RICHARD B. FISHER CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS

While the Bilbao Guggenhiem Museum is possibly Gehry's most notable work The Richard B. Fisher Center for the performing arts with its exposed steel work shows how a humble portal frame could evolve into work of architecture.

FRANK O.GEHRY

Frank Owen Gehry (Goldberg) was born in Toronto Canada 28.02.29 and moved to Los Angeles in 1947 where he studied Architecture at the University of Southern California and City Planning at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

His practice Gehry Partners based in L.A.has a staff of over 175. Gehry's work generally consists of flowing organic forms finished in a stainless steel or titanium skin. The work is sculptural however it has drawn criticism for not respecting the surrounding landscape.

The complex forms are modelled manually from Gehrys initial sketches. Numerous models are made before the final model is laser scanned and developed in a 3D package based on CATIA which Gehry has developed and now markets as digital project from the company Gehry Technologies.

Student licences of the digital project are available if university registers with Gehry Technologies !!!!

MAJOR PROJECT ARCHITECT FRANK GEHRY

The Guggenhiem Museum - Bilbao (Michael McMullan)

Inspired by a visit to the Guggenhiem - Bibao, Spain in September 2005 and a love of aviation and metal I have chosen Frank Gehry as my lead architect for the Major Project.
















The Weisman Art Museum - Minneapolis, Minnesota (www.greatbuildingsonline.com)

ROOF STEP - EAVES GUTTER

Step in roof between two parts of the warehouse complex. With an eaves gutter instead of a box gutter there is less risk of water overflowing into the building.

GABLE END PARAPET

A concrete panel parapet detail at the "gable end".

A warehouse with an exposed gutter at the junction of a concrete wall panel. This gutter offers greater protection from water inundation than a box gutter.

CANOPY BOX GUTTER

Box Gutter at the junction of inward sloping canopy and a wall of a warehouse.

GRAND CANYON SKYWALK

The new skywalk at the grand canyon is a continous steel beam cantilevered over the gorge. See the article in The Age.

OFFICE WAREHOUSE BONDEK SLAB

PORTAL FRAME DRAWING 2

Portal Frame end wall section with lean to roof, manually drawn with tech pens.

CELEBRATION OF STEEL

While not strictly a work of architecture the Sydney Harbour Bridge is an example of the practical and aesthetically pleasing aspects of steel. The 75th anniversary shows how a well designed structure can become an important cultural icon. Interesting footage can be seen at The Age

PORTAL FRAME DRAWING

ROOF BRACING

The galvanised strap bracing is fixed at each end and tensioned with turnbuckles. However the bracing crosses over wihout the use of a compression device. A compression ring appears to be an uncommon practice from sites viewed using mild steel rod bracing.

RIDGE JOINT - ROOF BRACING

The ridge is stiffened with a galvanised mild steel gussett plate to each web of the rafters. The bracing is flat strap or bar (not rod) tensioned by turnbuckles. The bar is directly fixed to the channel and gusset flange.

KNEE JOINT

Both the column and the rafters are made from two back to back cold formed C channels bolted together. The joint is a single piece hot dipped galvanised steel C channel gussets fitted inside the cold formed C channels and bolted through the webs. The gusset plates have stiffening. A cold formed C section tie is bolted to the cleat welded to the gusset plate.

FOOTING CONNECTION

The columns or stanchion is connected to the concrete reinforced footing with a hot dipped galvanised angle bracket placed each side of the webs. Note that a UB is made from two back to back C section channels.

FRAMING SYSTEM

The internal framing system is a portal frame, however instead of a hot rolled section the frame uses a cold formed UB section strengthened with hot dipped galvanised gusset plates bolted to each face of the cold formed UB's web section at each the main bending moment junctions. The system has been produced by local company GALFRAME .

LOCATION

VIEW OF CORNER SHOWROOM

The site is situated on the corner of Edols and Cowies Streets, North Geelong in an industrial zone adjacent to Deppeler Park refer to this Google Map . The building consists of unit factories in various stages of construction. As of 7th March 2007 the building has all of the tilt panels in place and roofing to factories is moving to lock up stage.