StructureAsArchitecture 02

Structure as Architecture
Part B
Ref.: Andrew W. Charleson, 2005. Structure as Architecture. London: Architectural Press
Consonant forms
Most buildings fall into this category where the architectural and structural forms neither synthesize, nor contrast. Rather, a comfortable and usually unremarkable relationship exists between them.
A glazed box encloses the Mont-Cenis Academy complex, a government training centre at Herne. An extended roof plane forms an entry canopy. Responding to the sites coal mining history, a particularly environmentally friendly design approach is adopted.
Mont-Cenis Academy, Herne, Germany. A glazed box with an entry canopy.

Interior timber structure.

This has been evidenced by the timber structure and the clouds of photovoltaic cells that cover 50 per cent of the roof surface. A forest of poles supports timber trusses. An interesting aspect about this project is the disparity of construction materials.
Contrasting forms
In this case, geometric dissimilarity between forms is the most common quality contrasted. Most examples of contrasting forms can be attributed to designers attempting to enliven their work. An element of surprise is also a feature common to buildings with contrasting forms.
Exchange House, London, England,. Arches enable the building to span the site.
Fleet Place House, London, England, Skidmore. Angled columns add interest to the main faade.
The Great Court, British Museum, London, England, Foster and Partners, 2000. Triangulated lattice roof with the circular Reading Room on the left.
Building exterior
So, how does structure contribute to the aesthetic qualities of the exterior architecture of buildings? This includes four aspects:
Modulation. Depth and texture. Screening and filtering. Structural scale.
1. Modulation
Where beams and columns modulate a faade, they usually visually subdivide the skin vertically and horizontally. Modulation generates patterns that potentially introduce variety, rhythm and hierarchy, and generally increases visual interest.
Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. Main faade.
Yerba Buena Lofts, San Francisco. Walls and slabs modulate the front faade.
2. Depth and texture

Variation of surface depth relieves plainness, and in conjunction with natural and artificial light. This creates opportunities for contrasting bright and shadowed areas that visually enliven a faade. Structural texture can play similar role.
Dulles International Airport, Canopy structure, World Exhibition Centre, Hanover, Germany. USA. Piers create deep Attractive textured surfaces. bays along the faade.
3. Screening and filtering

Exterior structure can be read as a screen or filter. This depends on its depth, density in plan and elevation, and its spatial relationship to a building envelope. At Library Square, Vancouver, an exterior structural frame curves around the main rectilinear library block, wrapping and screening it.
Library Square, Vancouver, Canada. A gap reveals the cross-section of the screening frame and a glimpse of the main library block behind. Getty Center, Los Angeles. Exterior structure deepens the facade.
4. Structural scale
Structural scale strongly influences how exterior structure contributes aesthetically to a faade. Dimensions of structural members are essential here. Several buildings illustrate varied approaches to structural scale.
Law Courts, Bordeaux, France, Richard Rogers Partnership, 1998. Human-scale rather than monumental columns.
Cit des Sciences et de lIndustrie, Paris, France, Adrien Fainsilber, 1986. Scaled-up columns relate to building scale and truss dimensions.
Building Function
Structures can serve building functionality in different ways including:
Achieving large structure-free floor areas by using primary structure either outside or just inside the building envelope. Subdividing the interior space. Defining and enhancing circulation.
Financial Times printing works, London, England, Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners, 1988. Exterior columns along the main faade to provide open building plan.
Open structure-free space under the shell roofs.
Museum of Roman Art, Merida, Spain, Rafael Moneo, 1985. Floor slabs divide the space vertically.
Law Courts, Bordeaux, France, Richard Rogers Partnership, 1998. A waiting area under a courtroom pod.
Public University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain. Columns define a circulation path.
Museo di Castelvecchio, Verona, Italy, Carlo Scarpa, 1964.
Structure and light

Depending upon its configuration, structure either inhibits or facilitates light penetration. In a building with perimeter structure that does not exclude natural light, structure relates to light in one of four modes:
The following slides illustrate each of these modes.

as a source of light where, for example, light passes through a roof truss to enter a space; to maximize light by minimizing the shadow effect of structure; to modify light by reflecting and diffusing it; and occasionally, for light to affect our perception of structure.
1. As a source of light
Some structural forms are far more suited than others to allow daylight to penetrate into building interiors. The most common situation where structure functions as a primary light source occurs where light passes through an open or skeletal structure like a truss.
Stellingen Ice Skating Rink and Velodrome, Hamburg, Germany
San Francisco International Airport, Light passing through a three-dimensional truss.
Sant Jordi Sports Hall, Barcelona, Spain. Light enters through constructional fold-line joints, as in this corner of the roof structure.
Railway Station at Satolas Airport, Lyons, France. Glazing centred over the main concourse.
A view across the concourse. Glazed areas are integrated with the pattern of ribs.
Stadelhofen Railway Station, Zrich, Switzerland. Integration of structure and artificial lighting.
2. Maximizing light
Where requiring high levels of daylight or transparency through the building skin, architects adopt a number of stances towards structural detailing. Maximum daylight implies reducing the shadow of structural members.
The two most common methods are either to minimize structural member sizes, or to penetrate typically sized members. Transparent structural members are also becoming increasingly popular
At 237m long, 79m wide and 28m high, the vaulted Trade Fair Glass Hall, Leipzig, was the largest singlevolume glass building of the 20th century. The tubular steel exoskeletal structure consists of ten primary trusses that stabilize a grid-shell.
Trade Fair Glass Hall, Leipzig, Germany. Exterior trusses support the vaulted gridshell.
Trusses and the grid-shell as seen from within the hall.
This strategy to achieve maximum transparency excluded potentially large-scale members from consideration. Windows invariably penetrate concrete structural walls, but smaller and more numerous penetrations may be appropriate when daylight rather than views is sought.
Mexican Embassy, Berlin, Germany. A penetrated circular wall forms part of the atrium.
Mnchengladbach Museum, Germany. Beams screen and reflect light into the gallery below.
Representation and symbolism

Structures can enrich architecture by the virtue of their representational and symbolic qualities. Structural representation is understood as structure typifying a physical object, like a tree, while structural symbolism recalls an idea, a quality or a condition.
Examples of structural representation can be divided into two groups:

In the far larger group, sources of representation include objects and processes found in the natural world. In the smaller group, sources of representation include objects and processes found in the man-made world.
Palais de Justice, Melun, France. A treesupported canopy on the main faade.

Science Museum, Valencia, Spain. Two of the giant structural trees with galleries behind.
Beams passing across the light slot read as the bars of prison cells.
FABRICA (Benetton Communication Research Centre), Treviso, Italy. Concrete construction and materiality are clearly expressed in the structural elements defining the deep-set courtyard.
Structural detailing
Exposed structural detailing can contribute significantly to the architecture of a building. Detailing can transform ordinary or purely utilitarian structural members into objects of aesthetic delight, as well as communicating design ideas and concepts.
Tobius Grau KG office, Rellingen, Germany. Structure in the office interior.
The attractiveness of the main curved glue-laminated portal members is surpassed by two lines of slightly inclined timber posts that delineate circulation from office area. The two bays of tension-only bracing are also far more elegant than usual.
United Airlines Terminal, Chicago, USA. The main concourse (left), and a beam-column junction (right).
Hazel Wood School, Southampton. The hall roof structure is typical of that for the whole school (left), and short beams transfer loads from the lattice roof to a column (right).
Web members connect to a truss bottom-chord.

The fan detail possesses the aesthetic qualities of a piece of jewellery.

Jussieu University, Paris, France. Beam geometry expresses the bending moment diagram.
Millennium Seed Bank, Wakehurst Place, Sussex, England. Detailing matches the simple structural forms.
Stratford Regional Station, London, England. Curved frames spring from cast-steel bases.
Lyons School of Architecture, France. A cast-steel shoe expresses the compression load-path.

StructureAsArchitecture 02

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Structure as Architecture

Ref.: Andrew W. Charleson, 2005. Structure as Architecture. London: Architectural Press

Ref.: Andrew W. Charleson, 2005. Structure as Architecture. London: Architectural Press

Ref.: Andrew W. Charleson, 2005. Structure as Architecture. London: Architectural Press

Mont-Cenis Academy, Herne, Germany. A glazed box with an entry canopy.

Interior timber structure.

Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. Main faade.

Ref.: Andrew W. Charleson, 2005. Structure as Architecture. London: Architectural Press

2. Depth and texture

3. Screening and filtering

Ref.: Andrew W. Charleson, 2005. Structure as Architecture. London: Architectural Press

Ref.: Andrew W. Charleson, 2005. Structure as Architecture. London: Architectural Press

Open structure-free space under the shell roofs.

Ref.: Andrew W. Charleson, 2005. Structure as Architecture. London: Architectural Press

Public University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain. Columns define a circulation path.

Museo di Castelvecchio, Verona, Italy, Carlo Scarpa, 1964.

Ref.: Andrew W. Charleson, 2005. Structure as Architecture. London: Architectural Press

Structure and light

Ref.: Andrew W. Charleson, 2005. Structure as Architecture. London: Architectural Press

The following slides illustrate each of these modes.

Stellingen Ice Skating Rink and Velodrome, Hamburg, Germany

San Francisco International Airport, Light passing through a three-dimensional truss.

Ref.: Andrew W. Charleson, 2005. Structure as Architecture. London: Architectural Press

Ref.: Andrew W. Charleson, 2005. Structure as Architecture. London: Architectural Press

Ref.: Andrew W. Charleson, 2005. Structure as Architecture. London: Architectural Press

Ref.: Andrew W. Charleson, 2005. Structure as Architecture. London: Architectural Press

Trusses and the grid-shell as seen from within the hall.

Ref.: Andrew W. Charleson, 2005. Structure as Architecture. London: Architectural Press

Ref.: Andrew W. Charleson, 2005. Structure as Architecture. London: Architectural Press

Ref.: Andrew W. Charleson, 2005. Structure as Architecture. London: Architectural Press

Representation and symbolism

Examples of structural representation can be divided into two groups:

Ref.: Andrew W. Charleson, 2005. Structure as Architecture. London: Architectural Press

Palais de Justice, Melun, France. A treesupported canopy on the main faade.

Ref.: Andrew W. Charleson, 2005. Structure as Architecture. London: Architectural Press

Ref.: Andrew W. Charleson, 2005. Structure as Architecture. London: Architectural Press

Tobius Grau KG office, Rellingen, Germany. Structure in the office interior.

Ref.: Andrew W. Charleson, 2005. Structure as Architecture. London: Architectural Press

Ref.: Andrew W. Charleson, 2005. Structure as Architecture. London: Architectural Press

Web members connect to a truss bottom-chord.

The fan detail possesses the aesthetic qualities of a piece of jewellery.

Ref.: Andrew W. Charleson, 2005. Structure as Architecture. London: Architectural Press

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