Designing structures with tree forks : mechanical characterization and generalized computational design approach

Timber structures have seen a resurgence in structural design in recent years due to a desire to reduce embodied carbon in the built environment. While many of these structures use standardized or regular elements, the recent revolution in digital fabrication has resulted in a variety of more complex and irregular timber forms, usually achieved through milling or other machine-driven production processes. However, the organic nature of wood has also inspired architects and engineers to harness naturally occurring formal variation, for example, in the geometries of tree forks and branches, to produce designs that are more directly responsive to their constitutive materials. Compared to conventional fabrication processes for timber, in which the material is often processed several times to achieve characteristics that are present in the original material, this approach embodies little waste in material and effort.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2020

Author dc:creator

• Desai, Ishani,M. Eng.Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Caitlin Mueller.

• Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses may be protected by copyright. Please reuse MIT thesis content according to the MIT Libraries Permissions Policy, which is available through the URL provided.

Licence dc:rights.uri

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

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/127284

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/127284