Structural Failure and Adaptation

The objective of the course is to provide students with a deeper understanding of structural systems and assemblies, through the lens of structural failures and successful adaptive reuse projects. Students will be encouraged to leverage the structural knowledge they have, no matter how rudimentary, and see ‘the story of the structure’ within architecture.

We will use case studies, student research projects (presented in class), readings centered around historic and archaic structures, and the view of existing structures through the lens of modern codes. Through this work, the intent is to leave students with a deeper intuitive feel for structures, regardless of whether historic or contemporary or futuristic. Students will be left to understand that the mechanics and statics that structures abide by are often material agnostic and that realization is intended to broaden their sense of possibilities within their designs and at a future site of an existing building.

The class will likely culminate in group projects that look at the adaptive reuse of existing buildings in and around the campus, which will include some level of computational work to more deeply ‘feel’ the forces within the structure.