campUAS

WPM14 - Structural Design

Recent Covid- and/or climate-change induced shortages triggered a rethinking of available materials and structural efficiencies on a rather global scale. What are appropriate materials to construct with? How to join them? Can they be disassembled? Is there a particularly ‚aware‘, a pronouncedly ‚conscious‘ way to structurally design buildings? For the purpose of this seminar we will focus on sustainable materials. This being said, even material like timber or even rammed earth rarely come alone. They are mostly accompanied by metal bolts or concrete bases, protective coatings or sheeting. This interplay will be studied at detail.

When it comes to the bare bones of a building, we also will examine structural practicalities. We will be asking what is possible and what is sensible. We will split our time analysing an existing project of your choice, as well as developing our own structural system. We will explore most simple materials and examine their structural properties, look for alternative constellations and surprising solutions. Due to the limited scope of the seminar this self-designed system will be confined in scale, however, it will expose and ideally celebrate a structural principle, joint, or design of your own.

Using the main tool of an architect, the drawing, we will describe structural members and their functions by controlling our graphics as precisely as possible. Whilst using all available digital tools, we will deploy most basic threedimensional drawings, namely axonometries, making distinct use of line thicknesses, hatches and textures to focus and highlight internal workings. The seminar will thus be as much about structural design, as it is about its graphical presentation.