twin Towers. A shrouded antenna structure supported by cables, engineered by Schlaich Bergermann & Partner rises to a total height of 1,776 feet (541 m), which is symbolic of the year the Declaration of Independence was signed (July 4, 1776). The tower rises from a cubic base whose square plan—200 feet by 200 feet—(61 m by 61 m) is almost as wide as the 208-foot (63 m) Twin Towers. The base is clad in more than 2,000 pieces of prismatic glass; each measures 4 feet by 13 feet 4 inches (1.21 m by 4.06 m) with varying depths. It has been designed to draw upon the themes of motion and light; a shimmering glass surface drapes the tower's base and imparts a dynamic fluidity of form whose appearance will reflect its surroundings. Just as the rest of the building, the base will serve as a glowing beacon. Cable-net facades on all four sides of the buildings, again designed by Schlaich Bergermann, measure 60 feet (18 m) high and range in width from 30 feet (9 m) on the east and west sides (for access to the restaurant and observation deck, respectively) to 50 feet (15 m) on the north side and 70 feet (21 m) on the south for primary tenant access, activate the building at street level. Though not occupied by office space, Freedom Tower's observation deck is set to be higher, at about 1,362 feet (415 m). Currently, the Sears Tower, Shanghai World Financial Center, and Taipei 101 have occupied floors higher than Freedom Tower. International Commerce Center, Chicago Spire, and the Burj Dubai will have roofs and floors higher than Freedom Tower's highest roofs and floors.

World Trade Center

The World Trade Center (sometimes informally the WTC or Twin Towers) was a seven-building complex in Lower Manhattan (New York City) that was destroyed in the September 11 attacks. The World Trade Center was designed by Minoru Yamasaki who used an innovative tube-frame structural design for the twin 110-story towers. The elevator system in the towers utilized large-capacity express elevators which went to sky lobbies, along with local elevators serving individual floors. In gaining approval for the project in the early 1960s, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey agreed to take over the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad which became the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH). Groundbreaking for the World Trade Center took place on August 5, 1966. The North Tower was completed in December 1970 and the South Tower was finished in July 1971. Construction of the World Trade Center involved excavating a large amount of material which was used in making Battery Park City on the west side of Lower Manhattan. The complex contained 13.4 million square feet (1.24 million m²) of office space. An observation deck was located atop the South Tower, while the Windows on the World restaurant was located at the top floor of the North Tower. With construction of 7 World Trade Center in the 1980s, the World Trade Center had a total of seven buildings but the most notable were the main twin towers which were each 110 stories tall. During a press conference in 1973, Minoru Yamasaki was asked "Why two 110-story buildings? Why not one 220-story building?" His response was: "I didn't want to lose the human scale". When completed in 1972, 1 WTC became the tallest building in the world, unseating the Empire State Building after a 40-year reign. 1 WTC (the North Tower, which featured a 360-foot (110 m) high TV and radio antenna added in 1978, stood 1,368 feet (417 m) high at the top of the roof. With the 360 ft antenna, the highest point of the North Tower reached 1,727 ft. 2 WTC became the second tallest building in the world when completed in 1973. The observation deck was 1,362 feet (415 m) high. The World Trade Center towers held the height record only briefly. Chicago's Sears Tower, finished in May 1973, reached 1,450 feet (442 m) at the rooftop. Of the 110 stories, eight were set aside for technical services (mechanical floors) Level B6/B5, Floors 7/8, 41/42, 75/76 and 108/109, in four two-floor areas evenly spaced up the building. All the remaining floors were free for open-plan offices. Each floor of the towers had 40,000 square feet (3,700 m2) of space for occupancy. Each tower had 3.8 million square feet (350,000 m²) of office space. Altogether the entire complex of seven buildings had 11.2 million square feet (1.04 km²) of space.

Weird Buildings

These are just some really cool buildings that I found on the Internet.

The Dancing House

The Robot Building

Ripley’s Building

The Longaberger Basket

The Tokyo Sofitel Hotel

Ugh... Pep Rally

Today the school schedule is messed up because of the stupid pep rally, so i really don't feel like posting a real blog today. Pep Rallies are dumb.

The White House

The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the President of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., it was built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the late Georgian style and has been the executive residence of every U.S. President since John Adams. When Thomas Jefferson moved into the home in 1801, he (with architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe) expanded the building outward, creating two colonnades which were meant to conceal stables and storage. In 1814, during the War of 1812, the mansion was set ablaze by the British Army in the Burning of Washington, destroying the interior and charring much of the exterior walls. Reconstruction began almost immediately, and President James Monroe moved into the partially reconstructed house in October 1817. An interesting fact is that on the $20 bill, the image of the white house is actually the back, not the front. The President's house was a major feature of Pierre Charles L'Enfant's plan for the newly established federal city, Washington, D.C. The architect of the White House was chosen in a competition, which received nine proposals, including one submitted anonymously by Thomas Jefferson. The nation's first president, George Washington, traveled to the site of the federal city on July 16, 1792 to make his judgment. His review is recorded as being brief and he quickly selected the submission of James Hoban, an Irishman living in Charleston, South Carolina. Washington was not entirely pleased with the original Hoban submission, however; he found it too small, lacking ornament, and not fitting the nation's president. On Washington's recommendation the house was enlarged by thirty percent; a large reception hall, the present East Room, was added. This was likely inspired by the large reception room at Mount Vernon. The building Hoban designed is verifiably influenced by the first and second floors of Leinster House, in Dublin, Ireland, which later became the seat of the the Oireachtas (the Irish parliament). Construction of the White House began with the laying of the cornerstone on October 13, 1792, with no formal ceremony. The main residence, as well as foundations of the house, were built largely by enslaved and free African-American laborers, as well as employed Europeans. The initial construction took place over a period of eight years, at a reported cost of $232,371.83 ($2.4 million in 2005 dollars). Although not yet completed, the White House was ready for occupancy on or circa November 1, 1800.

Wonderworks

Wonderworks building is actually an amusement park for the mind with over 100 interactive exhibits for visitors of all ages to experience. The most eye-catching feature of Wonderworks is the unique exeterior. The building appears to be upside atop a 1930’s era brick warehouse. The building was designed to look as though it has been the victim of a massive earthquake. Activities inside Wonderworks are things such as Earthquake Simulators, the Hurricane Hole, the Anti- Gravity Chamber, Famous Disasters Room, Virtual Hoops, the Bubble Lab, the Velocity Tunnel, the Bed of Nails, the WonderWall, Reaction Time Testers, the Big Piano, the Shadow Wall, the Risk Zone, Shuttle Landers, Fighter Jets, the Race Machine, Computer Aging and the Wonder Coaster.

Astra Haus/CCTV & TVCC

The Astra Haus was strange building that was actually a brewery in Hamburg, Germany. “Was” because the unique building has been destroyed. Another unique thing about the Astra Haus was that its floors could move up or down on its column core. One of its more famous beer brands was recently bought by a big refreshment corporation. And that beer brand is now called Astra.


Another cool building is the China Central Television Headquarters Building & Cultural Centre. The total development is 5 813 000ft² consisting of two main buildings: the CCTV building and the Television Cultural Centre (TVCC). The irregular grid on the building’s facades is an expression of the forces travelling throughout its structure.

Fuji TV

The Fuji Television headquarters in Odaiba is known for its eccentric architecture. Fuji Television Network, Inc. is a Japanese television station based in Daiba, Minato, Tokyo, Japan, also known as Fuji TV or CX. It is the flagship station of the Fuji News Network (FNN) and the Fuji Network System. i just thought that this building looked cool.

University of Central Florida (UCF)

The University of Central Florida (commonly referred to as UCF) is a university located in Orlando, Florida. UCF is the largest undergraduate school in the state of Florida, the second largest overall, the sixth-largest university in the nation. UCF is a member institution of the State University System of Florida. It was founded in 1963 as Florida Technological University with the goal of providing highly trained personnel to support the Kennedy Space Center, located only 35 miles to the east, and to this day maintains a satellite campus at the Space Center. In 1978 the school was renamed the University of Central Florida as its academic scope had expanded to encompass all academic fields. In 1990, the University of Central Florida founded the Space Education and Research Center and is a member of the NASA Space grant colleges. As of 2008, total enrollment consists of a 50,000 student body seeking bachelor's degrees through doctorates, as well as certificates and specialist degrees. The university is organized into twelve colleges providing nearly 100 separate courses of study with the majority of the population located at the main campus, approximately 13 miles east of downtown Orlando and 55 miles south of Daytona Beach. Since its rapid growth starting in the late 1990s UCF has expanded its influence throughout Florida and now consists of twelve satellite campuses in eastern central Florida. In the Fall of 2006, UCF's admission rate declined drastically from 61% of prospective students admitted to only 46%, as a result of more and more students applying to the university each year. The acceptance rate continued to decline for Fall 2008 when there was a 38% acceptance rate for 25,000 first time in college applications. Freshmen admitted in Fall 2008 posted average SAT scores of 1219, ACT scores of 26 and average high school GPAs of 3.76. UCF's official colors are black and gold, the various sports teams go by the name of Knights and the official mascot is a male gold-armored black knight named Knightro. The UCF academic logo is a Pegasus.

Test

We took a test today and it was very long. I had to look up almost every answer so it took me a while. I don't have enough time left to do a normal blog, so this is what I am posting.

Nothing

I can't think of anything to do my blog on today. So.... I guess that's it.

Biltmore Stairs

I was in the Biltmore Estate a couple of years ago with my family. We were on vacation for the summer. We went there because it is a very historical building and is a French Renaissance inspired chateau near Asheville, North Carolina, built by George Washington Vanderbilt between 1888 and 1895. It is the largest privately owned home in the United States at 175,000 square feet and featuring 255 rooms. Still owned by Vanderbilt's descendants, it stands today as one of the most prominent remaining examples of the Gilded Age. In 2007, it was ranked eighth on the List of America's Favorite Architecture by the American Institute of Architects. One specific feature of the house that I remember very well is the grand marble staircase. This entire staircase is a spiral staircase made of huge marble slabs that are held together just by the force of the stairs pushing together. The force is so great that the stairs can hold thousands of pounds on them and they don't need anything to hold them up, except for the points at which it is fastened to the floors above and below.

L'Arc de Triomphe

The Arc de Triomphe is a monument in Paris, France that stands in the centre of the Place Charles de Gaulle, also known as the Place de l'Étoile. It is at the western end of the Champs-Élysées. The triumphal arch honors those who fought for France, particularly during the Napoleonic Wars. On the inside and the top of the arc there are all of the names of generals and wars fought. Underneath is the tomb of the unknown soldier fromThe monument stands 162 ft in height, 148 ft wide and 72 ft deep. It is the second largest triumphal arch in existence. Its design was inspired by the Roman Arch of Titus. The Arc de Triomphe is so colossal that three weeks after the Paris victory parade in 1919, marking the end of hostilities in World War I, Charles Godefroy flew his Nieuport biplane through it, with the event captured in a newsreel World War I. Since the fall of Napoleon (1815), the sculpture representing Peace is interpreted as commemorating the Peace of 1815. The astylar design is by Jean Chalgrin (1739–1811), in the Neoclassical version of ancient Roman architecture, especially the Arch of Titus. Major academic sculptors of France are represented in the sculpture of the Arc de Triomphe: Corhtot; Rude; Étex; Pradier and Lemaire. The main sculptures are not integral friezes but are treated as independent trophies applied to the vast ashlar masonry masses, not unlike the gilt-bronze appliqués on Empire furniture.

The Eiffel Tower

The Eiffel Tower is an iron tower built on the Champ de Mars beside the Seine River in Paris. The tower has become a global icon of France and is one of the most recognizable structures in the world. Named after its designer, engineer Gustave Eiffel, the Eiffel Tower is the tallest building in Paris. More than 200,000,000 have visited the tower since its construction in 1889, including 6,719,200 in 2006, making it the most visited paid monument in the world. Including the 79 ft antenna, the structure is 1,063 ft high (since 2000), which is equivalent to about 81 levels in a conventional building. When the tower was completed in 1889 it was the world's tallest tower — a title it retained until 1930 when New York City's Chrysler Building (1,047 ft tall) was completed. The tower is now the fifth-tallest structure in France and the tallest structure in Paris, with the second-tallest being the Tour Montparnasse (89 ft), although that will soon be surpassed by Tour AXA (738.36 ft). At the time the tower was built many people were shocked by its daring shape. Eiffel was criticised for the design and accused of trying to create something artistic, or inartistic according to the viewer, without regard to engineering. Eiffel and his engineers, as renowned bridge builders however, understood the importance of wind forces and knew that if they were going to build the tallest structure in the world they had to be certain it would withstand the wind.

Panama Canal

The Panama Canal is a man-made canal in Panama which joins the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. One of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken, it had an enormous impact on shipping between the two oceans, replacing the long and treacherous route via the Drake Passage and Cape Horn at the southernmost tip of South America. A ship sailing from New York to San Francisco via the canal travels 9,500 km (6,000 miles), well under half the 14,000 miles route around Cape Horn. Although the concept of a canal near Panama dates back to the early 16th century, the first attempt to construct a canal began in 1880 under French leadership. After this attempt failed and saw 21,900 workers die, the project of building a canal was attempted and completed by the United States in the early 1900s, with the canal opening in 1914. The building of the 77 km (48 miles) canal was plagued by problems, including disease (particularly malaria and yellow fever) and landslides. By the time the canal was completed, a total of 27,500 workmen are estimated to have died in the French and American efforts. Since opening, the canal has been enormously successful, and continues to be a key conduit for international maritime trade. The canal can accommodate vessels from small private yachts up to large commercial vessels. The maximum size of vessel that can use the canal is known as Panamax; an increasing number of modern ships exceed this limit, and are known as post-Panamax or super-Panamax vessels. A typical passage through the canal by a cargo ship takes around nine hours. 14,011 vessels passed through in 2005, with a total capacity of 278.8 million tons, making an average of almost 40 vessels per day.

Hoover Dam

Hoover Dam, also sometimes known as Boulder Dam, is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Arizona and Nevada. When completed in 1935, it was both the world's largest electric-power generating station and the world's largest concrete structure. It was surpassed in both these respects by the Grand Coulee Dam in 1945. It is currently the world's 35th-largest hydroelectric generating station. This dam, located 30 miles (48 km) southeast of Las Vegas, Nevada, is named after Herbert Hoover, who played an instrumental role in its construction, first as the Secretary of Commerce and then later as the President of the United States. Construction began in 1931 and was completed in 1935, more than two years ahead of schedule. The dam and the power plant are operated by the Bureau of Reclamation of the U.S. Department of the Interior. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981, Hoover Dam was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1985. Lake Mead is the reservoir created behind the dam, named after Elwood Mead, who oversaw the construction of the dam. The initial plans for the finished facade of both the dam and the power plant consisted of a simple, unadorned wall of concrete topped with a Gothic-inspired balustrade and a powerhouse that looked like little more than an industrial warehouse. This initial design was criticized by many as being too plain and unremarkable for a project of such immense scale, so Los Angeles-based architect Gordon B. Kaufmann was brought in to redesign the exteriors. Kaufmann greatly streamlined the buildings, and applied an elegant Art Deco style to the entire project, with sculptured turrets rising seamlessly from the dam face and clock faces on the intake towers set for Nevada and Arizona time, in the Pacific and Mountain time zones respectively (although because Arizona does not observe daylight saving time, the two clocks show the same time throughout much of the year).

Halloween: Haunted Houses

Today is Halloween, so intstead of posting regularly I think I'll write about supposedly real haunted houses.

James A. Garfield's House in Mentor, Ohio -This house, which is now a National Landmark, was the former residence of president James A. Garfield. Security guards have reported hearing the president's wife, Lucretia, walking upstairs at night. She is said to turn lights on after the guards have turned them off. While renovating the inside of the house, workers tended to leave the room in which they were working a mess. The next morning, everything would be neatly in place.

Bell Witch Cave in Adams, Tennessee - Local legends say that the Bell Witch has haunted the area surrounding the caves for hundreds of years. It is said that the witch appears to people in human form. There are many unexplainable pictures of shadows and other such entities in the cave. Upon entering the cave, it is alleged that one will be overcome by the feeling of being watched. It is further asserted that if one is to take a rock from the cave, they shall be forever cursed. Many others have also reported voices in restricted areas of the cave that cannot be reached by any human.

The Collinwood School in Cleveland, Ohio - Now a state monument, this school was the site of a huge fire in the early twentieth century. Over one hundred people died because the doors in the school opened inwardly rather than outwardly, preventing escape. Residents that live near the school have reported seeing a light come on in one room, traverse the hall and go back from whence it came. Police investigated and found no one living in the building.

Royalty Theater in Clearwater, Florida - The Royalty Theater was once an old vaudevillian movie house and since 1921, it has been plagued by paranormal activity. The theater’s apparition is nicknamed Captain. He is said to be a bearded, blue-eyed man in a blue coat and hat. Footsteps are heard moving across the stage when no one is present. On one stage wall, there is an image of a knife that simply will not go away–it has been covered by twenty coats of paint! Users of the theater do maintain, however, that Captain is actually very friendly and does not harm anyone.

Ghost Light Road in Jacksonville, Florida - A man was once drag racing down this road on his motorcyle in the 50's or 60's when he crashed and was subsequently decapitated. If one drives on this road at about five miles an hour, a white light (single headlight of a motorcyle) will appear in the rearview mirror of the car and approach the car and then disappear and a red light (taillight) will appear in front of the car driving away.

The Boston House in Fort Pierce, Florida - In 1901, a woman hanged herself in the attic of this building. The attic, which now serves as an attorney's office, is haunted by the woman. The woman now haunts the buildings. Her visits occur so often that the story has been featured in the local newspaper numerous times.

Reynolds Hall in Tallahassee, Florida - Located on one of the lower floors of this dormitory is a communal shower in which a janitor once hanged himself. Today, the man haunts the facilities. The showers will turn themselves on and off and the bathroom doors open and close.

Ponce de Leon Hotel in St. Augustine, Florida - The building that is now a college used to be the Ponce de Leon Hotel, run by Henry Flagler and his mentally unstable wife. After their daughter died, Mrs. Flagler hanged herself on the fourth floor of the hotel. The building, which is also the girls dormitory is plagued by many strange events. Girls on the third floor constantly hear ballroom music above them, although the 4th floor is sealed off. One girl reportedly went into hysterics because her bed began to shake wildly, though no one was in the room with her. Though they need the space, administrators will not allow students to room on the fourth floor.

The CN Tower

The CN Tower, located in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada, is a communications and tourist tower standing 553.33 metres (1,815.39 ft) tall. It surpassed the height of the Ostankino Tower while still under construction in 1975, becoming the tallest free-standing structure on land in the world. On September 12, 2007, after holding the record for 31 years, the CN Tower was surpassed in height by the still-under-construction Burj Dubai. It remains the tallest free-standing structure in the Americas and the signature icon of Toronto's skyline, attracting more than two million international visitors annually. 'CN Tower' stands for Canada's National Tower. The CN Tower consists of several substructures. The main portion of the tower is a hollow concrete hexagonal pillar containing the six elevators, stairwells, and power and plumbing connections. On top of this is a 334.6 ft metal broadcast antenna, carrying TV and radio signals. There are two visitor areas: the main deck level (formerly known as SkyPod) located at 346 metres (1,135 ft), and the higher Sky Pod (formerly known as "Space Deck) at 1,465 ft, just below the metal antenna. The hexagonal shape can be seen between the two areas; however, below the main deck, three large supporting legs give the tower the appearance of a large tripod. Construction on the CN Tower began on February 6, 1973 with massive excavations at the tower base for the foundation. By the time the foundation was complete, 56,000 tonnes (61,729 short tons) of dirt and shale were removed to a depth of 49.2 ft in the centre, and a base incorporating 7,000 cubic metres (9,156 cu yd) of concrete with 450 tonnes (496 short tons) of rebar and 36 tonnes (40 short tons) of steel cable had been built to a thickness of 22 ft.

The Golden Gate

The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening of the San Francisco Bay onto the Pacific Ocean. As part of both U.S. Route 101 and State Route 1, it connects the city of San Francisco on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula to Marin County. The Golden Gate Bridge had the longest suspension bridge span in the world when it was completed in 1937 and has become an internationally recognized symbol of San Francisco and California. Since its completion, the span length has been surpassed by eight other bridges. It still has the second longest suspension bridge main span in the United States, after the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in New York City. In 2007, it was ranked fifth on the List of America's Favorite Architecture by the American Institute of Architects (number 1 being the Empire State Building, followed by the White House). Construction began on 5 January 1933. The project cost more than $35 million.

Stonehenge

Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument located in the English county of Wiltshire, about 2.0 mi west of Amesbury and 8.1 mi north of Salisbury. One of the most famous prehistoric sites in the world, Stonehenge is composed of earthworks surrounding a circular setting of large standing stones. Archaeologists had believed that the iconic stone monument was erected around 2500 BC, as described in the chronology below. However one recent theory has suggested that the first stones were not erected until 2400-2200 BC, whilst another suggests that bluestones may have been erected at the site as early as 3000 BC. The surrounding circular earth bank and ditch, which constitute the earliest phase of the monument, have been dated to about 3100 BC. Stonehenge was produced by a culture with no written language, and at great historical remove from the first cultures that did leave written records. Many aspects of Stonehenge remain subject to debate. This multiplicity of theories, some of them very colourful, is often called the "mystery of Stonehenge." There is little or no direct evidence for the construction techniques used by the Stonehenge builders. Over the years, various authors have suggested that supernatural or anachronistic methods were used, usually asserting that the stones were impossible to move otherwise. However, conventional techniques using Neolithic technology have been demonstrably effective at moving and placing stones this size. Proposed functions for the site include usage as an astronomical observatory, or as a religious site. Other theories have advanced supernatural or symbolic explanations for the construction.

Stonehenge

Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal , is a mausoleum located in Agra, India, that was built under Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. The Taj Mahal (also "the Taj") is considered the finest example of Mughal architecture, a style that combines elements from Persian, Turkish, Indian, and Islamic architectural styles. In 1983, the Taj Mahal became a UNESCO World Heritage Site and was cited as "the jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world's heritage." While the white domed marble and tile mausoleum is most familiar, the Taj Mahal is an integrated symmetric complex of structures that was completed around 1648. Ustad Ahmad Lahauri is generally considered to be the principal designer of the Taj Mahal. The Taj Mahal is one of the seven wonders of the world. The focus of the Taj Mahal is the white marble tomb, which stands on a square plinth consisting of a symmetrical building with an iwan, an arch-shaped doorway, topped by a large dome. Like most Mughal tombs, basic elements are Persian in origin.

Chichen Itza

Chichen Itza is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site built by the Maya civilization located in the northern center of the Yucatán Peninsula, in the Yucatán state, present-day Mexico. The most famous Mayan temple city, served as the political and economic center of the Mayan civilization. Its various structures - the pyramid of Kukulkan, the Temple of Chac Mool, the Hall of the Thousand Pillars, and the Playing Field of the Prisoners – can still be seen today and are demonstrative of an extraordinary commitment to architectural space and composition. The pyramid itself was the last, and arguably the greatest, of all Mayan temples. Chichen Itza was a major regional focal point in the northern Maya lowlands from the Late Classic through the Terminal Classic and into the early portion of the Early Postclassic period. The site exhibits a multitude of architectural styles, from what is called “Mexicanized” and reminiscent of styles seen in central Mexico to the Puuc style found among the Puuc Maya of the northern lowlands.

Pyramid of Las Vegas

The Luxor is a hotel and casino located on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada. It was one of the city's first fully-themed megaresorts. Ground was broken for the Luxor in 1991. It has an Ancient Egyptian motif and contains a total of 4,407 rooms lining the interior walls of a hollow pyramid and contained within twin ziggurat towers that were built as later additions. The hotel is named after the city of Luxor (ancient Thebes) in Egypt, the site of the Valley of the Kings, Karnak and Luxor Temples, and scores of other pharaonic monuments — but no pyramids. The Luxor is among the most recognizable hotels on the strip because of its striking design. Designed by renowned hotel architect Veldon Simpson, the main portion of the hotel is a 350-foot (110 m)-high (106 m), 30-story pyramid of black glass (in comparison, the Great Pyramid of Giza with original capstone topped out at 481 ft). The hotel is marked by a large obelisk with the name of the property in lighted letters, while the porte-cochere travels underneath a massive recreation of the Great Sphinx of Giza. The tip of the pyramid contains a fixed-position spotlight that points directly upward – it is the brightest beam in the world, and is visible from anywhere in the Las Vegas valley at night, and can be seen at flight level from above Los Angeles, California, over 275 miles (440 km) away. At ground level, on clear nights, the beam could also be seen as far south as Laughlin and even as far north as Mesquite or Beatty.

Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu is a pre-Columbian Inca site located 2,400 meters (7,875 ft) above sea level. It is situated on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley in Peru, which is 80 km (50 mi) northwest of Cusco and through which the Urubamba River flows. Often referred to as "The Lost City of the Incas", Machu Picchu probably is the most familiar symbol of the Inca Empire. It is also one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. Most of the construction in Machu Picchu uses the classical Inca architectural style of polished dry-stone walls of regular shape. The Incas were masters of this technique, called ashlar, in which blocks of stone are cut to fit together tightly without mortar. The Incas were among the best stone masons the world has seen, and many junctions in the central city are so perfect that it is said not even a knife blade fits between the stones. According to archaeologists, the urban sector of Machu Picchu was divided into three great districts: the Sacred District, the Popular District to the south, and the District of the Priests and the Nobility. Located in the first zone are the primary archaeological treasures: the Intihuatana, the Temple of the Sun and the Room of the Three Windows. These were dedicated to Inti, their sun god and greatest deity.

Great Wall

The Great Wall of China is a series of stone and earthen fortifications in China, built, rebuilt, and maintained between the 6th century BC and the 16th century to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire from Xiongnu attacks during the rule of successive dynasties. The Great Wall stretches over approximately 6,400 km (4,000 miles) from Shanhaiguan in the east to Lop Nur in the west, along an arc that roughly delineates the southern edge of Inner Mongolia, but stretches to over 6,700 km (4,160 miles) in total. At its peak, the Ming Wall was guarded by more than one million men. It has been estimated that somewhere in the range of 2 to 3 million Chinese died as part of the centuries-long project of building the wall.

Pyramid of Giza

The Great Pyramid of Giza, also called Khufu's Pyramid or the Pyramid of Khufu, and Pyramid of Cheops, is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis bordering what is now Cairo, Egypt, and is the only remaining member of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It is believed the pyramid was built as a tomb for Fourth dynasty Egyptian pharaoh Khufu and constructed over a 14 to 20 year period concluding around 2560 BC. Khufu's vizier, Hemon, or Hemiunu, is believed by some to be the architect of the Great Pyramid. It is thought that, at construction, the Great Pyramid was 280 Egyptian royal cubits tall, 146.6 meters, (480.97 feet) but with erosion and the loss of its pyramidion, its current height is 138.8 m. Each base side was 440 royal cubits, with each royal cubit measuring 0.524 meters. The total mass of the pyramid is estimated at 5.9 million tonnes. The volume, including an internal hillock, is believed to be roughly 2,500,000 cubic meters. Based on these estimates building this in 20 years would involve installing aproximatly 800 tonnes of stone every day. Manetho gives Khufu a reign of 65 years this would enable him to build the pyramid by installing aproximatly 250 tons of stone per day.

A very unimportant building

The Washington Monument is a large, tall, sand-colored obelisk near the west end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C. It is a United States Presidential Memorial constructed to commemorate the first president, George Washington. The monument, made of marble, granite, and sandstone, was both the world's tallest stone structure and the world's tallest obelisk, standing 555 feet 5.5 inches in height. It was designed by Robert Mills, an architect of the 1840s. The actual construction of the monument began in 1848 but was not completed until 1884, almost 30 years after the architect's death.

Where Death Meets Its Maker

The Colosseum, originally the Flavian Amphitheatre, is an elliptical amphitheatre in the center of the city of Rome, Italy, the largest ever built in the Roman Empire. Its construction started between 70 and 72 AD and was completed in 80 AD. Originally capable of seating around 50,000 spectators, the Colosseum was used for gladiatorial contests and public spectacles. As well as the gladiatorial games, other public spectacles were held there, such as mock sea battles, animal hunts, executions, re-enactments of famous battles, and dramas based on Classical mythology. The Colosseum's ruined state is due to earthquakes and stone-robbers. The Colosseum today is now a major tourist attraction in Rome with thousands of tourists each year paying to view the interior arena, though entrance for EU citizens is partially subsidised, and under-18 and over-65 EU citizens' entrances are free.

More Than I Can Afford

Toothpicks What!?!?!?!

Bridges and buildings made of toothpicks are just like creating a model of the real thing. You have to be cautious in your design of the structure or else it will never stay up. Building toothpick structures takes a while and you can't just push a whole bunch of toothpicks together and put glue over them to get it to look right. Toothpick bridges are especially difficult to make because most of the time the person making them is doing for a competition in which they need to be the one that has the strongest bridge. Meaning that they need to design the bridge and make sure everything in it is correct. Making things out of toothpicks is the same as architecture, just on a smaller scale. All of the same principles of safety, strength, design and construction apply.