BY J. FRED TRIGGS, D.SC., P.E.

*
I
t is literally impossible to open a contemporary mag-
azine devoted to the building arts without coming
a c ross some re f e rence to shells and shell technology.
Twenty years ago, shells were almost unheard of. Where
did they come from? Why their populari t y, and now that
we have them, what do they mean to the building arts?
Ac c o rding to modern building term i n o l o g y, the shell
is any laminar membrane capable of enclosing space
and supporting loads through the exertion of dire c t
s t resses re s o l ved in the boundaries of the stru c t u re.
T h e re f o re, domes and va u l t s, acting in direct compre s-
sion, are shells. These are synclastic shells, either singly
as in the vault, or doubly curved as with the dome. Bu t
t h e re are other shells, some of which are anticlastic or
doubly curved in opposing dire c t i o n s. Ce rtainly the
most convenient of these and perhaps the most dra m a t-
ic are the hyperbolic para b o l o i d s.
The history of the origin of shells begins about five
thousand years ago at Sa q q a ra in Egypt. It was at this
time and place that the first architect of re c o rd, Im h o t e p,
c o n s t ructed the stepped py ramid of Zozer which is today
the oldest existing building in the world. There is no di-
rect connection between the py ramid of Zozer and
s h e l l s, but at the time of its construction, a commemo-
ra t i ve gesture on the part of the builder consisted of
e recting prototypes re p re s e n t a t i ve of the stru c t u res of
the time in a grouping around the tomb. These pro t o-
type buildings have long ceased to exist as stru c t u re s,
but arc h e o l o g i s t s, re c o n s t ructing shapes from fra g m e n t s
s t rewn about the ground, have theori zed that some of
these prototype stru c t u res had barrel vaulted ro o f s.
Little or nothing remains now of any shells constru c t-
ed by the Ancient Egyptians of the Old Kingdom, but the
builders of the Middle Kingdom, some thousand ye a r s
l a t e r, roofed their cave tombs with flat compre s s i o n
a rched va u l t s, and a few hundred years later, Mi n o a n s
and Cretans built their beehive domes. As far as we
k n ow, their knowledge of descri p t i ve geometry was in-
adequate to re veal that they we re building conoids.
The Romans did not invent the round or segmental
a rch (its origin is vague but must have been Asiatic) but
they brought the art of arch, dome and vault building to
a peak of perfection. They built domes, half domes, bar-
rel vaults and intercepting round va u l t s. They built the
The Ai rpor t Te r mi nal Bui l di ng at Lamber t Fi el d, St .
Loui s, i s a superb exampl e of shel l concret e. Three set s
of int ersect i ng barrel shel l s 4
1
2 i nches t hick make up
t he roof, whi ch provi des an i nt eri or over 400 feet l ong
wi t hout suppor t i ng col umns.
THE MEANING OF SHELLS
Baths of Ca racalla and they built the Pantheon. Their
w o rk with domes and vaults laid the foundation for an
e m p i rical system of ru d i m e n t a ry shell technology. The
Romans possessed natural cement and had they applied
just a little imagination, they would undoubtedly have
been able to construct re i n f o rced concrete shells. How-
e ve r, two thousand years was to elapse before this was
d o n e.
The decline and fall of the Roman Em p i re was un-
doubtedly hastened by the re m oval of the world capital
by Constantine to Byzantium. Howe ver the shift of cul-
t u ral emphasis to the East brought to bear on the con-
s t ruction arts certain new ideas and fresh personalities.
These new ideas, bred of an Eastern culture, resulted in
a re v i val of shell technology and a far wider use of shells
than had existed to this time. One of the noblest build-
ings of this or any other time is the Hagia Sophia or
C h u rch of the Divine Wisdom which is sometimes now
called St. Sophia. Anthemius and Is o d o ro u s, arc h i t e c t s
for this church, solved the problem of fitting a ro u n d
dome on a square base by contriving a sort of five - s i d e d
s p h e rical triangle called the pendentive. This would be
done today simply by squaring the plan of the dome
with ve rtical intersecting arches which, all in all, seems
to be a far simpler solution but which would have been
quite impossible with materials available in 537 A.D.
Fi ve to seven hundred years passed after the con-
s t ruction of Hagia Sophia with little or no pro g ress in
shell technology except the repetition of the onion
d o m e. Then the Ca t h e d ral Builders began the constru c-
tion of the pointed and groined vaults of the Gothic Pe-
riod. No t re Da m e, Chart re s, Saint Denis and many oth-
er cathedrals we re built and added to the empiri c a l
techniques of construction of the vault and shell. Ve ry
often this pro g ress was fraught with much tra va i l .
Months or years of work as well as many lives we re lost
when some too daring master builder miscalculated his
vault thrust or ove r-extended his ratio of length to ri s e.
But these shells we re built and some of the successful
ones still stand today. The beginning of the Re n a i s s a n c e
b rought with it a re v i val of dome construction and Bra-
m a n t es and Michael Angelos Dome of Saint Peter is a
splendid example of the shell work of that time.
The Re n a i s s a n c e, with its emphasis on the art s, gave
way to the Age of Reason with its emphasis on cre a t i ve
thinking and finally to the materialism of the In d u s t ri a l
A g e. Ga l i l e o, Ke p l e r, Bacon and Newton had pointed the
way to a culture based upon scientific reason. Then with
The barrel or cyl i ndri cal shel l i s t he si mpl est and
commonest form of t he si ngl e curvat ure shel l . It i s not
qui t e economi cal , but adapt s very wel l t o a wi de range of
archi t ect ural needs. Some common vari at i ons are shown
i n t he sket ches.
LONG BARRELS
SHORT BARRELS
the beginning of the In d u s t rial Age, it became evident
that a mere empirical knowledge gained by successful
e x p e riment was not sufficient with which to build eco-
nomically and that trial and error would have to give way
to the scientific approach. Since at this time science was
ill-equipped to provide a litera t u re for construction in
the field of shells there was little more than a first faint
s t i r ring of interest on the part of geometers and optical
p ra c t i t i o n e r s. The telescopes of Galileo and Co p e rn i c u s
had taught this new breed of scientist the virtues of
g e o m e t ry in solving optical pro b l e m s. Some of these sci-
entists began to re c o g n i ze the relationship between opti-
cal geometry and stru c t u ral shells.
One of the first scientifically designed stru c t u ral shells
was built in the early part of the Twentieth Ce n t u ry by the
Swiss optician Zeiss to roof his factory in Ge rm a n y. This
was the beginning of modern shell technology. Pe rh a p s
four conditions had to be present to insure a fulfillment
of the development of the new technology. First, there
had to be a demand for the enclosure of large spaces and
this was provided by the gre g a riousness of modern man.
Second, there had to be at least the rudiments of a scien-
tific litera t u re dealing with the principles of design.
T h i rd, suitable materials had to be available and these
m a t e rials we re at hand in the form of re i n f o rced con-
c re t e. Fo u rth, a vital personality with a dedicated intere s t
was needed as the catalyst to refine the elements into the
end pro d u c t .
It seems that the development of any segment of sci-
ence depends for its pro g ress upon one dynamic person-
ality who, for reasons of his own, will bring the solution of
the problem necessary ingredients of deep thought and
s u re action. Almost inva riably this personality will ignite
the spark of popular interest and dra m a t i ze the tech-
nique to a point of popular acceptance. Such a personal-
ity entered the field of shell technology in about 1940. Fe-
lix Candela had been educated as an architect in Ma d ri d ,
Spain, and emigrated as a political refugee to Mexico in
1939. Du ring the course of his studies in Spain, he was
much intrigued with both Ge rman and French ve r s i o n s
of the litera t u re of shells. As he now re m e m b e r s, the Ge r-
man approach was heavily scientific but cumbersome
and exhaustively intri c a t e. The French litera t u re in the
field was more concerned with results and less stre n u-
ously scientific. This study aroused his interest and kin-
dled his desire to delve more deeply into shell technolo-
g y.
Ca n d e l as first shell stru c t u re was born of necessity. Hi s
p roblem was to design for the Un i versity of Mexico a cos-
mic ray labora t o ry, the concrete roof of which could be
The fol ded pl at e roof i s act ual l y j ust a speci al form of
t he si ngl e curvat ure shel l . It requi res more
rei nforcement t han a barrel shel l of equal span and
chord wi dt h, but t hi s di sadvant age i s offset by t he fact
t hat t he formwork i s easi er t o fabri cat e. A few of t he
more popul ar t ypes of fol ded pl at es are shown here.
FOLDED PLATES
TAPERED FOLDED PLATES
no thicker than 5/8 of an inch. Solution of this pro b l e m
was obviously impossible using conventional methods
of construction. Candela solved the problem with the
hyperbolic paraboloid shell. The cosmic ray labora t o ry
was built in 1951.
Since 1951, Felix Candela has designed and built liter-
ally thousands of shells, but more important to the ben-
efit of mankind, he has published his discove ries and
disseminated his broad knowledge of shell technology.
Pa ralleling the work of Candela, in a somewhat differ-
ent medium, has been the work of Pier Luigi Ne rv i .
Wo rking mostly in It a l y, Ne rvi is motivated by substan-
tially the same ideals, namely the desire for economic
s t ru c t u re without sacrifice of delicacy of pro p o rt i o n .
Ne rv i s work in shells somewhat antidated that of Ca n-
dela and has been different in technique and applica-
tion. Whereas Candela has emphasized the curve gener-
ating straight line and cast-in-place concre t e, Ne rvi has
u t i l i zed a precast technique relying on post-stressing for
c o n t i n u i t y. It is perhaps significant that Ne rvi jointly with
Candela occupies an Arc h i t e c t u ral Chair at Ha rva rd Un i-
ve r s i t y.
The techniques developed by Ne rvi in the pre c a s t i n g
of shell elements have been adopted and expanded in
many other parts of the world. A re p o rt on the visit of an
A m e rican delegation to observe concrete and pre-
s t ressed concrete engineering in the U.S.S.R. cites at
some length the work being done in Soviet Russia on
p recast concrete techniques in general and shell casting
in part i c u l a r. From this re p o rt it is apparent that the Ru s-
sians are precasting roof shells, hyperbolic para b o l o i d
thin shells and corrugated thin shell units.
Subsequent to the pioneer work of the thin shell inno-
va t o r s, many other practitioners of the building arts have
taken up the challenge. Co n s i d e rable work in thin shells
is being done in Eu ro p e, Mexico and South Ameri c a
w h i l e, in this country, we have seen the beginnings of the
use of this technique.
The author has devoted considerable attention to this
new technique of building science and, in addition to
an extensive use of shells for foundations*, has designed
s e ve ral hyperbolic paraboloid shell roof buildings, a hy-
perbolic paraboloid bandstand for an amusement park
and even a barrel shell re vetment to contain a stre a m .
We have glanced rather casually at the origin of shells
but we have not answe red the vital questionwhat do
they mean to the building arts? As one who has been us-
ing shells and particularly the hyperbolic para b o l o i d
since 1956, the writer may be allowed to express some
personal opinions on the valid use of shells and their fu-
t u re in the building industry. It seems that the logical
use of the shell as a building technique needs to be basi-
cally for economic purposes. With certain re s e rva t i o n s, it
Economy i n t he use of mat eri al and l ow formi ng cost are
si gni fi cant advant ages of hyperbol i c parabol oi d surfaces.
Just a few of t he many vari at i ons are shown here. In each of
t hese shel l s t he edges t ermi nat e al ong st rai ght l i nes formed
by t he sur face.
*See Shell Foundations, Concrete Construction, J an-
uary, 1961, page 6.
is most difficult to be in sympathy with the use of shells
for startling effect like an appliqued embro i d e ry. Howe v-
er most shells are of such a form as to create stimulating
visual appeal and consequently may well be used to en-
close space for worship or exhibition. But genera l l y
speaking though their pri m a ry application may prove
to be in the industrial field for warehouses and factori e s
w h e re they may most economically provide safe fire re-
sistant and flexibly arranged shelter.
Early experience with the construction of shell-ro o f e d
buildings re veals that such construction may be ob-
tained for approximately one-half to two-thirds conve n-
tional building cost. This is true in spite of two basic de-
ficiencies which still exist. The first of these is that few
c o n s t ructors are completely familiar with methods and
techniques of forming and placing concrete in shells.
The second is that the precasting of shells on a commer-
cial basis has not yet been deve l o p e d .
It is the wri t e rs belief that shell construction in the lat-
ter part of the Twentieth Ce n t u ry presents one of the
challenges of this generation; howe ve r, it seems ex-
t remely unlikely that the full worth of the shell will be
re a l i zed in our generation. The reasons for this outlook
a re highly complex and have to do with both the tem-
p e rament of the designers who must initiate the shell
p roject and the entrenchment of certain prejudices re-
g a rding the use of competitive materials and pro c e-
d u re s.
Despite the ve ry obvious economies of shell constru c-
tion, ve ry few projects of this nature are being constru c t-
ed. Our experience has taught us that the know - h ow re-
q u i red for successful execution of this type of
c o n s t ruction can be acquired on a single job and that
this execution need not re q u i re construction specialists.
What then is the basic cause of the potential designers
apathy tow a rd this technique? Pe rhaps this hesitancy
may be due to the philosophy expressed in Alexander
Po p es advice, Be not the first by whom the new are tri e d
nor yet the last to lay the old aside. Or it may be that
the owner resists the idea of a change in constru c t i o n
methods with which he is not entirely familiar. Howe ve r
comments gleaned from conversation with some de-
signers tend to indicate that professional fee stru c t u re s
may have a bearing on the problem. It may be that the
designer is fearful that pre vailing fees may fail to com-
pensate for the additional effort invo l ved in the applica-
tion of a somewhat daring innova t i o n .
If this is a consideration, it seems quite in order to
quote from a lecture given by Felix Candela at the
Ca rnegie Institute of Te c h n o l o g y, Ap ril 24, 1961, W h e n
people ask me why I build so many hyperbolic para b o-
loid shells, I tell them simply that I have a large family
and need the money.
*The author is a consulting engineer with offices in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
PUBLICATION #C620193
Copyright 1962, The Aberdeen Gro u p
All rights re s e rv e d