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Session #1617

Geometric Conceptualization In the Architectural Engineering Curriculum

Katherine A. Liapi The University of Texas at Austin

Abstract

Geometric conceptualization has always been among the essential mental tools required for the invention and modeling of spatial structures, as well as for the structural, spatial and dimensional coordination in buildings. The downplayed role of geometry in most architectural engineering curricula may be responsible for engineering students’ low performance in geometric conceptualization and visualization. This paper presents a number of geometric topics, which are inherently related to the architectural engineering education, and which I have integrated into my instruction of the Architectural Engineering courses at the University of Texas at Austin.

Introduction

Geometry plays a central role in the design of buildings in the broad sense (Motro, 1992). The abstractions, definitions, and symbols of the world of solid geometry have always been among the essential mental tools required for the invention, discovery and modeling of buildings and spatial structures in general.(Ristine,1997). Complex and sophisticated knowledge and use of geometry underlies the conception, design and construction of the most significant achievements in the history of buildings: Japanese joinery, intricate stereometric developments of Medieval Architecture and Gothic traceries are just a few historical examples. 2Oth century developments in building construction, such as paraboloidal concrete shells and geodesic domes, display an incredibly sophisticated spatial and structural conceptioning. New material technologies allude to new structural and architectural conceptions and configurations that, as Emmerich notes: “contain a whole range of forms: antiprisms, polyhedra, torus, space packings, and all kinds of hypar-spatial arrangements, creating a completely new architectural vocabulary (Emmerich, 1996). The new evolving trends in structural conceptioning and the exploration of various aspects of the relationship of geometry to the unity of structural and architectural conception and expression has been the subject of the First International Conference on Structural Morphology that took place in 1992 in Montpellier, France. (Motro, 1992)

From a different viewpoint, the design and construction of a building requires the coordination between distinct systems of organization, from functional hierarchies and circulation networks to configurations that derive from environmental considerations and configuration that are determined by the strength of materials, safety and security requirements. All distinct systems of organization need to be translated into spatial configurations. The world of geometry provides the tools to design systems and

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Liapi, K. A. (2000, June), Geometric Conceptualization In The Architectural Engineering Education Paper presented at 2000 Annual Conference, St. Louis, Missouri. 10.18260/1-2--8405