Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Water Supply

Water Supply


Water is an important part of nature which surrounds us and of those natural conditions, we are changing constantly and ever more intensively: the flora, the soil, the mountains, mineral resources, the deserts, the marshes, the steppes and the taiga.Water passes through a very interesting natural cycle.The atmosphere which surrounds the earth's surface contains water which varies in amount in direct proportion to the temperature of its gases. Water is also evaporated into atmosphere.Atmosphere which has become saturated with water precipitates its moisture when the temperature lowers. This phenomenon is termed rainfall. The moisture falls to the earth and finds its way into a number of reservoirs.provided by nature. Vast depressions in the earth are filled with water through the medium of natural water sources such as rivers lakes, etc. over the earth's surface. These bodies of water are classified as inland lakes and are excellent sources of water. Sometimes the rainfall finds its way into the soil and forms water bodies at various levels because of the impervious nature of the undersoil. Often a water body deep in the soil consists of a sand or gravel stratum which connects or empties into the basin of an inland lake and provides a splendid source of water supply through the medium of a drilled well. Man uses water for domestic and sanitary purposes and returns it to the source through sewage disposal system. Industry likewise replaces water diverted to its use. Hence the cycle is completed but it is of prime importance that the supply be protected against pollution, for if it fouls no one can predict how disastrous may be the results. An adequate supply of pure, wholesome and palatable water is essential to the maintenance of high standards of health and to provide the convenience modern society demands. In some localities water is available in unlimited quantities and converting it to use is not a difficult problem. This is especially true of towns situated on large inland lakes or rivers. On the other hand there are cities where geographical location requires elaborate systems of water supply, and to provide a satisfactory supply of water in these localities becomes a large engineering task. The importance of a sufficient supply of water for domestic and industrial purpose has long been a deciding factor in the location of cities. The earliest settlers realized this need and took advantage of natural water sources by establishing colonies in close proximity to them. Water may be taken from any sources of water for human consumption after it has undergone a preliminary treatment to assure its purity. As man's communities grew in population, the demand for water increased and the need for protection of the source of water supply against the possibility of contamination became evident. Progress and civilization have called for elaborate and various systems and methods of water treatment.

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History of Water Supply

From the History of Water Supply



Water is power not only in the hydraulic sense, but in relation to progress and culture: campaigns as well as fortresses have been lost, projects rendered impracticable and communities have decayed for want of water.Nature has provided prototypes for most of man's devices and, just as the streams and rivers anticipated water distribution systems, so tanks, cisterns and reservoirs have their natural counterparts in water holes and natural pools. Long after man had found ways and means to organize water supplies, find them where they were hidden and lead
them to where he wanted them, streams and pools in their natural state have served as communal water supplies, even in more or less civilized Europe. The 17th century marks the beginning of the new order in communal organization and in relation to water supply, the beginning of large-scale schemes. All through London's history until modern times, the question of water supply continued to be a problem. In the 18th century even with the appearance of larger water companies the water supply was far from being satisfactory. It was a usual practice at the time to lay on water for two hours every second day. Water drawn from the river Thames was in a state that was offensive to the sight as the intake was found to be only three yards from the outlet of a great sewer. As a mutter fact it took 2 outbreaks of cholera to pass a Bill for an im¬proved water supply in the middle of the 19th century. In spite of the progress made in the field of water supply in many countries, there is much to be done yet. In Asia, Africa, Central and South America outside the great cities, methods are primitive as ever they were; village ponds
are.still used in Africa and Asia for drinking, washing and bathing and as watering places for cattle, in Madagascar in recent years people have had to carry their water bottles several miles and, as some of them can only do the journey twice a week, they have trained themselves to do with the minimum of water, drinking only on alternate days and never washing during a drought. In Japan, running water is still a luxury, even in the great cities: the average household have to carry water from a central source, while the villages rely on springs and streams. The speedy industrialization of the Soviet Union has also made the problem of water very acute. The situation in this country would have been much worse were it not for a number of important measures undertaken by the Soviet Government immediately after the Great October Socialist Revolution. Our water resources Were protected by the Decree on Forest signed by Lenin in May 1918. At present the requirements of water supply in Moscow both for the people and industry are fully met by several water treatment stations. In our capital water consumption per capita is very high, namely, it is more than 500 litres per day.Some projects of new water treatment stations are being considered to satisfy the growing needs of water in our capital.

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All Year Air Conditioning, Ventilation, Gas Supply

All Year Air Conditioning, Ventilation, Gas Supply

Air conditioning implies the control of temperature,humidity, purity and motion of the air in an enclosure. In our modern world of science and highly developed technology air conditioning is of great significance for industrial processes as well as for human comfort. Air conditioning for human comfort is employed in both large and small installations, such as theatres, office buildings, department stores, residences, airplanes, railways, cars and submarines. All-year air-conditioning systems must provide means for performing all the processes required for winter and summer air conditioning. The basic pieces of equipment are the filters, preheat coils, humidifiers, dehumidifiers, reheat coils, additional cooling coils, fans and controls. The control of air purity can be achieved in various degrees. As a minimum control some sort of filtering must be done near the entrance of the air-conditioning system. Possibly the most efficient filtering device is the electrostatic precipitator. In order to establish the size and operational requirements of an air-conditioning system, the maximum probable heating and co-demands have to be calculated. The maximum probable heating demand is usually for winter air conditioning and it involves heating and humidifying. The maximum probable cooling demand is generally for summer applications and requires cooling and dehumidifying.As far as ventilation is concerned the modern theory to this effect can be summed up in the statement that for places of general assembly the purpose of ventilation is to carry away excess heat and odours and that normally 10 cu. ft per minute of outside air per person is sufficient to accomplish this objective. In buildings such as homes, the leakage of air through cracks in doors and windows is usually sufficient to meet this requirement. Although ventilation was formerly concerned with the supply of fresh air to and the removal of hot and contaminated air from the space it gradually came to be associated with cleaning of air. Industrial buildings often present special problems in ventilation. There are certain industrial processes that are accompanied by the production of air-born dust, fumes, toxic vapours and gases which are hazardous to the health of workers.Another indispensable part of modern amenities is gas supply. It has come now to be of a very wide use. With an in tensive exploration of finding natural gas it has gradually replaced the manufacture in its utilization. At the present time natural gas is put to large-scale economic use. The principal utilization of natural gas is as a clean, convenient, economical source of heat. In homes it is used for cooking, waterheating, refrigeration for food as well as for space heating.

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Panel Heating

Panel Heating

Heating and ventilation are two branches of engineering which are very closely connected, they are therefore treated as a dual subject. Both are concerned with providing a required atmospheric environment within a space, the former with respect to heat supply to produce a desired temperature for maintaining comfort, health or efficiency of the occupants,
the latter with regard to supply and removal of air frequently with emphasis on contamination of the air. Air conditioning is closely related to both heating and ventilation. It is for heating to prevent the too rapid loss of heat from the body. By heating the ambient air of walls, ceiling or floor the rate of heat loss from the body is controlled. Some old concepts of heating were gradually changed since engineers obtained more precise knowledge about how the body loses heat. Insufficient attention was paid formerly to loss by radiation, which is the transmission of energy in the form of waves from a body to surrounding bodies at a temperature.The human being also loses heat by conduction (through his clothes) and convection. The determination of the capacity or size of the various components of the heating system is based on the fundamental concept that heat supplied to a space equals heat lost from the space. The most widely used system of heating is the central heating, where the fuel is burned in one place — the basement or a specially designed room and from which steam, hot water or warm air is distributed to adjacent and remote spaces to be heated.There are two most common systems of heating hot water and steam. Both systems are widely used nowadays. A hot-water system consists of the boilers and a system of pipes connected to radiators suitably located in rooms to be heated. The pipes, usually of steel or copper, feed hot water to radiators or convectors. As for steam systems, steam is generated usually, at less than 5 pounds per square inch in the boiler and the steam is led to the radiators through or by means of steel or copper pipes. The steam gives up its heat to the radiators arid the radiators to the room and the cooling of the steam condenses it to water. The condensate is returned to the boiler either by gravity or by a pump. The air valve on each radiator is necessary for air to escape. Otherwise it would prevent steam from entering the radiator. Recent efforts to completely conceal heating equipment have resulted in an arrangement whereby the fluid, whether it be hot water, steam, air, or electricity, is circulated through distribution units embedded in the building construction. Panel heating is a method of introducing heat to rooms in which the emitting surfaces are usually completely concealed in the floor, walls, or ceiling. As for fuels used for heating buildings they include coal, oil, manufactured and natural gases and wood. There are two other sources: electricity and steam. Nowadays gas fuel is being used on an ever increasing level.

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Friday, July 24, 2009

The Most Luxury and Widely Used Building Materials

The Most Important,Luxury and Widely Used Building Materials
(Binding Materials, Concrete and Structural Steel)


The designer must be able to select and adapt such materials of construction that will give the most luxury effective result by the most economical means. In this choice of materials for any work of construction, the civil engineer must consider many factors. These factors include availability,cost, physical pioperties.of materials and others.Timber, steel and concrete all vary, sometimes over considerable ranges in the properties desired by the engineer. Even steel, uniform as it appears to be, varies considerably in its microstructure. Concrete is even less uniform than many other materials.Lime, gypsum and cement are the three luxury and not cheap materials most widely used in building construction for the purpose of binding together masonry units, such as stone, brick and as con stituents of wall plaster. Cement is furthermore the most important component of concrete. Another important class of cement is high alumina cement. High alumina cement is a material containing alumina.It has an extremely luxury high rate of strength increase which is,owing to the violence of the chemical reaction, accompanied by a considerable evolution of heat. It is very resistant to chemical attack.
It therefore follows that Portland cement like other materials can to some extent be modified to suit a particular application. The scope for such purpose made cements has led to the development of an increasing variety such as high alumina cement, blast-furnace slag and pozzuolanas. Portland blast-furnace cement has greater resistance to some forms of
chemicals.The most important building materials may now be considered to be structural steel and concrete. Concrete may be considered an artificial conglomerate of crushed stone,
gravel or similar inert material with a mortar. A mixture of sand, screenings or similar inert particles with cement and water which has the capacity of hardening into a rockline mass is called mortar.The fundamental object in proportioning concrete or mortar mixes is the production of a durable material of requisite strength, watertightness and other essential properties at minimum cost. To attain this end careful attention must be given to the selection of cement, aggregate, and water.The most accurate method of measuring proportions is to weigh the required quantities of each material. It is widely used in large building construction, but in small building construction the less accurate method of measuring proportions by volumes-is frequently used. The chief inaccuracies in volumetric measurement arise from the wide variation in the bulk of the fine aggregate due to small changes in its moisture content and faulty methods of filling measuring devices. Workability and strength tests are chief control tests made on concrete. To be able to undergo high compfessive loads is a specific characteristic of this material.


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Excavators

Excavators


The universal excavator is an earth-moving machine that can be equipped with different attachments known under the following names: shovel , dragline ,backacter or backhoe, grab or clamshell, 5. crane.
Conversion from one type to another is a comparatively easy operation. Some decades ago only rope-controlled excavators were in use. Now there exists a tendency to replace the latter
by more progressive hydraulically operated excavators. Especially widely used are now hydraulic backhoes. In hydraulically operated backhoes hydraulic rams are used in place of ropes and winches to operate the boom and the dipper arm. The hydraulic system makes it possible to pivot the bucket on the dipper arm. This movement provided by an additional ram on the dipper arm gives the operator a means for selecting the proper angle of cutting for the bucket both at the start of the digging stroke and during the stroke to obtain optimum digging performance.
With the wheeled excavator, which is considerably lighter than the crawler mounted one, means to provide additional stability are incorporated. Before starting digging operation outrigger arms are operated hydraulically. Independent movement of the outrigger arms provides for levelling the machine on sloping ground, so that trenches with vertical sides can be cut perpendicular to the direction of the slope. In some models the revolving superstructure of the machine can be moved transversely in special guides, so that a trench can be dug parallel and close to a wall or some other obstruction, this movement being carried out hydraulically too. A recent model incorporates a telescopic dipper arm: when extended it can dig deeper and has a greater discharge height and when retracted it produces its greatest digging force at the bucket. At present excavators are available in which all the digging motions as well as slewing are operated hydraulically. The crawler-mounted excavator has two other advantages over its rope-operated counterpart: with separate hydraulic motors for each track it is possible to put one track in reverse while the other is driven forward, so that the machine can be turned within its own length, and the boom can be of the adjustable radius type, so that the reach, digging depth and discharge height can be quickly varied to suit the job.

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Mobile Cranes

Mobile Cranes



The function of a crane is to hoist or lower a load suspended from its jib. Various types of cranes are available, the type and size best suited for a specific operation being influenced by the following factors: 1. The nature of the work on which it is to operate. 2. The weight of load it has to handle.
Mobile cranes have a wide range of uses on building and civil engineering works of construction. Cranes of this type usually take the form of a frame carrying a jib, a winch, and other necessary hoisting and controlling equipment, the whole being mounted on a cast-iron bed plate fitted with road wheels of the pneumatic type. One may also have them mounted on caterpillar tracks or on a lorry chassis if desired.At present rope-operated mobile cranes are being superseded by hydraulically operated ones, in which all working operations, but travelling, are performed with the help of hydraulic rams. The jib of the mobile crane can be of the solid or latticed type, the latter being preferred now because of its lower weight.


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Thursday, July 23, 2009

Luxury Earth-Moving Machinery

Earth-Moving Machinery


The annual amount of mechanized earth digging operations in the Europe comes up to thousands of millions of cubic metres. It requires the employment of a great luxury plant of powerful earth-moving machines, the excavators being the most important of them.It is not possible to start on a construction job with out a good deal of preliminary levelling the site. To carry out this work one must employ the earth-moving equipment. Site preparation and excavation are the most fully mechanized of all the operations in building construction.
Most excavating machinery is heavy and slow-moving and must be carried from site to site on special transporters. It is clear that the use of expensive mechanical plant requires
careful planning and efficient site organization if full advantage is to be taken of its high rate of production. Plant for site preparation and excavation can be divided into four classes. First, machines which plane off a thin layer of sojl and push it in front of them. Second, machines which plane off a thin layer of soil, at the same time picking it up and carrying it where required. Third, machines which dig out soil by some form of a bucket, and load it for transportation into separate vehicles. Forth, machines designed specially for trenching by means of a number of buckets mounted either on a continuous chain or on a wheel. In the first class are bulldozers of different types. A bulldozer represents by itself an earth-moving machine which carries out its work with the ajd of a blade mounted on a tractor of either crawler or wheel type. A scraper, which belongs to the second class of earth moving machines, is simply a large box with an open mouth,dragged along the surface of the ground until it is full. It has a cutting edge that digs. There is. a considerable variety of the scrapers, from small units to huge ones made to accommodate 30 cubic yards of soil and to absorb the power of two tractors while at work.Revolving shovels, which belong to the third class of earth-moving machines, made their first appearance in 1835 in the form of a part-swing shovel mounted on railroad tracks. It was powered by steam, it was slow and clumsy, but it did the work. Into Great Britain they were introduced
from America in 1887 to work on the Manchester Ship Canal. They were a source of wonderment to the people of that part of the country and trips were organized to provide a view of the "American Devils" as they were popularly called.

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Choice of Material for luxury buildings

Choice of Material for a luxury buildings


Which material can be used to the best luxury advantage for a particular part of the building, depends as well on the kind of load to which it is subjected and on the-shape of the part.
That the development of the metallurgical and machine build ing industry made possible mass production of prefabricated large size concretjend peinforced-concrete structural elements
is a well known factor to influence the choice of materials.Reinforced concrete is a building material in which the joint functions of concrete and steelare advantageously utilized. Being brittle, concrete cannot withstand tensile stresses, and it cannot therefore be used in structures subjected to tensile stresses under load. But if steel is introduced into concrete it changes the property of the monolith.There are two kinds of reinforced concrete: with or dinary reinforcement and concrete with prestressed reinforce ment. To reinforce ordinary concrete structures is to intro duce steel rods in stretched zones of concrete elements. Reinforced concrete structures and elements are widely used both for residential houses and industrial buildings.
In many cases bricks too are very satisfactory for use in the luxury construction. Bricks generally present a pleasing appearance and can be obtained with various qualities, colours, and textures. Being of a high volume weight and high thermal conductivity, ordinary brick is not always satisfactory in building practice. There are other kinds of bricks which are more effective, they are light-weight building bricks, hollow or porous bricks. Light weight building bricks differ from ordinary clay bricks in a lower volume weight and lower thermal conductivity, and are therefore more economical than ordinary bricks. One of the most significant facts about both industry and building has been research on synthetics and plastics, Plastics have appeared comparatively recently but, owing to their inherent valuable and diverse properties, have found a wide application in many industrial fields (machine-building, aviation, textile industry, etc.). In respect to physical and mechanical properties at a normal temperature of 20°C all plastics are divided into rigid, semi-rigid, soft and plastic. In respect to the number of constituents plastics may be classified as simple and complex. Plastics consisting of one polymer are referred to as simple. Thus, organic glass (plexiglass) consists of one synthetic resin. But in the building field we usually deal with complex plastics, e.g. plastics consisting of a polymer and other components.

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Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Residential and Industrial Buildings


Residential and Industrial Buildings



In technically developed countries the building industry, comprising skilled and unskilled workers in many trades, building engineers and architects, managerial staff and designers, employs a considerable proportion of the avail-H able labour force.Building industry including residential, public and industrial construction holds a considerable place in the National Economy and is being carried on a large scale. It is the ' largest single industry in the country. The problems of construction have grown into major, political issues in most countries.

Housing is prominent among the factors affecting thelevel of living. The improvement of the housing represents aconcrete and visible rise in the general level of living. In many countries residential construction has constituted at least 12 per cent and frequently more than 25 per cent of .all capital formation. Since in the UK home building industry the concern of the state the research and development in housing technology is carried out on a national scale and is being paid much attention to.The ever growing housing demands have brought tolife new methods of construction with great emphasis upon standardization, new levels of technological advance utilizing such techniques as off-site prefabrication, precasting, use of reinforced concrete panels and large-scale site planning. At present, prefabricated structures and precast elements may be classified into two principal groups — for residential nouses
and industrial buildings.Present-day designs for residential construction envi sage all modern amenities for a dwelling, they advocate larg er, better built and better equipped flats and houses, there is a marked Improvement in the heating and; ventilating systems awell as in .hot-water supply, kitchen and. sanitary fittings. Many tenants now can afford better furnishings, re¬frigerators, washing machines, etc. A house which is a physi¬cal environment where a family develops is acquiring a new, and modern look. Industrial buildings comprise another significant type of construction. This type of construction involves factories,laboratories, food-processing plants, mines, office buildings, stores, garages, hangars and other storage facilities, exhibition halls, etc. Each of these functions demands its own structural solution and techniques. But in general they may be divided into two classes according to whether the plan must give greater attention to the size and movement of machinery or of persons. The building techniques (by techniques we mean building materials and methods) depend upon the types of
buildings.Modern luxury industrial buildings have demonstrated the advantages of reinforced concrete arches, metal frames, glass walls and prefabricated standardized mass produced parts. Steel was gradually substituted for iron and permitted wider rooms and larger windows. Windows can be enlarged to the extent that they constitute a large fraction of the wall area.

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Types of Buildings


Types of buildings depend upon social functions and may be classified according to the role in the community.
The types of buildings may be domestic, educational, office,industrial, recreational, etc. The common and necessary con ditions are:
(a) its suitability to use by human beings in general and its adaptability to particular human activities
(b)the stability and permanence of its construction.

Speaking of residential construction we must say that the apartment houses are mostly built to suit urban conditions.Group housing provides home for many families and is at once public and private. The techniques of construction or the methods by which structures are formed from particular materials are influenced not only by the availability and character of materials but also by the total technological development of society.
The evolution of techniques is conditioned by two factors: one is economic — the search for a maximum of stability and durability in building with a minimum of materials,
labour and time; the other is expressive— the desire to produce meaningful form. Large housing programmes have tended to stimulate technological change in the building industry. Modular design(i.e. design in which the elements are dimensioned in combinations of a fixed unit) has led to standardization of elements,interchangeability of parts and increased possibilities for
mass production, with resultant economies. Entire apartment assemblages are available and are being used to an increasing extent. These techniques aim at a higher output of better
structures at lower cost. The high degree of mechanization and standardization is successfully achieved by reinforced concrete blocks and units. Reinforced concrete homes are produced by a variety of construction methods. Various methods of constructing reinforced concrete houses involve extensive use of large section's manufactured in heavily mechanized factories and erected at the site.The built-in space of an apartment should be carefully thought of as well. There is a considerable trend toward built in furniture. Rooms should be both efficient and visually
satisfying. The extent of built-in cabinets must be determined.Drawers and shelves can of ten 'be concealed behind walls,freeing valuable floor space.

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Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Luxury Design of the Town


In considering the luxury design of a town or city we must always remember that the town must be sited in a healthy position, free from dust, fogs, its layout must not encourage winds through urban spaces, and it must not pollute its own atmosphere. It must provide proper standards of space and sunlight to its buildings and open spaces, and it must be possible to move about the town, easily and without danger to life. Its parts must be so arranged that it is a convenient place for dwelling, working and playing. Connected with these and many other technical problems is the problem of economy. The problem must be thoroughly examined which does not suggest that the cheapestscheme may be the best.The town must work properly but it should also give pleasure to those who look at it. When we say that a town should be beautiful, we do not mean that it should have some fine parks and noble buildings, we mean that the whole of the environment, down to the most insignificant detail, should be beautiful.If we examine a typical urban scene we see air kinds of objects like buildings, lamp posts, pavings, posters, and trees. It is all of them, together with all the other kinds of objects that are found in the town, that are called the raw materials of a town design.

Each of them down to the least important should be aesthetically satisfying. Designing in terms of past time does not imply the imitation of the existing environment but respect of the form, colour, texture, and general qualities of the existing development. That which is being constructed is for immediate use which is not to suggest that there must be an attempt to ignore the past and be "modern". Future time must also be thought of in terms of the estimated life of the objects. Objects like buildings and lamp posts grow old and become out-of-date, and the designer must select those materials that are adequate for their life, no more and no less. Until comparatively recent times the growth of cities has been without purpose in any sense. Cities must grow, for growth is a law of life. But this natural overgrowth should have aroused action to restore balance. Mere size, as such, is no index of greatness. All overgrowth means overcrowding, which is loss of space, one of the vital needs of cities. The lesson that has to be learned is that natural growth, and all the other forms of growth have to be made subject to will and intelligence, or The city must be harmed. This is a certain lesson of history.


Luxury Town Planning


  • That Luxury cities should have a plan is now "admitted" in our time of large-scale construction and plan-making has become ah everyday activity. The purpose of a town plan is to give the greatest possible freedom to the individual. It does this by controlling development in such a way that it will take place in the interests of the whole population.
  • The new development absorbs or modifies an existing Environment, and so before it can be luxury designed it is necessary to find out about that environment. It is also necessary to do research of the trends of population growth, the distance fromwork to home, the preferences for different types of dwelling,the amount of sunshine in rooms, the degree of atmospheric pollution and so on. After the survey is complete a forecast of future development is made in the form of a map, or series of maps: the master plan or development plan. As no one can be certain when the development is to take place and since a society is an organic thing, with life and movement, the plan of a city must be flexible so that it may extend and renew its dwellings, reconstruct its working places, complete its communications and avoid Congestion in every part.
  • The plan is never a complete and fixed thing, but rather one that is continually being adapted to the changing needs of the community for who it's designed and until quite recent years town plans were always, made as inflexible pattens, but history has shown that a plan of this description inevitably breaks: down in time.
  • The flexible plan, preceded by a survey, is one of the most revolutionary ideas that man has ever had about the control of his environment.
  • Most luxury towns today have a characteristic functional pattern as follows: a central core containing the quality shopping centres, modern business appartment, surrounded by a lot of houses. Most town planners accept the traditional town pattern. In the preparation of a master plan they are preoccupied with the definition of the town centre, industrial areas, and the areas of housing; the creation of open space for recreation, the laying down of a pattern of main roads which run between the built-up areas (thus leaving them free of through traffic) and connect them to each other.
  • The master plan thus has to define the ultimate growth of the town, but though the master plan is a diagram, and even a flexible one, it is the structure upon which all future development is to take place.
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