Sheffield Hallam University held a week long programme of events on the design of shell structures which included lectures from Prof. John Chilton on the work of Heinz Isler, Prof Remo Pedreschi on the work of Eldio Dieste and John Romer from Cullinans on the making of theDownland Gridshell.
With the course leader Gabriel Tang, John worked with the architectural students in design workshops culminating in the construction of a full size gridshell structure in the University's grounds.
The first grid shell we built unfortunately collapsed over night.
ReplyDeleteWe then learnt from our mistakes and went on to build another two more successful shells that (fingers crossed) have stayed up.
This is a great project. Am curious - did you build it as a flat lattice or elementally in its final shape?
ReplyDeleteThe laths were woven on the ground (flat) and the lattice was pushed up to its final shape. The perimeter was then secured into the ground to maintain its rigid shape.
ReplyDeleteWhat timber did you use and did you have any problems with it splitting?
ReplyDeleteWe used ungraded softwood batons sourced from a local timber merchant. There were no problems with splitting as the batons were visually graded on site.
ReplyDeleteStudents at Sheffield Hallam University has just built another gridshell with contributions from the office. Check it out on twitter #matcon2013 with lots of pictures. you can also follow @shellrevivalist for discussion.
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