Structural Design for Architecture
Fig. 4.15 Accommodation plan and
cross-section of the Florey Building,
Oxford, England, 1967-71. lames
Stirling, architect, F.J.Samuely &
Partners, structural engineers. The
distinctive plan and cross-section of
this building were easily realised with
a structure of in situ reinforced
concrete.Associates (1975) (Fig. 4.17). This building is of
the same basic constructional type as the early
buildings of Gropius and Le Corbusier. It
consists of a reinforced concrete structural
armature giving a plan which is free from struc-
tural walls. Two-way-spanning coffered slabs,
supported on a square column grid, define the
three principal floors. These are readily visible
from the outside through the transparent skin
which is entirely of glass and which is mounted
directly on the thin edges of the floor slabs.
Both the distinctive curvilinear plan of this
building and the cantilevering of the floor
slabs beyond the perimeter columns are
expressive of the unique properties of struc-
tural concrete and recall Le Corbusier's
drawing of the structural armature of the
Domino house (Fig. 4.5).
The architectural language of reinforced
concrete was greatly extended in the 1980s,particularly by the work of the New York Five.^6
The Museum of Decorative Arts, Frankfurt on
Main (1979-85) by Richard Meier (Fig. 4.18),
will serve as an example. In this building Meier
accepted the vocabulary of early Modernism
but not the grammar or syntax, in the sense
that he did not subject himself to a dogmatic
belief in a quest for a universally applicable
architecture, as Gropius and Le Corbusier had
done. Instead he allowed the requirements of
the building's situation and of the very complex
brief to affect the development of the form.
The plan of the building was based on two
rectangular grids set at an angle of 3.5° to each
other (Fig. 4.19). Its essential features are a
grouping of distinctively shaped masses around
courtyards, giving a juxtaposition of solid and
void which is seen also in the alternation of
solid and transparent sections in the external
skin. The structure is basically a post-and-beam
framework but the geometries of the plan and
elevations are complex. These, and the bold
treatment of small-scale features such as
doorways and balconies, are all readily accom-6 Richard Meier, Peter Eisenmann, Michael Graves,
112 Charles Gwathney, John Hejduk.