Bob Barton / Engineering Scrapbook @bobbarton-blog - Tumblr Blog

Ladbroke Grove Bridge c1936. The first welded structures for London Transport

The great thing about lightweight structures is that you find yourself having to solve problems that you never envisaged existed when you started. Forces arrive where they arrive and these are the sorts of details you end up inventing. Olympic Complex, Munich, 1972.

The iconic Golden Gate suspension bridge. This image shows just what suspension bridges are all about.

The Kempinski Hotel, Munich Airport, 1993. A 25 metre high glass end wall to the hotel atrium, comprising glass panels bolted to a flat cable net, strung between floor and roof structure. The first time such a thing had been attempted on this scale. When you shake the cables it wobbles; I know I have tried it. However, wind gusts are not at high enough frequencies to get the thing moving, and so only low frequency movements occur. Brilliant and brave. Engineered by Jorge Schlaich.

Dining Table by Jean Prove, 1946. In the original version the legs were solid wood. Then in later production versions they become folded steel, as illustrated. So practical in every respect, I work at one every day; I love it !

Broadfield House Glass Museum, Near Dudley. Engineered by Tim MacFarlane this was the first long span glass beam supported roof in the UK, and really moved things along. Well resolved and detailed, as always, at the time this really was 'state of the art' structural glass.

Reliance Controls Factory, Swindon, 1968. Commissioned by Peter Parker, who went on the run British Rail, this simple factory building was probably the first example of Californian steel construction ideas coming to the UK. The Architects, Team 4 (Richard Rogers and Norman Foster), worked with Engineer, Tony Hunt (my old boss). Tony had been influenced by the work of people like Craig Elwood and Raphael Soriano in the 1940s and 50s, and so it seems obvious to me that this building is a progression from their work. The simple layering of steel I-sections and exposed profiled metal deck, creates a calm composition against the clutter of manufacturing that takes place inside.

Again much copied, this sort of simplicity is the result of many hours refining and re-thinking steelwork connections and details. Well worth the effort provided the architects do the same with the rest of the fabric; wasted if they do not have the same discipline.

The Schulman House, by Raphael Soriano, 1950. Steel framed one off house construction, developed in California during the 1940s and 1950s showed that steel framing, using lightweight sections, was a way of creating large open plans, with thin floors and roofs. It also allowed careful integration of cladding, glazing, and finishes, and was really quick on site. We still build houses like this.

The Lloyds Building by Richard Rogers, and engineered by Peter Rice of Arup. The high water mark of British Hi Tech, a reinforced concrete frame, with concrete open grillage floors and concrete encased steel tubular bracing. The ultimate in exposed structure and services, allegedly to allow flexibility, but in reality just a great composition that move Lloyds of London into a new corporate era. Compared to the Pompidou Centre it has a sleek refinement and much cleaner lines; more Jaguar than Caterham.

A fantastic building, and one of my all time favourites, though it was very very expensive to build. The building was Grade 1 Listed in December 2011, so making it now the ultimate inflexible building. In many ways an example of how not to meet the original theoretical objectives. For engineers it is a very useful and fascinating archetype, and also inspirational, because it takes many ideas to a logical conclusion.

Louis Kahn's Kimbell Art Gallery, Texas. Engineered, like much of Kahn's work, by August Komendant. Prestressed cylindrical vaults span in their long direction. The composition of parallel vaults set side by side, creating a calm, and elegant structural system, has been much copied for good reason. A classic of structural arrangement and spacial configuration woven together; the whole much much greater than the sum of the parts.

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Le Corbusier, Dom-ino System, 1915

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Not an original idea of Corb's; flat slab construction had been been proposed and built previously. But, as so often, Corbusier picks up a loose ball and puts it in the net, to create an iconic image and concept.

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(via Farnsworth House, Mies van der Rohe, Farnsworth House Photos, USA)

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The Farnsworth House. Responsible for so much, and yet such an impractical, complicated little structure. An Icon, nonetheless, that must be included.

The Crystal Palace 1851.

Load testing the flooring system. Crystal Palace 1951.

Wrought iron beam to cast iron column connection, with some hardwood wedges, to form a moment resisting connection as part of the building's stability system. The Crystal Palace, 1851.

The Ritz Hotel in Piccadilly, 1903. Claimed by the owners and designers as the first multi-storey steel framed building in London. Engineered by Swedish/American Engineer, Sven Bylander, who had previously worked in Chicago and New York. It was probably pre-dated by an extension to the Savoy and a number of other buildings in the north of England.

Unfortunately, until the London Building Act of 1909, the external masonry facade had to be made thick enough to support the floors, even though all of the load was carried by steel columns within the external walls. London was not yet ready for curtain walling...

The Moscow Tower by Vladimir Shukhov. 1922. The pioneer of gridshell structures, who was prolific in producing a wide range of structures and forms. Unfortunately little was know if him until the late 1980s, as so his influence on European structural design has been much less than it should have been.

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