Building Structures: Understanding the Concepts

Description

This book will appeal to anyone with an interest in buildings. Both interested individuals and all types of building professional will benefit from the explanations given for the behaviour of structures as they form part of buildings. Absolutely no prior knowledge is assumed and no mathematics is used in the explanations, which are reinforced by over 900 user-friendly diagrams.

Starting from the basic ideas of load and load transfer, the ideas are introduced step by step. Chapters one to seven form the core of the book and clearly explain all the conceptual ideas needed to obtain a sophisticated level of understanding. Chapters eight and nine then show how these ideas apply to the structural behaviour of actual buildings.

Chapter eleven looks at the interaction of structures with architecture. At the end of Chapter twelve, a few examples are given showing how significant calculations can be done for real buildings such as the Centre Pompidou. The final Chapter shows how from the conceptual understanding, simple numerical calculations can be done using no more than the basic arithmetic operations.