Università Roma Tre

The course will be mainly given following an inductive method, hints on theoretical models will be treated anyway.
In general, each topic will be introduced with the following scheme:
1) Practical exercise or study of example architectures
2) Interpretive theoretical models
3) Numerical Simulations

Following this scheme we will proceed to recall the basic concepts of some important structural types:
a) Rope, arch, elastic curve
b) Cable nets, systems of beams
c) Plates and Shells

The structural models will be presented through synthetic formulations and the solution of the model equations will be found through software. The students will be guided in software simulations and will learn the tools necessary to control the result of the simulations.
After the introduction of structural models, an overview of some methods for structural surfaces design will be given:
1) Form finding
a. Physical models
b. computational models
2) Optimization
a. Topological
b. Shape
Some software dedicated to such methods will be used.
The students, divided into groups, will develop a simple project by choosing one or more of the proposed methods.

1) Sigrid Adriaenssens, Philippe Block
Shell Structures for Architecture: Form Finding and Optimization
2) Giulio Pizzetti - Zorgno Trisciuoglio A. Maria
Principi statici e forme strutturali