An Introduction to Structural Mechanics for Architects

Book excerpt: This textbook offers an introductory course to structural mechanics for architects, including problems and solutions. It follows a completely different approach to structural mechanics than the usual books for engineering schools, making it much more attractive for architecture students and practitioners. It also offers a different point of view for engineering students, as it provides them with a more intuitive understanding of structural mechanics and the models therein.Instead of studying the classical theory of linear elasticity and then particularizing it to simple structures, this book analyzes structures in a historic and also typological order. The book starts with cable structures and stone arches, followed by trusses and, finally, frame structures made of beams. For every typology, the latest, state-of-the-art theory in the field is introduced in a very didactic way.