Notably during industrialization with the invention of new materials, methods and building types, achieving maximum spans with minimal material informed structural theory and pedagogy. Correlating these two objectives, modern architects and engineers explored varied and variable structural systems that have become synonymous with their era. From ribbed slabs to castellated beams, reducing weight while maintaining and profiling structural integrity requires intelligent constructions, assemblies, and geometric finesse. The geodesic domes of Buckminster Fuller, the grid shell tessellations of Pier Luigi Nervi, August Komendant's concrete space frames and Robert LeRicolais' lightweight beam experiments all materialized structural conceptualizations by decreasing material use; all shaped geometry, points, lines and their networks to respond to stresses and strains in an optimal manner.
Through examining beam principles, compression, and tension in upper and inferior parts of a beam with forces neutralized closer to the center of the beam, matter is directed to eliminate waste and in response to loads, producing systems that are physical illustrations of their most favorable load transmissions. Today, generative design tools make it possible to optimize the representational and structural relationship even further between modular elements, structural form and geometry; grid shell systems combine resistant forms and shapes with lightweight struts or other modular elements that can be arranged according to underlining physical criteria and material characteristics. These structural optimizations can also lead to construction efficiencies based on similar ideals of modularization, assembling edifices from multiplied dimensionally coordinated components; An idea eloquently defined by Pier luigi Nervi's patent for structural prefabrication.
Stacking boxes, aligning frames, organizing, or mapping shapes from tile-like elements all speak to the relationship between structures and reproductible components - a type of piecework quilting to achieve building form. Further, modern structural prototypes with increasing spans defined a uniquely modern syntax linked to universal, flexible, and adaptable open spaces free from any structural obstacles. The next ten blog posts will examine structural archetypes, the modern use of grid, modularity, geometry, and replicability to showcase innovative building systems. Prefabrication, industrialized building systems, offsite construction and platform principles applied to architecture, all, in some way, employ similar modular schemes to propose the efficient production of edifices.
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| Gatti Wool Factory ribbed isostatic slab by Pier Luigi Nervi |
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