For practical design, wind and earthquakes may be treated as horizontal, or lateral, loads. Although wind and seismic loads may have vertical components, these generally are small and readily resisted by columns and bearing walls. Vertical earthquake components can be important in the design of connections as in precast concrete structures. Wind often generates significant uplift forces that require special attention to vertical restraint and lateral support for members in reverse bending.
Management of the building process is best performed by the individuals educated and trained in the profession, that is, architects and engineers. While the laws of various states and foreign countries differ, they are consistent relative to the registration requirements for practicing architecture. No individual may legally indicate to the public that he or she is entitled to practice as an architect without a professional certificate of registration as an architect registered in the locale in which the project is to be constructed.
Introduction to geotextiles Although skins, brushwood, and straw–mud composites have been used to improve the soft ground for many thousands of years, it is not realistic to refer to these as ‘geotextiles’. The important factor that separates them from modern geotextiles is that they cannot be made with specific and consistent properties. When modern polymers were developed in the mid 20th century, it became possible to create textiles with designed forecastable performance and to produce them in large quantities with statistically consistent and repeatable properties.