
The Airshell Prototype
This paper by Alessandro Liuti, Sofia Colabella, and Alberto Pugnale, presents the construction of Airshell, a small timber gridshell prototype erected by employing a pneumatic formwork.
Parametric Design of steel structures
By using parametric modelling tools, designers can simulate a high number of design-variants with relatively low effort. Visual programming software’s like Grasshopper significantly lowers the threshold for beginners to start building parametric models.
This paper discusses how using Grasshopper as a parametric design tool can be applied by structural engineers to improve well-informed decision making, when designing a steel structure. Finally, worth mentioning further possibilities parametric design workflows can bring are discussed such as optimisation strategies, optimising sustainability and including structural connections in the parametric model.
Parametric design is a phrase which is becoming more prevalent in the Architecture Engineering and Construction industry (AEC). It allows the designer to generate and analyse multiple variants, which speeds up the decision-making process and drastically increases the capacity of the work of an engineer. In making better informed decisions, parametric design is inevitably becoming a fundamental skill for structural engineers.
A significant contributor to the popularity of the phrase Parametric design are visual programming packages. Visual programming is a no-code type of programming where code is encrypted into components. Each of these components has inputs and outputs. With wires these components can be connected to each other.
Forming a network of logic where the output of one component serves as the input for the other. This network of logic processes input into a defined output. Compared to conventional programming, visual programming is significantly more intuitive, making it relatively easy to learn for beginners.
Visual programming software, like Grasshopper, have many different types of applications. This paper focuses on how structural engineers can use Grasshopper to design steel structures. These steel structures are often described by using points and lines.
We shall further focus here on such geometries. Hence surfaces, which are often used to describe concrete structure, as displayed in, will not be covered here. Although, having good basic knowledge about simple lines structures will make it easier to learn how to work with more complex geometry such as surfaces.
All geometry discussed in the examples of this paper, shall be created to be compliant for finite-element-method-calculations. This means a different approach is used compared to simple drawings with a generic CAD program. Firstly, lines are defined from node to node. Typically, in a CAD tool drawing a straight line will be a single straight-line segment, see truss in.
This prevents that the intersection nodes are being found and will result in the truss not behaving as desired in the analysis. Secondly, in finite element packages curves do not exist, there are only (straight) 1D elements. Therefore, when an arch is modelled, this arch must be discretised into multiple line segments.
Visual programming can offer the engineer a useful extra tool. Due to the large number of plug-ins available, parametric design brings many possibilities in search for better solutions in design projects. Making use of its full potential requires training, especially improving how complex structures can be broken down into a sequence of logical steps.
To give the industry the possibility of implementing these new possibilities Bouwen met Staal organises English courses in parametric design bi-annually. Planned dates of upcoming courses can be found on the Bouwen met Staal website.
This paper by Alessandro Liuti, Sofia Colabella, and Alberto Pugnale, presents the construction of Airshell, a small timber gridshell prototype erected by employing a pneumatic formwork.
In this paper by Gregory Charles Quinn, Chris J K Williams, and Christoph Gengnagel, a detailed comparison is carried out between established as well as novel erection methods for strained grid shells by means of FE simulations and a 3D-scanned scaled physical model in order to evaluate key performance criteria such as bending stresses during erection and the distance between shell nodes and their spatial target geometry.
In this paper by Frederic Tayeb, Olivier Baverel, Jean-François Caron, Lionel du Peloux, ductility aspects of a light-weight composite gridshell are developed.
In this paper by Julian Lienhard, Holger Alpermann, Christoph Gengnagel and Jan Knippers structures that actively use bending as a self forming process are reviewed.
Parametric Tools for Architects & Designers @2025
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