My First Project

This was my very first project. At the time, I was in my fifth year as a Civil Engineering student at University of Sto Tomas (formerly, Aquinas University of Legaspi)  when the late Arch. Jess Binaday entrusted me with the structural design of a proposed cantilevered choir loft.

Designing a cantilevered structure involves significant risk—any design error can lead to failure or even collapse. To illustrate, imagine a table with only two legs: it’s inherently unstable and difficult to balance. In contrast, a four-legged table, even with weaker legs, can still remain upright.

The main loft was supported by just two columns, cleverly concealed within the existing wall. To the best of my recollection, the structure was completed around the early months of 1989—making it over 30 years old now.

Documents You’ll Need for Council Approval

Written by: Angelica Bilangel

Thinking about Additions?

Are you thinking of building small additions to your house? If you are, you will know that one of the essential steps to achieving this is by getting your project approved by the council. And in order for that, you will need to gather the right documents for them to assess.

Stormwater Management Optimization

Written by: Angelica Bilangel

What happens to Stormwater?

Think about how the water cycle works. When stormwater falls to the ground, it either streams down to the nearest body of water, evaporates, or infiltrates through the soil. 

However, when stormwater reaches man-made surfaces, such as concrete and buildings - which are often solid and level - the cycle is disrupted and stormwater runoff is increased. This is harmful in multiple ways, affecting people, the environment, and even buildings.

Thinking of Building Your Dream Home? Hiring a Project Manager May Work Better over a Building Contractor

Written by: Angelica Bilangel

In a construction project, priorities and direction must be set in order to achieve success. One good way to do this is Project Management, an effective strategy used for organising construction projects. Being one of the services that Marblaze offers, this blog post will explore what Project Management is, and what makes it so important.

Basics of As-Constructed Drawings

Written by: Angelica Bilangel

At Marblaze, electrical as-constructed drawings are one of the services that we provide. In general, as-constructed draws make up an important part of every building project. But, what makes them so vital to the process? 

Marblaze Drawings

Marblaze Drawings is now open for business. Marblaze Drawings offer Autocad drafting srvices: architectural floor plans, civil drawings such as drainage and road layouts and details, landacapes and many more.

Marblaze Drawings will give you fast, accurate, effcient and very much affordable drafting sevices. Good qaulity at very reasonable cost.

Hobart Updates

It has now been a year since occupancy permit was granted. Works for further improvement will soon be coming.

60 Gordon road update

Finalyy after weathering one storm after another due to GFC completion is now at hand. Well done, Alex.

GTA Civils

After leaving HOP I joined GTA Civils. This company specializes in roads, drainage desing and flood risk assessment.

I did not stay here for a long time since we relocated to Philippines by January of 2009.

MSc Civil Engineering

How do you build a house without foundation?

How do you build a house without foundation?

Answer: Let it float on the sea.

Demolition

Here's a video of an eco-friendly demolition

Level Invert Connection

Level Invert

In drainage the typical manhole connection is level soffit or stepped connection. That is the invert level of the main run is relatively lower than the incoming laterals.

This point is practically important to note because when your design has some degree of gradient or fall restriction then 50mm can make a difference.

For example if you are connecting a 100 diameter into a 150 diameter main run pipe then your computed invert level taken from the origin of the 100 diameter pipe should be 50mm lower. If you fail to add this additional 50mm into your design and if the invert level of the connection point does not have enough depth then this can be an issue in actual construction.

Planning Notice

It is a must for every desig engineer to take time to read the Planning Notice for every project they are working on.

This is particularly important when there are several parties working in one project specially if the Planning Architect is different from the Construction Architect.

There could be some very important requirements in the planning notice which may not be highlighted by the client and the planning arcitect but if they are not fulfilled they could result into massive claims and project delays.

One classic example is a required 'free zone' in front of a development which was only called up by the planning architect in a form of a very vague note while the other required easements were dimentioned accordingly. It's very unfortunate that such note had been overlooked and the consequence was a tremendous loss in time and money.

Planning notices are mostly available on line. Just log-in ot UK Planning website and browse around to access the property of your interest.

Falmer Stadium

This football stadium will soon be the home court for Brighton And Hove Albion football club. It has 23,000 seating capacity but later on this can accomodate to up to 30000 seats.

It will be built in a greenfield site however drainage wise it will have no significant impact to the environment for effectively the site will still be greenfield. In other words there will be no additional surface water (rain) outflow to the existing public drainage system and foul water discahrge will be kept to very minimum.

Parmiter Street

East Park Terrace

Big Bigger Biggest

Fascinating sky scrapers videos. Very interesting.

CBR

California Bearing Ratio or CBR is a soil parameter that is very important in road design.

Roads are normally designed in accordance to their category or traffic loading. The first 3 componets of which do not change a lot, i.e. in terms of thickness and grade but the sub-base and the capping layer are dependant on the soil CBR.

Below is a typical tarmac access road construction and a table for sub-base and capping layer with respect to CBR percentage. (just double click to see an enlarged version)

PinoySites.org

Malilipot Builders is now listed in PinoySites.org. This website is a directory of Philipine related websites.

You can find Malilipot Builders in Personal Blog, Engineering and Technololgy, Civil And Construction page.