GLOBAL STRUCTURE
SESC POMPÉIA, SÃO PAULO,
BRAZIL
Made entirely from reinforced rough
concrete and masonry trusses, SESC
Pompéia, in São Paulo is an innovative
leisure centre building that was built
between 1977 and 1986. Designed by Lina
Bo Bardi, the concrete buildings house a
swimming pool, sports courts and indoor
football pitches, attached to a huge
cylindrical water tower.
The different zones of the building are
connected by irregular concrete footbridges
spanning up to 25 metres, and the main
blocks are pierced with organic shaped holes
for windows. The entire development was
seen as a social experiment, marrying old
industrial land and buildings with a new
cultural centre for the area, it was referred to
as ‘a citadel of liberty’.
SAINT-JEAN-DE-MONTMARTRE, PARIS, FRANCE
One of the first examples of reinforced concrete used in
constructing a church, Saint-Jean-de-Montmartre was built
between 1894-1904.
The project was surrounded with scepticism over the
pioneering materials, which at the time violated construction
rules, meaning building was delayed by a lawsuit and a
demolition order over the site until 1902. People didn’t
believe that the structure would stand, even fearing it would
collapse. So building was halted until several tests and
technical demonstrations proved the strength and stability of
the pioneering construction method.
Using a technique called ‘ciment armé’, developed by
Paul Cottancin in 1890, the wire reinforced brickwork creates
a framework of a cement armature, made from lightweight
cement shells. The strength of this construction allowed the
church to have ribbed vaults, and the pioneering technique
was used in many important buildings that followed.
THE PENTAGON, VIRGINIA, USA
Built in record time, in just 16 months between September 1941 and January 1943,
The Pentagon is a five-sided building (hence the name!) made of 435,000 cubic yards
of reinforced concrete.
Designed by George Edwin Bergstrom, a huge volume of foundation work needed
to be carried out before construction of the building could begin. 4.2 million cubic
metres of dirt and 41,492 concrete piles were needed to support the foundations.
Housing the headquarters of the US Army, Navy and Air force, the site covers 29
acres and roughly 344,000 square metres of usable floor space, and remains one of the
world’s largest office buildings in the world to date.
LOCAL STRUCTURE
OLSEN BUILDING
The first building in Manila to use steel mesh
reinforced concrete was the Olsen Building at the
corner of Calle Escolta and Calle Nueva
(Yuchengco street today). It was built in 1906 by
the Manila Construction Company.
The building housed several companies in its
long history, such as the Kiosko Habanero, and
the Hamilton Fashion Company.
CULTURAL CENTER OF THE
PHILIPPINES
Structures such as the Cultural Center of the
Philippines is made of reinforced concrete that
will stand the rest of time.
Now Reinforced Concrete is one of the most
widely used construction materials in modern
history. Concrete and steel acomplement each
other. While plain unreinforced concrete is
relatively brittle and extremely poor to withstand
stress, steel or reinforced steel on the other hand,
form a bonding strength that resist tensile forces
and form a strong bond together with concrete
that is able to resist applied forces and eventually
acting as a singular structural element.
PHILIPPINE ARENA
The Philippine Arena Project is a
large domed roof structure. The arena
volume is significant, with 227 m × 179
m ellipse shaped space standing, which
is the largest non-column arena in the
world. Reinforced concrete is used for
the bowl structure and main seismic
resisting system is considered as dual
system
STRUCTURAL NOTES