Physical Form Finding Of Lightweight Structures

Designing structures as light as possible is an intelligent and responsible way for engineers and architects to conceive structural systems. Aesthetic values that make lightweight structures visually appealing come from a functionally correct form, which establishes a dialogue with forces. Nowadays, these structures are able to cross incredibly wide spans with a least amount of material. Still, the quest for lightness must also cope with current design constraints that gives sense to modern structures.
This book presents a computational method for the preliminary shape design of lightweight structures. The strategy relies on fundamental concepts of structural design to formulate an opti- mization problem combining theories of mathematical programming and structural mechanics. The method considers many design settings including stress and displacements constraints, self-weight, multiple loading conditions, and structural stability considerations. Besides, the conceptual frame- work is well suited to accommodate project-specific constraints. These building blocks result into an integrated design process at midway between form finding and structural optimization. Several large-scale applications of three-dimensional bridge and dome structures emphasize the versatility and the robustness of the proposed method.
The book is primarily written for graduate students and researchers in architectural, civil, and mechanical engineering. The material is also of interest for practioners in structural design who are concerned with the design of lightweight structures. Readers are assumed to have some basic knowledge of mathematical optimization and structural computational mechanics.

Benoit Descamps is an architectural engineer specializing in the computational design and optimization of lightweight structures. He holds a PhD from the Universite libre de Bruxelles in Belgium, where he is now a researcher in the Building, Architecture & Town Planning Department. His research activities are concerned with architectural design, form finding, structural optimization, mathematical programming, and parametric modeling. He is currently working on a spin-off project which aims to introduce computational optimization tools into construction practice.