Past and future of grid shell structures

Because of their original organic shape and the column free space that they provide, the design of grid shell structures challenges architects and structural engineers in more than one way. Very few grid shell building exist around the world. This scarcity may be explained by the level of innovation required in such fields as design technique; construction scheme, use of material... The goal of this paper is to unify the design work done on grid shells, to understand the evolution of the designs and to provide the reader with a sense of what awaits grid shell structures in the future. The construction of a timber grid shell starts from a flat, two dimensional wooden net, the three dimensional shell type structure is then achieved by pushing on the edges of this mat and gradually releasing the internal stresses at the joints to enable the shape to live and the structure to take its most adequate form. Only three wooden grid-shell structures exist world wide, by studying the way they work and behave, as well as the process that lead to the choice of such a structure, we'll understand how grid shell were born in the mind of architects and structural engineers.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Author dc:creator

• Paoli, Céline (Céline Aude)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Jerome J. Connor.

• Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/39277

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/39277