STRUCTURAL DESIGN FOR ARCHITECTURE

Structural Design for Architecture

Fig. 6.14 The timber wallframe

is a loadbearing-wall structure

built up from sawn-timbered

elements. It is the industrialised

equivalent of the half-timber

building. The fastening elements

are nails which allow the joints to

be made without removing signifi-

cant parts of the cross-sections.

The sizes of the cross-sections are

therefore considerably smaller

than those used in half-timbered

buildings.

in mechanical sawmills. They were small and

of uniform, rectangular cross-section and were

held together by nails - another mass-

produced product - rather than being

connected by traditional carpentry joints.

Lateral stability was provided by the boarding

which formed the surfaces of the walls, floors

and roof. The structural frameworks could be

erected quickly and therefore cheaply by

relatively unskilled labour. There were no

complicated joints. The building type is still in

use in the present day.

6.2.4 Timber skeleton-frame structures

In skeleton-frame structures the volume of

structural material which is present is consider-

ably smaller than in loadbearing-wall structures

and the structural loads are concentrated into

slender beams and columns. Stress levels are

therefore high, and, because the strength of

timber is only moderate compared to material

such as steel, it is frequently considered unsuit-

able for skeleton frames. There is, however, a

tradition of timber skeleton-frame architecture.

This has received fresh impetus in the twenti-

eth century by the development of laminated

timber and other types of built-up beam which

have allowed the creation of beams and

columns with larger cross-sections than are

possible with sawn timber. Skeleton frames in

timber are characterised by elements with fairly

large cross-section in relation to their length.

The structure is normally allowed to dominate

188 the architectural language (Fig. 6.15).