When you’re designing a building and you really want it to stand out, one thing you can do is add design features and extrusions onto the building to offer you an extra unique feature. After all, an interesting balcony is always going to be much nicer to look at from the outside, and it offers you a bit more space on the interior of the property. However, they can often run the risk of being structurally unsound. Read on to find out about how you can keep your property safe and structurally sound by using steel detailing, and what that means for your building’s design.
What is steel detailing?
Put simply, steel detailing is the design and planning of the wider structure of a property that is to be built. This specifically refers to the steel superstructure and establishes the specific size of the components needed to construct the design and handle the forces that will be placed on other aspects of the building because of the added materials. In addition to steel detailing for the overall structure of the building, you can make use of the method for planning out specific sections of the property. These can include extrusions that overhang the external walls, including balustrades and balconies that could potentially shift the building’s centre of mass, and cause instability if not properly dealt with. It’s this shift that can lead to excess strain on some of the building’s joints, which were not designed for this stress, and potentially lead to catastrophe.
Why apply steel detailing to balconies?
The simplest reason for making use of steel detailing when designing balconies and other extrusions, is in order to avoid a dangerous collapse taking place. Of course, this isn’t likely to happen spontaneously, but in the case that a building was constructed without due diligence and the balcony didn’t have a load limit accurately calculated, you could feasibly see a part of the structure giving way and potentially causing very serious injuries to those on it when the incident occurs. With steel detailing, you can ensure that the structure can hold a significant amount of weight, and provide warnings as to what the recommended weight is and why people shouldn’t exceed the weight recommendations.
Interior structural additions
In addition to balconies that look out beyond the building, you can often see buildings that have internal structures which act as an extrusion does, simply on the inside of the building. For example, walkways to help workers get around warehouses, balconies looking over vast hotel lobbies and even suspended paths across open spaces in the building. Whilst you may not consider these to be extrusions, they still require the same level of care. After all, they are structural additions that may need to bear loads, connected to the wider superstructure of the building. All of these will also require steel detailing, as they can place additional loads on the structure that will need to be assessed and calculated. This has been an issue in the past, as the Hyatt Regency walkway collapse demonstrated. In this incident, two suspended walkways collapsed having overestimated the weight the structure could handle. This incident led to avoidable deaths and demonstrated the necessity of due diligence in the case of all steel structures.
Use Restoric Design
If you’re interested in quality steel detailing services you can trust, get in touch with the Restoric Design team today. We can offer comprehensive architectural steel detailing services, so you won’t need to worry about the structural integrity of your property. Call one of our experts today to find out more about what we can do for you.