Role of a Structure

1480 Words3 Pages

Structure is an essential part of any piece of architecture. Frankly, it is a reason buildings do not fall down. Whether it is a house, a bridge or a stadium – it is subjected to a number of loads which have to be resisted in one way or another. Structures serve this purpose of transferring loads from the points at which they are applied to the foundations. No building can possibly exist without this component and quite often architecture is defined by structures rather than the other way around. In any case, it certainly has to be a point of much consideration on behalf of both architects and structural engineers.

Biological structures came to exists much earlier than the man-made structures, let alone the structures in architecture. If you think about it, almost every example of flora and fauna has a structure to resist mechanical forces in order to prevent breaking. Human bodies have a structure – a skeleton combined with muscles and skin provide human beings with stability letting us stand up but also with flexibility letting us move, it also gives our internal organs adequate shelter so that they can function properly. The structure of a human body is indeed complex almost beyond understanding, the structure of any human-made structure, on the other hand, the structure of buildings looked into in this particular essay can be and should be understood at least by anyone participating in the process of designing anything to do with buildings.

The most straightforward way to visualise the role of a structure is to imagine a typical house as a container which hides and provides shelter for its contents. Each wall of that container is subjected to a number of loads of various nature: the self-weight of the building, the impo...

... middle of paper ...

...ments to buildings that are to be considered skyscrapers.

To sum up, structures are unavoidable and like it or not an architect has to clearly understand their purpose, as well as the principles they are governed by. Of course, satisfying the requirements that the laws of physics apply to every object on Earth put us into a certain frame limiting the freedom. Of course, buildings designed in vacuum without the constraints of all the forces acting would be much more interesting and would allow for more freedom in expressing ideas. However, building without the need of structure would eliminate the factor of the challenge to fuse functionality with aesthetics, which possibly is one of the main reasons why architecture is a form of art. Yes, structural part of buildings can be a huge constraint but, on the other hand, it turns good modern architects into great ones.

Open Document