Structures E-Book

Although understanding structures is central to the education of the architect, the engineering-based instructional materials currently in use are fundamentally inappropriate for the vast majority of architecture students. The teaching of structures is constrained by content, teaching methods and texts, which are increasingly ineffective in the classroom. Nonengineering (especially architecture) faculty and their studentis struggle with an aging, engineering-based approach to instruction, which is inappropriately quantitative, abstract and unrelated to the practical and creative aspects of design. The consequences of using this pedagogy are that many architecture students fail to master basic structural concepts, much less the more demanding aspects of practical application