Text 3. Housing construction

1 Read the following text.

In our country housing construction is being carried out on a large scale. Hundreds of factories producing prefab panels are being constantly built. The successful fulfilment of housing plans in our country is a practicable realization of the industrialized building methods and the development of a large quantity of prefab ferroconcrete panels and parts. The work of a builder is no longer backbreaking and complicated.

Builders, as we know, assemble a house from prefabricated units which are delivered to the construction site. A welder then welds the units to hold them in place. A great variety of materials are nowadays used by builders. Students of building institutes study the existing materials. When they become full-fledged builders they develop new building materials and building methods.

A qualified building worker must now be able to read a technical drawing, he must know the scale and the specifications. If you want to contribute to the beauty of a town or city, if you want to leave a memory of yourself in the history of that town or city, come to a construction site and learn the trade of a builder. And be sure to enter a Civil Engineering Institute.

2 Translate the text using these words:

prefab (prefabricated) – сборный, изготовленный заводским способом

on a large scale – в большом масштабе

to contribute – вносить вклад

construction site – место строительства, строительная площадка

full-fledged – развившийся, завершивший подготовку

fulfillment – выполнение, осуществление, завершение

ferroconcrete – железобетон

backbreaking – изнурительный, непосильный

to assemble – собирать, составлять, монтировать

to deliver – доставлять, передавать

3 Find all the verbs in the Passive Voice, translate them and identify their tense forms.

4 Summarize the text.

Text 4. Bearing wall and skeleton frame

1 Listen to the text and write out the sentences in the passive.

From the point of view of method of construction buildings may be divided into the following groups:

1 Bearing wall construction;

2 Skeleton frame construction.

Bearing wall construction has been the method of structural design employed from the earliest days. By this method the loaded floor and roof beams rest upon the exterior and interior walls, which in turn transmit the loads to the foundation. It is evident that the walls must be of sufficient thickness to carry the loads as well as their own weight; consequently, as the height of buildings increased the required thickness of the walls and the weights brought upon the foundations became excessive⁴ and uneconomical.

Skeleton frame construction has been made possible by the development of structural steel and later of reinforced concrete. According to this method the loaded floor and roof beams rest upon girders running between the columns. The columns are placed along the building line and are known as exterior or wall columns; they also occur at required intervals within the body of the building, in which case they are called interior columns. A framework is thereby formed, the walls being carried upon the wall girders at each storey level. The walls are consequently mere enclosures bearing no weight and are of the same thickness on all stories. The columns transmit the loads to the foundations.

Vocabulary:

bearing wall – несущая стена

skeleton frame – каркас строения

sufficient – достаточный

excessive – чрезмерный, излишний

girder – балка, брус, перекладина

framework – корпус, каркас; коробка; структура

beam – балка, брус, перекладина

foundation – фундамент

2 Compare Present Indefinite, Present Perfect Active Voice and Present Indefinite, Present Perfect Passive Voice using your own examples of sentences.

3 Characterize bearing wall construction and skeleton frame construction.