From Shukhov to Hadid: Lattice Shells
High-rise construction in the new century is rapidly developing in many countries despite all economic, political or social distresses. Skyscrapers attract focused attention not only due to their physical sizes, but also thanks to their unusual facades and remarkable silhouettes independently on their surroundings. Many skyscrapers of various purposes have been designed within the past years. From Canada to Australia, historical cities and new urban settlements unequivocally diversified their skyline. In this variety of tall buildings, it is very difficult now for the architects to invent new artistic devices or shapes that would be appropriately used without being accused of repetition or plagiarism. Gained experience dramatically illustrates that the stylistic diversity of skyscrapers is ginormous. The huger the diversity - the more difficult to distinguish the most universal and most widely used constructional methods or solutions in the modern high-rise construction. As the matter stands, having studied the most unusual tall buildings all over the world we get convinced that one of the most widely used structural elements that give certain freedom and plasticity are lattice shells, especially actively used in recent decades.
From the point of view of engineering structural lattice shells are thin-walled rigid spatial structures with curved surface. They let span vast areas without using inner supports thanks to self-bearing properties of the structure. Façade lattice shells are meant for enclosure of main functional space of the building and for conceptual design of its appearance, mainly in a vertical plane. At the same time when spatial geometry is changed with the help of engineering calculation, the required stiffness of shells is achieved without extreme changes in their mass. Another advantage of working with modern spatial shells is that the difference between façade and roof structures is not critical thus allowing architects to implement structural solutions with shapes of any complexity and plasticity and to work on the project as a whole sculpture object. These structures were widely practiced in high-rise architecture of the 21st century.
First lattice shells (double curvature slabs) were invented and implemented by V.G. Shukhov at the end of the 19th century (at Vyksa Steel Works, 1897). During the 20th century architects and engineers used lattice shell slabs as well as high-rise shell towers in different countries. At the end of the 20th century complex lattice structures of amorphous type became more popular. This allowed the architecture of the new age to use all variants of existing lattice structures and shells. New television towers in Guangzhou and Tokyo are a common example of monofunctional engineering structures implemented with capabilities of the 21st-century construction technologies.
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Text: Marianna Maevskaya