142 EAAE no 35 Teaching and Experimenting with Architectural Design: Advances in Technology and Changes in Pedagogy
Lightweight structures design has always had a multi-disciplinary character. Most
of projects have been the outcome of the effort of an inter-disciplinary team includ-
ing designers, architects, engineers, structural engineers, manufactures, contractors
and material specialists, while many designers whose name has been associated with
these architectural typologies, haven’t always had an architectural background (E.
Torroja, P.L. Nervi, P. Rice, E. Happold).
These fruitful collaborations, yet always application oriented, have created a
long pushing-to-the-limits research tradition in this field and have developed an
experimental character based on the always reliable trial-and-error path, where in a
rather scientific approach, theory is always complemented by experimentation with
conventional or digital tools.
Lightweight structures (re)discovered: resolving a misconception
In a teaching framework though, features inherent in the educational approach
often contradict the above mentioned design characteristics, thus contributing to a
misconception of lightweight structures.
The usually segregated character of architecture education (necessary for methodo-
logical reasons) and the lack of integration of related fields in the design process is
creating or reproducing a design environment with limited to none inter-disciplinarity,
where either the designer has limited control of the project focusing primarily on for-
mal investigations, either the project is of limited scale (installations) in order for the
designer to keep control of all aspects. Form becomes the primary concern and issues
of structure, materials and processes remain secondary and are rarely investigated
as form generators. Tools are explored in this direction, competences are developed
accordingly and digital technology is seldom used to all its extent.
In a design and teaching environment of this kind, lightweight structures, deprived
from their inherent design characteristics, are looked at like caricatures of a certain
typology and have lost their appeal, teaching and experimenting in this field becom-
ing obsolete.
Recent technological advances have influenced the practice, as well as the teaching
of architectural design, but they have also radically affected fields closely related
to architecture. Evolving material properties, structural morphology, manufacturing
technology and construction processes shape a new reality directly linked to the
creation of architectural form.
“Digital technology and CAD/ CAM applications have triggered a proliferation of
complexly shaped building designs including the free forms we call ‘blobs’. [...] With
current discourse focusing on the underlying shaping principles of ‘digital archi-
tecture’, architects often overlook the fact that the formal complexity of the blob
is achieved through conventional constructional and structural means – skeletons
assembled from linear and curvilinear members that support secondary members and
non-structural building skins. These systems rely heavily on bending stresses – the
least efficient of the basic load-carrying methods [Fig. 3]. The visible surface of the
freeform shape is structurally functionless.”^3