Learning by building: physical vs. numerical form finding

Parallel Session 76, Tactile strategies for teaching spatial structures (WG 20) Jelena Vukadin, Dominik Vidovic, Josip Vuco, Elizabeta Šamec, Petra Gidak and Krešimir Fresl (University of Zagreb) present their work on static analysis. Within the course of Static Analysis 2 at the University of Zagreb, undergraduate students had the opportunity to explore a design process of lightweight tensile structures. Students first investigated physical form-finding by creating freeform tensile models and later they tried to obtain a similar shape of the structure by using the latest computational design methods. In the paper, one of the models created by students is presented in detail, where certain key steps in building such a model are identified. The physical modelling of the structure served to better understand the specific behaviour of tensile structures before the numerical form-finding. The geometry of the numerical model is created and manipulated inside the 3D CAD modelling software Rhinoceros by using several Grasshopper plug-ins. Numerical form-finding and assignment of additional constraints were performed using Falcon, plug-in based on the iterative application of the force density method. Read the paper by accessing our conference proceedings. 📚 Use the link https://doi.org/10.15126/900337 to download your digital copy and let yourself be #inspired! Watch their presentation "Learning by building: physical vs. numerical form finding" from the Spatial Structures 2020/21 Conference. #IASS #IASS2020_21 #SpatialStructures #Architecture #Structures #Engineering #LightweightStructures #CivilEngineering #StructuralEngineering #Conference #Construction #computationaldesign #nextgeneration #parallelsessions #tactile #teaching