STRUCTURAL DESIGN FOR ARCHITECTURE

Structural design for achitecture

to the need for a very long span (e.g. Fig. 3.10).
It can also occur through choice.
Some architects hold the view that one of
the marks of a well-designed building is that
all potential conflicts between the architectural
programme and its structural consequences
have been resolved without either aspect
dominating the other. This represents yet
another relationship between structure and
architecture and it is one with which most
mainstream architects would openly, if
perhaps somewhat hypocritically, concur. In
this scenario well-designed structure is
regarded as a necessary precondition for good
architecture. Such an approach requires that
the structural make-up of a building be evolved
in conjunction with all other aspects of its
design and that structural issues be considered
from an early stage in the design process and
allowed to play as significant a part in the
determination of the final form of a building as
the aesthetic and space-planning programmes.
In this approach the objective of design is to
determine the form in which all requirements
are satisfied equally.

It is possible therefore for structure and
architecture to be related in several different
ways and one of the first decisions which has
to be taken by a design team which has a full
awareness of the activity in which it is
engaged, is concerned with the nature of this
relationship. Often the issue is allowed to
remain unclear and some architects even deny
that there can be more than one proper
relationship between structure and architec-
ture. It has been suggested however^3 that the
relationship can take a number of different
forms and that the totality of possible relation-
ships between structure and architecture may
be summarised in the four categories of struc-
ture ignored, structure accepted, structure symbolised
and structural 'high tech'. The implications of
these categories of relationship are now
reviewed.

2.2.2 Structure ignored

It is possible, principally due to the existence

of structural materials such as steel and

reinforced concrete, to invent architectural

form without considering the structural impli-

cations of that form. The wide variety of forms

into which steel is fashioned in the manufac-

ture of motor cars, ships, marine oil produc-

tion platforms and consumer durables, for

example (Fig. 2.3), all of which have shapes

which are determined principally from criteria

other than those connected with structure,

illustrate the almost limitless possibilities

which are present in the matter of form when

3 See Macdonald, Structure and Architecture, Chapter 7.

Fig. 2.3 Steel can be fabricated into almost any shape as

the structures which are built for the marine environment

demonstrate. The construction of a ship requires

techniques of fabrication which are significantly more

complex and expensive than those which are normally

used in the construction of buildings. There is, neverthe-

less, no technical reason why such shapes should not be

employed in architecture. [Photo: P. Macdonald] 25