Structure, Construcon, Tectonics

2.3. Structure, Construction, Tectonics

'Structure' should be understood to mean a network of relationships of elements or of elementary processes'.- Wolfgang Wieser Through tectonics the architect may make visible, in a strong statement that intensified kind of experience of reality which is the artist's domain—in our case the experience of forces related to forms in a building. Thus structure, the intangible concept, is realized through construction and given visual expression through tectonics.- Eduard F. Sekler

The simplest way of describing the function of an architectural structure is to say that it is the part of a building which resists the loads that are imposed on it. All of these loads tend to distort the building envelope and to cause it to collapse; it is to prevent this from happening that a structure is provided.

6

The function of a structure may be summed up, therefore, as being to supply the strength and rigidity which are required to prevent a building from collapsing. More precisely, it is the part of a building which conducts the loads which are imposed on it from the points where they arise to the ground underneath the building, where they can ultimately be resisted.

Strength, Stiffness, Stability, Synergy Structures must be designed to satisfy three Ss and should satisfy all four Ss of structural design:

1. Strength to prevent breaking 2. Stiffness to prevent excessive deformation 3. Stability to prevent collapse 4. Synergy to reinforce architectural design.

7