Structural Basis of Architecture

by Bjorn N. Sandaker, Arne P. Eggen

One of the most important subjects in the education of an architect is architectural structures. It is also a principal concern in daily practice. The term architectural structures refers to the skeleton of buildings and all the methods and formulas required to calculate and design the various elements that allow a building to stand: footings, walls, columns, beams, arches, trusses, and the like. Given its technical nature, this subject has traditionally been taught from an engineering perspective, with textbooks that tend to be dry and filled with building examples that are of little interest to architects. The Structural Basis of Architecture represents a departure from that tradition, made possible through the collaborative efforts of an architect and an engineer. The book analyzes the structural principles behind many of the best-known and most beautiful works of architecture in history and current times, presenting the subject in a context very appealing to architects. Works by Alvar Aalto, Louis Kahn, Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, Norman Foster, and Santiago Calatrava, among others, are used to illustrate the different structural principles. An important feature of the book is its survey of architectural structures in the wide historical perspective of art, architecture, and engineering. The examples range from prehistoric monuments to contemporary works of art, buildings, and bridges. The result is a volume that enlivens the subject for students while also maintaining its authority as a reference for professionals.

Genres: Architecture

224 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1992

Reviews

[z · Rating 3 out of 5]

- I read only the chapter on loads, which was 30 pages, but I still want to consider this as a book I finished, since I'll be reading different passages from architecture books over the year

- I learnt a lot of things in terms of the weather and air density being considered a load, rather than just physical loads (people, animals, furniture).

- The specifications in terms of the natural loads got a boring though.

[Marco Klein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Introduction
The Structural Basis of Architecture is co-written by three authors. Bjorn N. Sandaker is a Norwegian Structural Engineer and Professor at two Universities. His academic focus in on the connection between architecture and structural engineering. Arne P. Eggen is an architect and Professor, with a design focus on bridge structures. Mark R. Cruvellier is an American structural engineer and Professor in Architecture. His practical experience comes from bridges and skyscraper projects. The authors describe the book as a means to see how structures are integral to architecture, both in mechanical aspects as well as space, form and concept. Many case studies illustrate the structural concepts, which are deeply explored in diagrams and mathematical equations. This book is a suitable introduction to structures in architecture for both architectural designers structural engineers, and serves as a source of inspiration to both fields. The authors attempt to answer the questions “How do structures work?” and “What form do structures take in architecture, and why”?

Description
The third edition, published in 2019 by Routledge, contains 560 pages in soft cover in A4 format, and comes in at just under 2kg. It is segmented into 13 chapters, which cover the following topics.
Structuring space
Structural systems
Loads
Statics
Materials
Hangers and ties
Beams and slabs
Columns and walls
Trusses and space frames
Frames and shear walls
Cables and membranes
Arches and vaults
Domes and shells.

Each chapter introduces general concepts and follows in logical, consistent sequence with more detailed explanations and calculations. The theoretical ideas are applied to real-life project scenarios described in schematic illustrations and colour photographs. The chapters are arranged in a sequence from simple to complex, in terms of understanding structural system behaviours and their functional and architectural qualities. In one sentence, this book gives us an engaging overview of a large bandwidth of structural systems, with clear descriptions and explanations that help the reader to develop a view of architecture and structural engineering that gradually becomes more integrated.

Strengths & Weaknesses
The book delivers with its compelling visuals and easy to understand schematic diagrams. The author’s writing style is engaging and for the most part not engaged in overly technical term, which allows the lay reader to follow fairly easily along for an entertaining read. One can tell that the author’s key focus in his work is the integration of architecture and structural design, as this comes through strongly throughout the text. The writing flows nicely and many cross-references to earlier and later topics help form an interconnected mental map of the presented content. Depending on the reader’s level of understanding of mathematical equations, the book has the potential to fall short of providing sufficient context for the lay reader to assist with understanding more complex calculations. The text sometimes pivots in and out of passages of very abstract, technical terminology. The author seems to assume that the reader can follow the calculations and derivations as easily as he can stipulate them.

Overall value
There is a lot of content in this book and the quality of it is generally good. The information in the text is very condensed and concise, which sometimes requires a little more time to grasp all that is being laid out. All project examples and the selected photographs clearly illustrate the concepts described and allow lingering on the imagery for longer examination. The depth of complexity of the topics is well moderated, where at times the author states that full explanations of the structural behaviours of some of the more complex structural systems are outside of the scope of this book. Overall, this book serves as a very comprehensive, mostly easy to follow introduction to structural systems in architecture.

Recommendation
Readers will like this book if they are interested in a better understanding of th variety of structural systems in building and infrastructure projects. Every reader should be able to use this book as an interesting read or as reference book, and apply the concepts and calculations up to their own personal level of confidence. Designers in architecture and structural engineering should definitely benefit from this read by being more informed in their design decisions, having a wider scope in thinking about the options of structural system available, and talking about structures in architecture more eloquently, both in their interdisciplinary coordination work as well as with their clients.