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 * GLASS **

Glass is a hard, brittle substance, typically transparent or translucent, made by fusing sand with soda and lime. The term glass was developed in the Roman Empire. Glass is very fragile and 100% recyclable. The most common type of glass is the commercial glass or soda-lime glass.The lead glass is an other type of glass has higher refractive index and it gives more brillance. The architect Jhonson Philip defended the building as an enclosed space whose ideal was to cover the curtain wall (glass). He design the Glass House in Conneticut.


 * WOOD **

Wood is a construction material moderately strong in both tension and compression. It is used for furniture and making fire for cooking in some cases. In structural constructutions there are two systems used for wood: solid and skeletal. It is also used for covering. Advantages: natural material, easy to work with, it is not heavy, it is cheaper than other materials, it is easy to transport. Disadvantages: it is not fire resistant, it does not work for foundations, it can not get wet, it is vulnerable to termites. There are soft wood and hard wood. Wood is durable.


 * SPATIAL ORGANIZATION **

A city is a relatively large and permanent settlement. Each city has its own local law. A good or sustainable city is the polace that has an economic, environmental, structural, social and political organization on its space. Spatial organization is used to describe the location of places on the earth's surface. We can describe spatial organization with points, lines, areas and volumes. To spatially organize objects we need to know these concepts: localization, distance, density, directions and spatial relationships. Types of spatial organization: lineal, clustered, central, radial and grid organization. Urban structure is the arrangement of land use in urban areas in relation with the population. A space without residents is not a city.


 * PROPERTIES AND SHAPES **

Shape refers to the configuration of surfaces and edges of a two or three dimensional object. There are figures that have two dimensions (width and lenght) and figures that have three dimensions (wigth, length and depth). Two dimension figures: rectangle, square, triangle, circle and arch. Three dimension figures: cube, pyramid, sphere and cylinder. In architecture and urban planning shapes are essential because they are the beginning of any dessing and they affect the structure and the spaces of a project.


 * WALL **

"Wall" is derived from Latin “Vallum”, which was a type of fortification wall. Wall is a vertical structure. Walls can be building walls (if they support loads), exterior boundary walls  or retaining walls (they provide a barrier to the movement of earth and water). Walls define spaces and they can be built in different materials. The Gilardi House (Luis Barragán) and The German Pavilium (Mies Van Der Rohe) are two very good examples of the use of walls in a building.


 * POST AND LINTEL **

Post and lintel is the first building system used by the human being. Post: support the lintel and its loas. Stone works better as a post than a lintel. Beam: is the part of the estructure that rests on two posts. Modern buildings still use this structural system. There is a new type of column: the mushroom column, it combines post and a slab on the top of it in order to resist bigger spans.


 * FRAMED STRUCTURES **

Frame structure is the skeleton of a building. Structural objectives: limiting deformations, prevent vibrations and the passage of time. The structure has to be stable, resist basic charges, and resist earthquakes. A framed structure in any material is one that is made stable by a skeleton that is able to stand by itself as a rigid structure without depending on floors or walls to resist deformations. Constituent elements: surface elements (covers the surface), horizontal linear elements (beams) and vertical elements (columns), structural material. The heavy timber frame is a type of framed structure in which large posts, spaced relatively far apart, support thick floors and roof beams. The american light wood frame (balloon frame) is an other type of framed structure, it is composed of many small and closely spaced members that could be handled easily and assembled quickly by nailing instead of by the slow joinery and ** dowelling ** of the past. Both systems are based on the post-and-lintel principle. The light frame is not structurally independent. Steel framing is based on the same principle but is much simplified by the far greater strength of the material, which provides more rigidity with fewer members. With this framed structure much taller biuldings can be made. In order to protect the steel, it is covered by curtain walls of surfaced in concrete or painted.