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Ever Changing Relationship Between

Architecture and Structure


• The relationship between architects and structural engineers as it
has developed from the beginning of the twentieth century until
the present day was a period in which very major changes occurred
in the world of architecture as architects sought to find modes of
visual expression which were appropriate to the Modern age.
Significant change during the period - the development of the
technologies of steel and reinforced concrete. Readily adopted by
Architect – incorporated into the new architecture, bringing about
changes in the methodologies needed for the design and realization
of buildings. The evolution of a new profession, that of the
consulting structural engineer – a practitioner who is responsible
for the design of the structural aspects of buildings and who works
somewhere along a spectrum of collaborative relationship with
architects in order to bring this about.
• This spectrum ranges – At one end, engineers who have produced
architecture in their own right, working as architects rather than
with architects
• At the other end, who have sought to form close collaborations
with architects and to evolve designs in partnership with them.
• Understanding of aesthetic concept - a long debate between
architect and structural engineer, because of different assignments
and education backgrounds.
• The participation of the public – deepen the gap In the eyes of the
public -the art of structures were dominated by the architects while
structural engineers has been regard as the one who provide
assistance.
• Rise of the modern bridge engineering -Aesthetic value of structure
has been cited by many structural artists
The challenge of tradition (1760-1890)
• Historical gigantic structures- no scientific basis of their
resistant performance.
• Up until the19th century, many bridges and other
structures -work of architects.
• The separation was determined by a change: Industrial
revolution the period of stone and timber gave way to the
period of metal.
• Iron Bridge in 1779 by Abraham Darby III - the skeletal iron
offended most architects and their classical values.
• The leading civil engineer, such as Telford, Stephenson,
Brunel, etc, moved increasingly further - away from
architecture and took a strong stand for the independence
of engineering
Treatment of Form in Structural
Engineering
• Structural engineering applied to the sphere of the great architecture -
most attractive areas of creativity in the field of resistant structures. As
of now Structural Engineering – going through a situation of “over-
proficiency”: where technicians, who operate via computer programs and
spreadsheets with huge capacities and possibilities, are working with little
refined knowledge and understanding of the structural behaviour.
• The structural engineers are now faced to the challenges of the
architectural form – need a refined and thorough structural processing for
their concretion.
• The three possibilities for the structural engineer‟s approach to the load
bearing problems he is faced with due to free forms may be
1) To accept these free forms integrally and constitute them into possibly
unsuitable resistant systems – forces elements to comply with the free
configurations to transfer the tensional flow of internal stresses but over
sizing them in enormous amount.
Treatment of Form in Structural
Engineering
2) Trying to insert a structural solution into the existing formal
space, as intensively accurate and authoritative as possible
and with a great load bearing and resistant capacity- Forcibly
taking some areas of that space which had been designed for
fulfilling building‟s functionality from the architect.
3) To force or slightly modify, as presice as possible, the
proposed free form in order to try to approximate the system
– quite casual and without real consistent schemes – towards
an active-resistant arrangement on behalf of the material of
the said system, and this by integrating precisely tuned
structural arrangements into the architecture. The third
possibility can lead the process creatively a favorable
fulfillment of the solution at optimal cost. “significant” form
of a structure.
• It should be compositional, analytical and constructive.
• This allows the architect to express himself with a maximum
freedom although he later will have to accept to interchange the
aspects of structural insufficiency of his formal proposal. Great
architectural structures must be set up with a tensible thought
vision of constructivity from the very initial moment of their design
process.
• Tensiblity is “the capacity to use optimally the maximum
dimensions of the outline of the building in order to arrange in this
space a structural system able to solve the load bearing and
construction problems without altering the proposed
architectonical spirit by using chiefly canonical arrangements which
are auspiciously conditioned and which optimize the internal
energy of the bearing system, hereby achieving the optimum
efficiency and the least general cost of the structure: methods,
materials and erection process.”
• Treatment of Form in Structural Engineering Self
constructivity “the evolutive capacity of the substructures
which are embedded into the final structure and which
could be obtained by cutting or dividing them temporarily”.
(STRUCTURES AND ARCHITECTURE, Paulo J.S. Cruz)
Successive or staged active areas so to enable the system‟s
growing progress up to its final state without requiring
temporary structures or arrangements except the ones
needed for the mobility of these subsystems. If in the
conception of the architectural-structural design of the
whole building the self-construction processes are taken
into account, the said construction process may merge with
the final design. the constructive process also defines
part of the building‟s geometry or image
• The Relationship Between Architectural Form and Structural Form
Architectural form - A building‟s external outline or shape, and to a lesser
degree references its internal organization and unifying principles. Form
- The shape or three dimensional massing, but also encompasses
additional architectural aspects including structural configuration and
form, in so far as they may organize and unify an architectural design.
Structural form is a building‟s primary or most visually dominant
structural system responsible for maintaining the shape of the building
under the influence of the forces, loads and other environmental factors
to which it is subjected. SYNTHESIS OF ARCHITECTURAL AND
STRUCTURAL FORM Structure defines architectural form and often
functions, at least partially, as the building envelope. 1) Shell Structures
Achieve the most pure synthesis of architectural and structural forms.
Resist and transfer loads within their minimal thicknesses. Rely upon
their three-dimensional curved geometry and correct orientation and
placement of supports for their adequate structural performance.
Relationship of Structure and
Aesthetic Form
• relationship of interior space and structural
systems was discussed with particular emphasis
on their suitability to functional need. The
different types of structural systems through their
construction methods (namely solid, skeleton and
surface) were examined to see how they affect
the architectural form. Technical limitations of
structural systems were also considered but as
Hardy Cross said, "We must 3 always remember
that what we want is a structure not merely an
analysis. "

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