CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Residential Building:  This is defined as the building which sleeping accommodation is provided for normal residential purposes. It is provided with or without cooking or dining or both facilities. Residential building includes one or two story or multi-family dwelling, lodging or rooming houses, dormitories, and apartment houses.
The residential building can be owned by an individual or co-operative association. Each resident or resident household has membership in the co-operative association. In non-equality co-operative members have occupancy right to a specific suite within the housing co-operative as outlined in their “occupancy agreement” or “proprietary lease” which is essentially a lease. In ownership co-operatives occupancy rights are transferred to the purchaser by way of the title transfer.
The major function of the residential building is for the accommodation, both for private and the public users.
Due to th aforementioned reasons, there is need for well construction of the residential structure, with the materials that will be capable of resisting both direct and indirect forces and the weathering effects, not just for a moment but for the long lasting time, hence the use of concrete is being adapted.
Concrete can be defined as a hard, strong construction materials consisting of sand, conglomerate gravel, pebbles, broken stones, or slag in a motor or cement mixture. It is also known as the mass formed by the coalescence or particles.
Concrete could also be defined as the mixture of gravel, pebbles or broken stone with cement or with tar, etc, used for sidewalks, roadways, foundations, etc and especially for submarine structure.
Some many issues has lead to the construction of different types of building like bungalow and high rise building in order to save money.
According to an economist that says human wants is unlimited and that there are limited resources with which wants can be satisfied. And this has lead to the absolute maximization and utilization of the said available resources to man which include fixed and liquid assets. This is one of the reasons why the conservation of land to safe place was adapted, which led to the construction of high rise building in town and mostly in well developed countries, for the fact that human being resides in, and other valuables are kept in these buildings; safely of the structure under all forces that may be applied must be guaranteed.
Recently, reinforced concrete has proven to be the cheapest retail that can effectively resist these forces like (wind force, direct force and indirect force) and other force that may be applied within the building, which can be found into various shape.
The need for the forces stability of this structure under these factors has brought a challenge to the engineer; hence the reinforced concrete design is concern.