On Visual-Mechanical Synthesis in Shell Structures

Abstract

While form-finding and optimization methods in shell structures have been widely advanced, discourses regarding an ideation process of how a designer or engineer may synthesize a precedent into novel designs have been less explored, as such ideation mainly relies on his/her intuition in representing structural problems. In this paper, we present a computational method to synthesize shell designs through the interplay between mechanical idealization and visual computation using traditional craft as a reference. Examples of how to generate a folding structure from weaving and tensegrity structure from folding show not only the way to convert craft logic from one type to another in shell structures but also the method to explicitly interpret the designer’s ideation process in generating a certain structural design.