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8.3.1 IaaC Lecture Series Philippe Block

IaaC Lecture Series:

Novel Shell Structures/ Philippe Block

(IaaC Lecture Series 29 Nov 2016; synopsis by Jordi Vivaldi)

Even if the title “Novel Shell Structures” seems quite pertinent for this lecture, it should be admitted that its name could have been exactly the opposite: “Not Novel Shell Structures”. And the reason is that at the very end, what we are trying to do is to rediscover structural mechanisms that were already very well known in the past, and that they need to be rethought under the light of the new materials that the XXI century is proposing. The cases of brick structures and voltes are quite related to this point, and in general they are the main protagonists of our work. This century has been the one that has shaped our current theory of structures. One of the ways to discover structure forms has been the one used by Gaudí in many of his projects, in which he was studying the relation in between a structure that hangs in pure tension and the same structure that becomes in complete compression when it is flipped. Gaudí in colonia Guell did it, and in a certain manner proved that If you don’t care about material properties and just about an optimised geometry you can get a good result in a much simplified process. Actually real stresses are absolutely irrelevant, geometry is what needs to be controlled, and thats why medieval societies could build just through models and proportions: they were mainly working by scaling up. If you understand forces, stresses are so low that it doesn’t matter at what scale are you building. It is well known that Gaudí spent 10 years designing his cript, and graphic methods were crucial to describe this form with all the precision that was required. Catalan volts, compression shells, domes with cupolas, domes with multiple openings… All these solutions are mainly based in the design itself, and they can be built in compression. In order to understand what are we doing we developed rhinovault, a software that allow the designer to understand and manage a set of forces. In a certain manner, we force the designer to be aware of the relation among geometry and forces, and that is different from most of the tools. For example, if you have a force Cover - Philipe Block structure, IaaC Archive Figure 1 - Model of structure, IaaC Archive Figure 2 - Vault construction, IaaC Archive 2

attraction in a specific point, you can control where arches need to lie and that means that there is a strong link in between stresses and geometry. Beside this, it is crucial to be able to compare different types of forms: We always see forces and 3dimensional shapes that deal with them. Just by the redistribution of forces you can get a wide variety of shapes that allow you to do whatever you want knowing always how much additional material you will need to use in any geometry. To get these values you need to locally attract forces, and this process leads to a set of shapes that is quite beautiful to explore. One of the reasons why we care about discovering compression forms is because if you have compression geometries and at the same time stresses are very low it means that you can use low quality. The key premise is to work with a minimum amount of support for geometries.

One of the first projects in which we were involved with Peter Rich was a very remote project in South Africa related to a poverty program, a project where was very important to empower and give skills and employment to local people and use local material. We ended up with compression shells and basically using local soil without energy but using also traditional technics with local sand. The project involved 12 people for 1 year. Women were carrying tiles because they were designed for 2mp in compression, with almost no structural capacity and men were breaking them. That means to work with low quality material and with people that is the first time that they are working with volts. First they need the supports, and then you can build stale sections. It is important to understand that the wood that we can see in most of the pictures is just to guide the geometry, not to provide any kind of structural support.

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IAAC

DIRECTOR:

IAAC SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE:

Manuel Gausa, IaaC Co-Founder

EDITORIAL COORDINATOR Jordi Vivaldi, IaaC bits Editorial Coordinator

EDITORIAL TEAM Manuel Gausa, IaaC Co-Founder Silvia Brandi, Communication & Publication Jordi Vivaldi, IaaC bits Editorial Coordinator

ADVISORY BOARD: Areti Markopoulou, IaaC Academic Director Tomas Diez, Fab Lab Bcn Director Mathilde Marengo, Academic Coordinator Ricardo Devesa, Advanced Theory Concepts Maite Bravo, Advanced Theory Concepts

Nader Tehrani, Architect, Director MIT School Architecture, Boston Juan Herreros, Architect, Professor ETSAM, Madrid Neil Gershenfeld, Physic, Director CBA MIT, Boston Hanif Kara, Engineer, Director AKT, London Vicente Guallart, IaaC Co-Founder Willy Muller, IaaC Co-Founder Aaron Betsky, Architect & Art Critic, Director Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati Hugh Whitehead, Engineer, Director Foster+ Partners technology, London Nikos A. Salingaros, Professor at the University of Texas, San Antonio Salvador Rueda, Ecologist, Director Agencia Ecologia Urbana, Barcelona Artur Serra, Anthropologist, Director I2CAT, Barcelona

DESIGN: Ramon Prat, ACTAR Editions

IAAC BIT FIELDS: 1. Theory for Advanced Knowledge 2. Advanced Cities and Territories 3. Advanced Architecture 4. Digital Design and Fabrication 5. Interactive Societies and Technologies 6. Self-Sufficient Lands

PUBLISHED BY: Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia ISSN 2339 - 8647 CONTACT COMMUNICATIONS & PUBLICATIONS OFFICE: communication@iaac.net

Institut for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia Barcelona Pujades 102 08005 Barcelona, Spain T +34 933 209 520 F +34 933 004 333 www.iaac.net