Archinect - News

University of Seville architecture professor develops new mathematical concept that can impact 'engineering and construction of buildings'

2023-03-20T09:10:00-04:00

During the construction of the university’s new engineering building, Cabeza-Lainez found that calculating the area of a roof with straight lines resting on a semicircle was impossible just by using pi. After 30 years of research, [he] published a paper about his discovery in ScienceDirect [...] Both articles present his proposal of a number psi (Ψ), with a value of 3.140923, close to pi but which can be applied to a versatile geometric form that he calls an antisphere.

According to El Pais, mathematician and architect Dr. Cabeza-Lainez had to develop his own proprietary calculation software in order to prove the equation. He has also published a book on solar light transfer and says the application of psi in various forms can lower costs associated with energy consumption by 50%.

Graphical Abstract of research from "New Simulation Tool for Architectural Design in the Realm of Solar Radiative Transfer" paper by Joseph Cabeza-Lainez, Jose-Manuel Almodóvar-Melendo, Paula Revenga-Dominguez, Inmaculada Rodríguez-Cunill, and Yingying Xu. Published research can be found in MDPI Journal's Special Issue "Sustainable Design in Building and Urban Environment."

He shares with Raúl Limón of El Pais that the new equation can be applied to “a downspout, to a network of pipes, to an earthquake-resistant tower, to 150-foot [50-meter] ships without using columns, even to biotechnological devices” that he's tested through models made with 3D printers. Rail network t...

We Are All Scutoids: A Brand-New Shape, Explained

2018-08-01T00:48:00-04:00

Where you have curvature, you have scutoids

Naming a fundamental shape that nature uses at 2018 AD is a credit long overdue. Now the shape architects use has a legitimate public name and official credibility and no longer be called weird. First living architect came to my mind was Frank Gehry. Yours?

"Honestly, in the beginning, we couldn’t believe that nobody before us had named this shape. I mean, geometry has been around forever—the square, the circle. It’s really wonderful that we could name something this fundamental."

New UK train station got their math inspiration wrong

2017-06-12T17:14:00-04:00

Conway confirmed what several mathematicians have noticed since the station’s unveiling: the pattern on the façade follows the logic not of Conway’s Life but of Wolfram’s Rule 30, a different cellular automaton identified by the computer scientist Stephen Wolfram.

Atkins designed £50m Cambridge North railway station, a 4,843 sq ft building with three platforms and parking, opened this May.
Its aluminum façade was inspired by The Game of Life, a cellular automaton that a British mathematician John Horton Conway developed in 1970. Conway, nevertheless, claims that he does not recognize his work in the architecture of the station.

“That’s not mine,” the mathematician said of the pattern. “I have had an influence on Cambridge, but not apparently on the new railway station.”

As a 2015 Guardian profile of Conway put it, “the Game of Life demonstrates how simplicity generates complexity, providing an analogy for all of mathematics, and the entire universe."

The house that a "calculus rock star" built

2015-10-06T14:45:00-04:00

[The Canadian mathematician James] Stewart was...an unlikely architectural trailblazer. He devoted many years of his life, and much of his income, to building his dream home in an upmarket Toronto neighbourhood. Integral House – named after the 'integral', a concept in calculus – is a shrine to calculus, the mathematics of flowing change. Stewart died last December, aged 73, and Integral House is now for sale at £11.4m [approx. $17.4 million]

More about mathematical design on Archinect:

The Golden Ratio: Relevant or not?

Mesmerizing Mosque Ceilings built by Muslims

Win a copy of MORPHING by Design Topology Lab founder Joseph Choma

The world's greatest buildings provide a window on great math and great design

2013-02-04T17:56:00-05:00

Roof structures of this size and complexity cannot be built without an explicit geometry that can be expressed mathematically. Without such a mathematical model, it is not possible to calculate the loads, stresses, and rotational forces to which the vaults will be subjected and to estimate the impact of wind and temperature changes on their stability. Parabolas and ellipses were Utzon's first choices for the profiles of the vaults, but neither provided a buildable option.

An App For Architects That Makes Physics Easy

2012-10-15T18:58:00-04:00

After seven years of teaching structures to a mixed group of architecture and structural engineering graduate students at MIT, Paul Kassabian found that many of his future architects took a just-enough-to-get-the-homework-done approach to understanding those fundamental components. So he created an app to help them out.

Design Topology Lab

2011-08-18T12:47:16-04:00

This is the first research practice dedicated to the ontology of space defined by mathematics.