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United Kingdom Cladding Crisis
The United Kingdom cladding crisis, also known as the cladding scandal, is an ongoing social crisis that followed the Grenfell Tower fire of 14 June 2017 and the Bolton Cube fire of 15 November 2019. The fires revealed that large numbers of buildings had been clad in dangerously combustible materials, comprising a combination of flammable cladding (the outer covering) and/or flammable insulation. (The term ‘cladding’ here refers to the external covering and the insulation behind it.) Additionally, many buildings have been found to be non-compliant with other fire-safety building requirements, such as missing cavity barriers around windows and a lack of fire barriers, which are intended to prevent fires from spreading horizontally and vertically into neighbouring flats. As well as these buildings posing an immediate fire risk to residents, flat owners find themselves facing extensive and costly remedial work, rocketing buildings insurance premiums, and the possibility of 'wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tower Block With Cladding Exposed In Sheffield 2017
A tower is a tall structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting structures. Towers are specifically distinguished from buildings in that they are built not to be habitable but to serve other functions using the height of the tower. For example, the height of a clock tower improves the visibility of the clock, and the height of a tower in a fortified building such as a castle increases the visibility of the surroundings for defensive purposes. Towers may also be built for observation, leisure, or telecommunication purposes. A tower can stand alone or be supported by adjacent buildings, or it may be a feature on top of a larger structure or building. Etymology Old English ''torr'' is from Latin ''turris'' via Old French ''tor''. The Latin term together with Greek τύρσις was loaned from a pre-Indo-European Mediterranean langua ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fire Safety Certificate
Fire Safety Certificate is also called as the Certificate of Conformity to the Requirements of Fire safety, Fire Safety which is given to a building structure such as hospitals, educational institutions, government and private offices, factories, and residential apartments after the completion of a Fire Safety Audit. The function of the given certificate is to prove conformity of the production to the approved rules of safety. In Russia the Certificate of Conformity to Requirements of Fire Safety may be received in the case when the production went through the procedure of certification tests after which their owner was provided with the protocol of the tests which serves as the base of issuing the Certificate. For each kind of production there are certain methods of tests and requirements which are described in the Fire Technical Reglament Conformity Certificate, Technical Reglament for some kind of goods. What kinds of goods need the certificate? Article 143 of the RF Federal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Firebreak
A firebreak or double track (also called a fire line, fuel break, fireroad and firetrail in Australia) is a gap in vegetation or other combustible material that acts as a barrier to slow or stop the progress of a bushfire or wildfire. A firebreak may occur naturally where there is a lack of vegetation or "fuel", such as a river, lake or canyon. Firebreaks may also be man-made, and many of these also serve as roads, such as a logging road, four-wheel drive trail, secondary road, or a highway. Overview In the construction of a firebreak, the primary goal is to remove deadwood and undergrowth down to mineral soil. Various methods may be used to accomplish this initially and to maintain this condition. Ideally, the firebreak will be constructed and maintained according to the established practices of sustainable forestry and fire protection engineering, also known as best management practices (BMP). The general goals are to maximize the effectiveness of the firebreak at slowing th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Decorative Laminate
Decorative laminates are laminated products primarily used as furniture surface materials or wall paneling. It can be manufactured as either high- or low-pressure laminate, with the two processes not much different from each other except for the pressure applied in the pressing process. Also, laminate can be produced either in batches or in a continuous process; the latter is called continuous pressure laminate (CPL). High-pressure laminate (HPL) According to McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture & Construction, high-pressure laminates consists of laminates "molded and cured at pressures not lower than and more commonly in the range of ." HPL is made of resin impregnated cellulose layers, which are consolidated under heat and high pressure. The various layers are described below: * Overlay paper, which serves to improve the abrasion, scratch and heat-resistance * Decorative paper, which defines the design and is composed of colored or printed paper * Kraft paper, which is use ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barking Fire
The Barking fire was a structure fire that occurred on 9 June 2019 at a newly built six storey block of flats named Samuel Garside House, located in De Pass Gardens, Barking, London, the United Kingdom. Background Samuel Garside House is part of Barking Riverside. The six storey block was built by Bellway Homes, and sold on to a private landlord, Adriatic Land 3 (GR1) Limited, an investment vehicle created by fund manager Longharbour. Residents had complained that the use of wood on the flats was unsafe. The developer, Bellway Homes, assured them that the wood cladding was fire retardant. Peter Mason, chair of the Barking Reach residents’ association contacted the builder in May 2019 to ask for the fire risk to be investigated after watching a BBC Watchdog report that highlighted fire safety problems at two other developments. He was told via e-mail not to worry, as the construction method was different to the ones in the report. Fire The fire started at 3.30 pm, 9 June 2019 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust. The trust was created in 1936 to "secure the financial and editorial independence of ''The Guardian'' in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of ''The Guardian'' free from commercial or political interference". The trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to maintain for ''The Guardian'' the same protections as were built into the structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in journalism rather than distributed to owners or shareholders. It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK. The editor-in-chief Katharine Viner succeeded Alan Rusbridger in 2015. Since 2018, the paper's main news ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Load-bearing Wall
A load-bearing wall or bearing wall is a wall that is an active structural element of a building, which holds the weight of the elements above it, by conducting its weight to a foundation structure below it. Load-bearing walls are one of the earliest forms of construction. The development of the flying buttress in Gothic architecture allowed structures to maintain an open interior space, transferring more weight to the buttresses instead of to central bearing walls. In housing, load-bearing walls are most common in the light construction method known as "platform framing". In the birth of the skyscraper era, the concurrent rise of steel as a more suitable framing system first designed by William Le Baron Jenney, and the limitations of load-bearing construction in large buildings, led to a decline in the use of load-bearing walls in large-scale commercial structures. Description A load-bearing wall or bearing wall is a wall that is an active structural element of a building, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ronan Point
Ronan Point was a 22-storey tower block in Canning Town in Newham, East London, that partly collapsed on 16 May 1968, only two months after it had opened. A gas explosion blew out some load-bearing walls, causing the collapse of one entire corner of the building; four people died and 17 were injured. The spectacular nature of the failure (caused by both poor design and poor construction) led to a loss of public confidence in high-rise residential buildings, and major changes in British building regulations resulted. Construction Ronan Point, named after Deputy Mayor Harry Ronan (a former Chairman of the Housing Committee of the London Borough of Newham), was part of the wave of tower blocks built in the 1960s as cheap, affordable prefabricated housing for inhabitants of West Ham and other areas of London. The tower was built by Taylor Woodrow Anglian using a technique known as large panel system building, which involves casting large concrete prefabricated sections off-site an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the oldest university in the English-speaking world; it has buildings in every style of English architecture since late Anglo-Saxon. Oxford's industries include motor manufacturing, education, publishing, information technology and science. History The history of Oxford in England dates back to its original settlement in the Saxon period. Originally of strategic significance due to its controlling location on the upper reaches of the River Thames at its junction with the River Cherwell, the town grew in national importance during the early Norman period, and in the late 12th century became home to the fledgling University of Oxford. The city was besieged during The Anarchy in 1142. The university rose to dom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Radcliffe Hospital
The John Radcliffe Hospital (informally known as the JR) is a large tertiary teaching hospital in Oxford, England. It forms part of the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and is named after John Radcliffe, an 18th-century physician and Oxford University graduate, who endowed the Radcliffe Infirmary, the main hospital for Oxford from 1770 until 2007. It is the main teaching hospital for Oxford University and Oxford Brookes University, and incorporates the Oxford University Medical School. History The distinctive large white-tiled structure occupies a prominent position on Headington Hill, on the outskirts of Oxford. JR1: This was the initial hospital building, opened in 1972. It houses women's services and neonatology. The second building, JR2, opened in 1979 and is much larger. It contains most of the other specialist services for the region. Other facilities were then added to the site, including the University of Oxford's Centre for Functional Magnetic Reso ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sandwich Panel
A sandwich panel is any structure made of three layers: a low-density core ( PIR, mineral wool, XPS), and a thin skin-layer bonded to each side. Sandwich panels are used in applications where a combination of high structural rigidity and low weight is required. The structural functionality of a sandwich panel is similar to the classic I-beam, where two face sheets primarily resist the in-plane and lateral bending loads (similar to flanges of an I- beam), while the core material mainly resists the shear loads (similar to the web of an I-beam). The idea is to use a light/soft but thick layer for the core and strong but thin layers for face sheets. This results in increasing the overall thickness of the panel, which often improves the structural attributes, like bending stiffness, and maintain or even reduce the weight. Sandwich panels are an example of a sandwich structured composite: the strength and lightness of this technology makes it popular and widespread. Its versatility ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
