STICK.S lightweight structural system
““
Designer: Wilfredo Mendez
Instructor: Luis G Daza
Project Type: UPR MArch Thesis 2013
TOS[er]: Yomara Rivera
Posted: May 2013
Project Recognition:
- Published by Ask Nature, 2011
- AIA Henry Adams Award, 2010
- Merits and research grant by the University of Puerto Rico, 2009
- Who’s Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges, 2008
- Dan-El Viera Oliveros Award, 2007
- Hispanic Scholarship Fund Grant, 2005
Design Objectives:
- The human skeleton is a model for structural systems.
- The femur’s form advises reinforced concrete frames.
- Biomorphic geometries increase the building’s mechanical, structural and sustainable performance; especially in response to lateral forces.
- Specifically addresses the seismic geographical conditions of the Caribbean and Latin America; even the strongest construction materials, like reinforced concrete, becomes vulnerable when devastated by a seismic wave.
- Reduces material waste and energy needed for fabrication.
Wilfredo’s Mental Tectonics:
- A structural system based on the biological adaptation of bone morphology to reduce structural material and optimize reinforced concrete.
- Biomimicry principles are strategically applied to drop seismic vulnerability of reinforced concrete structures.
- STICK.S (Stick System) applies Wolff’s Law to a lightweight structural system that adapts material resources to force structure diagrams employing them where needed.
- Without compromising load resistances STICK.S reduces the necessary concrete by 30 % and decreases the CO2 component by approximately 118 lbs.
Yomara’s TOSS: STICK.S recognizes the need to move to efficient architecture. One that not only responds to nature and eco-systems, but that is aware of the environmental variables, like earth quakes, that actually resumes all the threatening forces of nature in one. Nature is the best example for a better structural composition, if you look at it closely it keeps repeating the original form as fractal does, every time smaller.