In Shaping Structures, an engineer and an architect, both longtime teachers of structures at major American universities, collaborate to present an inspired synthesis of the creative and the technical, explicating both the principles of statics and their application to the fascinating task of finding good form for structures. This richly visual volume features: * An easily understood development of the fundamentals of statics * Step-by-step demonstrations, using both numerical and graphical techniques, of simple yet powerful methods for finding form and forces for arched structures, suspended structures, cable-stayed structures, and highly efficient trusses * 120 photographs and more than 300 crisp drawings that illustrate and explain the magnificent structural triumphs of master architects and engineers -including Gustave Eiffel's famous tower, Robert Maillart's soaring bridges, Pier Luigi Nervi's landmark Turin Exhibition Hall, and many others * Calculations in both SI metric and conventional units throughout the book Requiring only the most rudimentary mathematical background yet accurate and fully functional, Shaping Structures provides an inviting point of entry to the study of structural design for engineering and architecture students -proving that the science of statics doesn't have to be lifeless, simplistic, or dull.

In Shaping Structures, an engineer and an architect, both longtime teachers of structures at major American universities, collaborate to present an inspired synthesis of the creative and the technical, explicating both the principles of statics and their application to the fascinating task of finding good form for structures. This richly visual volume features: * An easily understood development of the fundamentals of statics * Step-by-step demonstrations, using both numerical and graphical techniques, of simple yet powerful methods for finding form and forces for arched structures, suspended structures, cable-stayed structures, and highly efficient trusses * 120 photographs and more than 300 crisp drawings that illustrate and explain the magnificent structural triumphs of master architects and engineers -including Gustave Eiffel's famous tower, Robert Maillart's soaring bridges, Pier Luigi Nervi's landmark Turin Exhibition Hall, and many others * Calculations in both SI metric and conventional units throughout the book Requiring only the most rudimentary mathematical background yet accurate and fully functional, Shaping Structures provides an inviting point of entry to the study of structural design for engineering and architecture students -proving that the science of statics doesn't have to be lifeless, simplistic, or dull.

The first edition of Shaping Seattle Architecture, published in 1994, introduced readers to Seattle’s architects by showcasing the work of those who were instrumental in creating the region’s built environment. Twenty years later, the second edition updates and expands the original with new information and illustrations that provide an even richer exploration of Seattle architecture. The book begins with a revised introduction that brings the story of Seattle architecture into the twenty-first century and situates developments in Seattle building design within local and global contexts. The book’s fifty-four essays present richly illustrated profiles that describe the architects' careers, provide an overview of their major works, and explore their significance. Shaping Seattle Architecture celebrates a wide range of people who helped form the region's built environment. It provides updated information about many of the architects and firms profiled in the first edition. Four individuals newly included in this second edition are Edwin J. Ivey, a leading residential designer; Fred Bassetti, an important contributor to Northwest regional modernism; L. Jane Hastings, one of the region’s foremost women in architecture; and Richard Haag, founder of the landscape architecture program at the University of Washington and designer of Gas Works Park and the Bloedel Reserve. The book also includes essays on the buildings of the Coast Salish people, who inhabited Puget Sound prior to Euro-American settlement; the role that architects played in speculative housing developments before and after World War II; and the vernacular architecture built by nonprofessionals that makes up a portion of the fabric of the city. Shaping Seattle Architecture concludes with a substantial reference section, updated to reflect the last twenty years of research and publications. A locations appendix offers a geographic guide to surviving works. The research section directs interested readers to further resources, and the appendix “Additional Significant Seattle Architects” provides thumbnail sketches of nearly 250 important figures not included in the main text.

Bringing together 12 original essays, Shaping the American Interior maps out, for the first time, the development and definition of the field of interiors in the United States in the period from 1870 until 1960. Its interdisciplinary approach encompasses a broad range of people, contexts, and practices, revealing the design of the interior as a collaborative modern enterprise comprising art, design, manufacture, commerce, and identity construction. Rooted in the expansion of mass production and consumption in the last years of the nineteenth century, new and diverse structures came to define the field and provide formal and informal contexts for design work. Intertwined with, but distinct from, architecture and merchandising, interiors encompassed a diffuse range of individuals, institutions, and organizations engaged in the definition of identity, the development of expertise, and the promotion of consumption. This volume investigates the fluid pre-history of the American profession of interior design, charting attempts to commoditize taste, shape modern conceptions of gender and professionalism, define expertise and authority through principles and standards, marry art with industry and commerce, and shape mass culture in the United States.

Here, in one volume, is all the architect needs to know to participate in the entire process of designing structures. Emphasizing bestselling author Edward Allen's graphical approach, the book enables you to quickly determine the desired form of a building or other structure and easily design it without the need for complex mathematics. This unique text teaches the whole process of structural design for architects, including selection of suitable materials, finding a suitable configuration, finding forces and size members, designing appropriate connections, and proposing a feasible method of erection. Chapters are centered on the design of a whole structure, from conception through construction planning.

For anyone who needs an intuitive and practical approach to the design and appropriate sizing of load-bearing structures, this book describes the complete panorama of supporting structures and their function by describing how loads are sustained and transmitted to the ground.

The book covers the theory of Michell structures being the lightest and fully stressed systems of bars, designed within a given domain, possibly within the whole space, transmitting a given load towards a given support. Discovered already in 1904 by A.G.M. Michell, the structures named after him have attracted constant attention due to their peculiar feature of disclosing the optimal streams of stresses equilibrating a given load and thus determining the optimal layout of bars. The optimal layouts emerge from among all possible structural topologies, thus constituting unique designs being simultaneously light and stiff. The optimal structures turn out to be embedded in optimal vector fields covering the whole feasible domain. Key features include: a variationally consistent theory of bar systems, thin plates in bending and membrane shells; recapitulation of the theory of optimum design of trusses of minimum weight or of minimal compliance; the basis of 2D Michell theory for a single load case; kinematic and static approaches; 2D benchmark constructions including Hemp’s structures and optimal cantilevers; L-shape domain problems, three forces problem in 2D, bridge problems; revisiting the old - and delivering new - 3D benchmark solutions; extension to multiple load conditions; Prager-Rozvany grillages; the theory of funiculars and archgrids; the methods of optimum design of shape and material inspired by the theory of Michell structures, industrial applications. The book can be useful for graduate students, professional engineers and researchers specializing in the Optimum Design and in Topology Optimization in general.