Simplicity, Scale, and Surprise: Evaluating Structural Form

Abstract

Aesthetic and ethical issues of building design are presented here to encourage meaningful discussion among today’s architectural engineering students and practitioners. The evaluative aesthetic ideas of scale, simplicity, and surprise are applied to two important structures designed by Fazlur R. Khan. Khan’s profound understanding of load flow in his buildings influenced his aesthetic ideas. Furthermore, his aesthetic ideas were intimately intertwined with his ethical ideas about structural logic and the role of structure in architecture. We explore these ideas and present new insights as well. Our goal is to encourage a public discourse within our profession on the topic of evaluating structural form.