What is Building: Definition and 918 Discussions

A building, or edifice, is a structure with a roof and walls standing more or less permanently in one place, such as a house or factory. Buildings come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and functions, and have been adapted throughout history for a wide number of factors, from building materials available, to weather conditions, land prices, ground conditions, specific uses, and aesthetic reasons. To better understand the term building compare the list of nonbuilding structures.
Buildings serve several societal needs – primarily as shelter from weather, security, living space, privacy, to store belongings, and to comfortably live and work. A building as a shelter represents a physical division of the human habitat (a place of comfort and safety) and the outside (a place that at times may be harsh and harmful).
Ever since the first cave paintings, buildings have also become objects or canvasses of much artistic expression. In recent years, interest in sustainable planning and building practices has also become an intentional part of the design process of many new buildings and other structures.

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  1. R

    Building a more powerful electromagnet

    Hey so I'm trying to build a few poweful electromagnets and I need some help because i don't really know much about the topic. What gives an electromagnet more power? Number of wire turns? Multiple layers of wire turns? Is it amps or volts that gives them their drive? Also what's the best gauge...
  2. A

    Building blocks of the physical world.

    If I needed to describe a physical object it would be necessary to associate certain properties to it, properties I perceive as being related to this object. For example, when someone describes a massive soft blue ball bouncing in a white room what I would imagine is: a white background; a blue...
  3. T

    Choosing the Right Point to Start Building Your Ship

    Lets say you want to quickly pick points in order to nail some wood together to build a wooden ship. You can use one line to pick numerous points, or you can pick 1 precise point using two lines on a flat surface that is 2 dimensions. You can use various angles in between these two lines, or...
  4. P

    Building an infrared heater element

    So, as the title describes, I am trying to build an infrared heating element for my own heating panel. I want to use this heater to cure an epoxy at 350F that is about 5" away. I'm an EE so the wiring and such will be simple but the heating calculations are beyond my area of expertise. Here is...
  5. Y

    Building a device which will climb a length of string/wire

    Hey guys, I need to build a simple device that climbs a length of string (about 2 metres) without any support from above, and with energy from only the descend of a 200g mass. Speed is of importance. I have considered using two pieces of gears secured onto the string with rubber bands...
  6. M

    Building a solar cell - semiconductors

    Homework Statement Design a solar cell, designed to absorb solar light. Treat the sun as a blockbody source of T=5800K. To design the cell, you may grow 4 very thin semiconductors of the following bandgaps, in eV: 1.43, 1.14, 1.35, 0.67, 1.75, 2.4, 2.7, 0.42, 3.37 Which of these would you...
  7. S

    Building a Capacitor: Plate Separation & Dielectrics

    I have been taking some foil and various "dielectrics" in attempt to build a capacitor. The best I have done so far is an extremely low capacitance (potential difference drops fast even on reading voltage with great resistance) where I will get about 3v for a few milliseconds after having...
  8. G

    Building a Physics Machine: 6 Concepts, 12 Units

    Hello, I am in Grade 12 physics class and I have been given a open ended project; where we are required to build/create a machine which would involve at least 6 of the physics concepts: ramps, pulleys, levers, transfer of momentum/energy, projectile motion, circular motion, stored elastic...
  9. C

    Building a high voltage Film Cap, but its failing across the board

    new to this project and have limited knowledge, but the failure is consistent thru all specimens so I am hoping someone could shed some light. Film cap design is rated to 1650v Failure- Cap initially failed around 800v consistently, the curing time was adjusted and a ramping cycle was...
  10. C

    How to get started for building the amplification circuit

    I am planning to build the amplification circuit to amplify the signal from my signal generator by myself. Can someone tell me the what type of materials are necessary for me to get started? What kind of book will be helpful?
  11. D

    Thermal mass, building shell air volume, and heat losses over time

    Hello, I'm looking for some feedback on and an analysis of a spreadsheet calculator I've made. It looks at temperature changes over time, given starting volumes of a building shell and thermal mass. The calc takes into account building fabric and ventilation heat losses. First I've...
  12. A

    Trying to find an energy-efficient Heating system for a 3 story building

    Hello, I am a civil engineering student and I am currently taking a project design class that requires a bit of overlap into the mechanical field of thought. We have designed a 3-story108,339 sf. building that needs energy-efficient HVAC&R systems, among other things. Being a civil engineer, I...
  13. C

    Building a Lagrangian out of Weyl spinors

    I've been watching Sidney Coleman's QFT lectures (http://www.physics.harvard.edu/about/Phys253.html, with notes at http://arxiv.org/pdf/1110.5013.pdf), and I'm now on to the spin 1/2 part of the course. We've gone through all the mechanics of constructing irreducible representations D^{(s1,s2)}...
  14. E

    Can a paper and tape tower hold 1 L of water for more than 1 minute?

    As part of an assignment, I have been asked to construct a tower that is completely made of paper and sticky tape. This tower must be built with 4 specifications: 1. Must be built of nothing but paper and tape no cutting devices, glue, ect ect. 2. Must be built within 5 minutes. 3. Must be...
  15. S

    Optical Advice on building a science fair telescope

    I am helping my son design and build a refractor telescope for a science fair project (8th grade). He has read some on lens types and focal lengths. We also read that Galileo's most powerful telescope was 33x, and was able to view Saturn's rings and Jupiter's planets. We want to be able to do...
  16. U

    Building an electromagnet hover-coaster

    Want to know the posibilities of lifting over 300Kgs How much current will be required of electromagnets holding the coaster carriage lifted above two beams on either side? Also will it work to place electromagnets on opposing sides (top and bottom, left and right) of the beam to hold the...
  17. M

    Heat and moisture transport on the building materials

    I have some questions about heat and moisture transport. 1. It is known that The water vapor permeability (μ) is a function of relative humidity (φ ) within the cavity of the porous materials: μ = B1 + B2 *exp(B3*φ ) where B1, B2 and B3 are coefficients of the water vapor permeability...
  18. I

    Building a JFET Transistor Cascade for Gain, Linearity & Stability

    I need help on how to cascade two or three Jfet transistor and the calculation of the values to have a good amount of gain. The cascade also should help in providing good linearity, have less distortion and should stable good stability.Thanks, good help will really be appreciated by me.
  19. S

    Need help building a Near Infrared Spectroscopy Device

    Hi, I'm a computer scientist w/ very little hardware experience. I've been playing with the idea of using NIRS for a brain computer interface. The basic principle is pretty simple: You have a laser diode and a detector that is 2-3 cm away from the diode. Unfortunately I have almost no...
  20. S

    Why Is Building an X-ray Telescope Challenging?

    Homework Statement it gives a bit of an intro "It is difficult to build a large surface area telescope to observe X-rays, because the index of refraction for nearly all materials at those wavelength is less than 1, which means you cannot create a reflective mirror in the normal fashion...
  21. A

    Building H20 electrolysis cell, need advice

    I don't happen to have any welding equipment available to me, so I have decided to make an oxyhydrogen welding torch. That basically involves splitting water by electrolysis, running it through a tube with a blowback arrestor and burning it on the other end. I have read that the voltage should...
  22. Angelos K

    Is the Error Building Cuba-2.1 Causing Faulty Outputs?

    Hi, all! Unfortunately I'm not much of a computer guy, so I'm sorry if I leave out anything important. I'm attempting to build Cuba-2.1. The distribution I'm using is: DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu DISTRIB_RELEASE=10.04 DISTRIB_CODENAME=lucid DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 10.04.2 LTS" I go...
  23. G

    Building a coil for generating ELF magnetic fields

    I am interested in replicating Bob Beck's work in the attached PDF document, dating back to 1978. After building a variety of coils Beck was able to demonstrate EEG entrainment with a 9-foot coil and by broadcasting an amplified Schumann Resonance frequency. The idea would be to interface said...
  24. Mentz114

    Building a List in Lisp: Novice's Mess Solved

    I'm a lisp novice, so naturally I've got into a mess trying to do something that would be elementary in a procedural language. I want to return this list ( ( a SIMP) ( (MLIST SIMP) x ) (MLIST SIMP) y ) ) from a func where x,y are args passed to the function. x and y are atoms. This...
  25. J

    Need assistance building sound controlled LEDS

    I am building a moving target system for a shooting range. It will have a 40 foot target moving perpendicular to the shooter. I have not had any problem with fabricating the target system, but I want to go above what the customer requires. Hopefully this lead to more work for myself in the...
  26. Femme_physics

    Building a logical gate function with NAND gates only

    http://img816.imageshack.us/img816/1640/givenlg.jpg I think I might have exaggerated...
  27. C

    Need help building an IR receiver that will trigger a relay to turn a light on

    I am designing a game where you would shoot an IR gun at an object that would turn a light on and stay on until manually reset. I don't know much about electronics and any help would be appreciated.
  28. K

    Integration of Acceleration to get the height of a building

    Homework Statement Thank you first off for your help. Currently, I am working on a lab for my University Physics class and I am lost on how to do this integration. We weight (from a scale) and time measurements going up and down in an elevator. Using that data we are supposed to get the...
  29. S

    Monitor building inner defect with inverse heat transfer

    Assume that there is a original wall which does not have any defect inside. After an excitation of heat at one side of the wall, Ti is 37°C and To is 30° C. Thermal capacitance is assume 1. So the heat transfer is 7. For another condition, i want to find out if the wall has air pocket inside...
  30. C

    Building a PC: All Parts Needed & Software to Install

    can all the parts be bought in hardwares? and if anyone has done this can you please give me all the parts needed, also the software you need to install using windows or linux
  31. F

    How important is the research LISA would do if they ever finished building?

    Is LISA the only option in detecting gravitational waves? Anyone have some insider info on the talks about cancelling, going with smaller scales, or just a general update on the situation? What else could LISA do other than observe that gravity waves are actually present? and what would it...
  32. K

    Building a Full-Spectrum LED Light Array for My Grow Station

    I recently began making a cabinet into a grow station. It's almost finished, but I'm having trouble with the lighting system. In the beginning the idea was to make a full-spectrum LED light array of no particular voltage. I wanted to mimic this array I saw on LED Lights and Light Fixtures...
  33. B

    Building a flat rectangular vacuum chamber

    I'm uneducated in Physics so I'm not sure where to begin with this. I want to build a vacuum chamber that is rectangular and fairly flat. It will measure 48"X96"X8" I plan on constructing it from clear polycarbonate sheet on one face (would clear acrylic be a better choice?) and aluminum sheet...
  34. U

    Where to start learning more about and start building interest in EE?

    I've always found electrical engineering interesting and I am considering pursuing in a career in this in the future. I'm a junior in high school and I want to be positive that this is what I want to study for in college. So I want to start learning more about this and playing around with this...
  35. O

    High school kids building nuclear reactors?

    So occasionally I see something in the news about some teenage who built a nuclear reactor in his basement. And just the other day, my girlfriend told me that one of her clients mentioned that her boyfriend is a Physics major at my university, and has a nuclear reactor in his garage that he...
  36. jtbell

    Black church owns building that houses white supremacist shop

    Some of you may have heard about the "world famous Redneck Shop" in Laurens SC that sells Confederate memorabilia, KKK robes, etc. A black church now holds title to the building, but under the terms of the deed, they can't kick the Redneck Shop out until its owner dies! Uneasy Neighbors in a...
  37. A

    Building a self contained device for project

    Homework Statement We must build a self contained device which can pass through a standard doorway. It will start .5 metres from the egg cup with an egg in it this egg cup is then .5 metres from a cart that the egg has to pass through and continue going to a target on the other side of the...
  38. marcus

    Building SM Matter from Discrete Quantum Geometry

    String field from Loop SpinfoamQG:how to build SM matter on discrete quantum geometry note: EPRL is the current standard spinfoam formulation of Loop Quantum Gravity. http://arxiv.org/abs/1201.0525 String Field Theory from Quantum Gravity Louis Crane (Submitted on 2 Jan 2012) Recent work...
  39. A

    How Do You Build a Wave Transmitter for Destructive Interference?

    How would I go about building a wave transmitter? Like in the noise cancelling headphones. I want to build a transmitter that absorbs sound waves, reflects them, and then shoots them out creating destructive interference.
  40. V

    Building A Communication Device

    Basically like a cellphone. I am aware that it is pointless, like most things in this life, but it makes sense if you want to learn about things. So I have a question Using knowledge on communication technology, and a bunch of old cellular phones, is it possible to combine all of that hardware...
  41. T

    Understanding and Connecting CO2 Canisters to Piping for Scientists

    I'm having problems trying to figure out how CO2 canisters work. I've never actually used them before so how would you connect a CO2 canister to a piece of piping. What I have trouble understanding is how you would open the CO2 cartridge and connect it to the pipe. Would it be by puncturing the...
  42. E

    Dirac Notation in building Path Integrals

    Alright, so I was wondering if anyone could help me figure out from one step to the next... So we have defined |qt>=exp(iHt/\hbar)|q> and we divide some interval up into pieces of duration τ Then we consider <q_{j+1}t_{j+1}|q_{j}t_{j}> =<q_{j+1}|e-iHτ/\hbar|q_{j}>...
  43. G

    Building a 12v heater for my car

    I am trying to upgrade my antique car while still keeping the factory look The rear defroster is a blower motor that sucks in cabin air and blows it onto the back window. The air in the cabin has to get warm before the windows will defog. I am thinking of helping that a little by...
  44. C

    Building a Sand-Travelling Car that Fires a Projectile

    Homework Statement Build an elastic-powered or gravitational-powered car that traverses on sand for 2 meters, then fires a projectile perpendicular to the car into a target 2 meters away. The car + projectile is marked based on: Distance traveled before firing (as close as possible to 2...
  45. I

    Building a Simple Amplifier Circuit With High Slew Rate and Bandwidth

    Hello all, I have been building a simple amplifier circuit(diagram attached) that will take in a source voltage and use a resistor divider to divide the voltage down on three different ratios, determined by a manual switch- 1/1, 1/4, and 1/40. It goes through a unity gain configuration...
  46. C

    How to Design a Simple Two Floor Office Building with a Roof?

    hello everyone i have to design a simple two floor office building with roof. i am very lost and confused and don't know where to start from. can someone help?pleaseeee
  47. T

    Building an Electrical Circuit to Monitor Pressure

    I need to build a circuit to do the following: I am making some wine at home and need to monitor the process. During the fermentation process CO2 is produced so I need to monitor the pressure in the system and provide for a pressure release (back to 1.1 atm.) if the pressure gets too high (>...
  48. K

    Calculating Force Needed to Overcome Resistance in m=1.45X10^6 kg Building

    Homework Statement m= 1.45X10^6 kg w=1.00X10^2 MJ a=0 m/s^2 to over come the force resistance that was 2.00 percent of the building's weight Homework Equations Fa=Ff (force applied=force friction) The Attempt at a Solution Fa= Fn-Ff Im confused on how to find the force...
  49. F

    Building an AC to DC power supply

    I'm building an AC to DC power supply for a class and my question mainly revolves around the input and output of the whole thing. My source of confusion is where to include my DC output in a circuit such as I would assume that it would be the leftmost node of that full bridge rectifier...
  50. DaveC426913

    China Building network in middle of desert

    What are these? http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/11/china-gigantic/?mbid=ob_ppc_dangerroom This must be a driving training ground. What's strange is the way the lines are cut. Some of the curves are highly acute, yet the points are carefully constructed, not all the way a bulldozer...
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