Aims

The aims of the course are to:

• To gain some experience in structural timber design
• To learn about the design of lightweight building structures, such as tension structures, shells and gridshells.
• To gain fluency with modern parametric design tools.

Content

This project places central focus on design, as may be undertaken in a consultant structural engineering practice. Students will work in small teams to design an innovative timber structure to satisy a challenging design brief. There will also be an element of tension structure design.

FORMAT

A combination of mini-lectures, design studios and model construction sessions, with self-paced learning of background theory and of applicable computational techniques.

ACTIVITIES

The project will be supported by external speakers who are international experts in their fields. In particular, guidance will be provided by Andrew Lawrence of Arup, and Chris Matthews of Atelier One. 

Students will be required to work in teams to design a timber structure for a real client  - the architect Colin Pennington - for a project in Norfolk. The structure is likely to take the form of a timber gridshell, and some element of the design willtake the form of a tension structure.

Additional input will be provided by

- Bill Baker, Structural Partner at Skidmore Owings and Merrill in Chicago. Bill has been responsble for the design of many of the world's most iconic buildings, including the 824m Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the world's tallest.

- Ian Liddell was formerly the chief structural designer at Buro Happold in Bath, and is one of the world's leading designers of tension stuctures. In particular, Ian was the structural designer of the London Millennium Dome (now the O2 Arena).

Minilectures will be given by the external experts and by the course leader to explain how to approach the design of long-span lightweight structures of various typologies.  Simplified analytical theory will be presented which will allow design calculations to be made, solving the systems of nonlinear equations via simple Python scripts.  Students will be introduced to modern parametric design software such as Rhino/Grasshopper in which design parameters can be explored and developed.

Students will work in small teams to develop their designs.

The final output will be a numerical model of the structural behaviour, a virtual parametric model to showcase the project's architectural features and a physical model for presentation to the client. 

MINI LECTURES

• How to design in timber.
• How to design lightweight structures: tension structures, gridshells, shells, tensegrity structures.
• How to use modern parametric design siftware such as Rhino, with its Grasshopper scripting interface.
• Basics of physical model building