Description
Book Synopsis*Winner of the 2021 TAA Textbook Excellence Award*
Honorable Mention of the 2021 BTES Book Award
Structures by Design: Thinking, Making, Breaking is a new type of structures textbook for architects who prefer to learn using the hands-on, creative problem-solving techniques typically found in a design studio. Instead of presenting structures as abstract concepts defined by formulas and diagrams, this book uses a project-based approach to demonstrate how a range of efficient, effective, and expressive architectural solutions can be generated, tested, and revised.
Each section of the book is focused on a particular manner by which structural resistance is provided: Form (Arches and Cables), Sections (Beams, Slabs, and Columns), Vectors (Trusses and Space Frames), Surfaces (Shells and Plates), and Frames (Connections and High-Rises).
The design exercises featured in each chapter use the
Trade Review
"Structures by Design: Thinking, Making, Breaking is a robust introduction to architectural structures that emphasizes structural design as a creative activity and the understanding of structural concepts through active modeling. Drawing from his innovative teaching in architectural design studios, Rob Whitehead guides us through hands on exercises that develop the intuitive and analytical understandings that underlie structural design thinking. The text interweaves a typology of structural systems and a survey of classic and contemporary case studies with a fusion of conceptual design tools ranging from traditional graphic, analytical and physical models to computational analysis and a profoundly simple, yet powerfully impactful experience constructing models using our own bodies. Whitehead’s approach is unique in its premise that understanding modeling theory and the assumptions and limitations inherent in modeled systems is as important as the concepts the models are designed to teach."
Christine Theodoropoulos, AIA, PE, Dean, College of Environmental Design, Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo
"Structures by Design is an empowering text that provides straightforward techniques for structural design solutions using our own bodies as models. Engaging for both students and faculty, Rob Whitehead has written a timely contribution to the discourse of Integrated Design that surpasses abstract complexity for visualizing structures that are essential to the design process, and based in history. This is the structures text I needed when I was a student, and it’s one I’m pleased to have now.”
Marlon Blackwell, FAIA, E Fay Jones Distinguished Professor, Fay Jones School of Architecture + Design, University of Arkansas
Table of ContentsPreface Starting with Structures
0.0 Introduction: The Case for Making & Breaking
Part 1 Learning to Think, Make, and Break
1.0 Body Structures: The Feel of Things
1.1 Seating Structures: Elemental Design Options
1.2 Building Structures: Effective, Efficient, and Expressive
Part 2 Resistance & Form
2.0 FORM: Structures of Compression and Tension
2.1 Compressive Arches: Past the Breaking Point
2.2 Suspended Structures: Designing for Tension
Part 3 Resistance & Section
3.0 SECTIONS: Beams, Slabs, and Columns
3.1 Stacking and Spanning Timber: Fundamental Framing and Analysis
3.2 Better Beams and Slabs: Formal Experiments in Efficiency
Part 4 Resistance & Vectors
4.0 VECTORS: Trusses and Triangulated Planar Assemblies
4.1 Planar and Spatial Trusses: Long Span Solutions
Part 5 Resistance & Surfaces
5.0 SURFACES: Structural Art, Utility, and Assemblies of Shells
5.1 Spanning Surfaces and Shapes: Vaults & Plates
Part 6 Resistance & Frames
6.0 FRAMES: Strategies for Stability
6.1 High-Rise Structures: Taller, Thinner, and Smarter
Appendix
Spanning Tables, Charts, & Additional Examples
Additional Readings
Glossary
Index
