SUMMARY 7-8/2004

Timber Buildings in the Region of Zlín - Tradition and the Present

In addition to work on important buildings, which is financed by the state, such as in the case of the set of buildings by Dušan Jurkovič at Pustevny and other of his buildings in Luhačovice owned by the company Lázně Luhačovice, there are also less attractive timber buildings being brought back to life through the initiative of individuals and civic associations. In this connection mention should be made of the timber building reconstructed by the association of nature conservationists, Kosenka, in the town of Valašské Klobouky and another unique building that was in exceptionally poor condition but was purchased and reconstructed with the support of private citizens and which became part of the town's museum.

Eurocode 5 - Designing Timber Structures

Eurocode 5 provides the principles and rules to be applied in designing building and engineering structures made with timber or timber products. It is used in combination with the other Eurocodes for verifying the limit states of the load duration and serviceability of the structure under regular heat conditions and in the case of fire. The structure's safety is demonstrated through statics calculations and is assessed with the use of various calculation methods, which in the past were established by national regulations (norms) alone and which facilitated comparisons of how economical a building is, establish a unified level of safety, and take decisions in legal disputes. Demonstrating the safety of timber structures first involved using the method of allowable stress, which was later replaced by the method of limit states.

Eurocode 5 Designing Timber Structures contains the following three sections:
Part 1-1: General Rules and Rules for Building;
Part 1-2: Structural Fire Design;
Part 2: Bridges.

Intelligent Buildings

The ever more progressive penetration of modern electronic technology into every aspect of our lives is making itself starkly evident in the areas of systems solutions for technical-security functions in buildings. These are the logistic outcome of users' demands for high comfort and security with maximum operational ease, while at the same time being environmentally friendly.

Buildings are with increasing frequency equipped with automated and monitoring systems of varied scope and performance. A modern trend is to merge all these electronic facilities into a user-friendly and interconnected unit, with an easily manageable operational superstructure built into a PC. In recent years there has been a surge in the use of distributed automated systems, sometimes referred to as distributed intelligence, a term which conveys the idea of the expanse of space that exists within a building. These systems represent new solutions for planning intelligent buildings.