Course Details

1. Review the development of timber and steel structures in the ancient and modern times and the production of new materials. Recognize membrane and tensile structures.
2. Identify timber and steel as building materials and their properties as basic building materials. Compare the natural material of wood and the industrially produced steel.
3. Use wood and steel protection specifications based on new technologies.
4. Review new material technologies like nanotechnology (“Self Cleaning”, “Air Purifying”, “Easy to Clean”, “Anti- Graffiti”, “Anti- Reflective” properties etc.) or textile manufacture for tensile structures
5. Analyze contemporary case studies in terms of use of the available technology of materials.
6. Develop new design principles based on the available technology.

Contemporary structural materials and innovative design: Development of timber and steel structures in the ancient and modern times. Properties and production of new materials. Membrane and tensile structures.

Timber and steel as bearing structures: Properties of wood and steel as basic building materials. Types of construction wood: Natural and industrially produced wood. Wood protection specifications. Study of joints on timber structures. Steel Construction Design. Vulnerability of steel members. Historical and contemporary design principles. Research on traditional and contemporary materials, based on new technologies.

New Technologies: Application of new technologies like nanotechnology (“Self Cleaning”, “Air Purifying”, “Easy to Clean”, “Anti- Graffiti”, “Anti- Reflective” properties etc.) or textile manufacture for tensile structures. Analysis of contemporary case studies in terms of use of the available technology of materials. Material specifications and methods of use.

• Hristos Athanasopoulos, Building construction, design and technology, Hristos Athanasopoulos Edition, 2003.
• N.Kalogeras, Ch.Kirpotin, G.Makris, I.Papaioannou, S.Rautopoulos, M.Tzitzas, P.Touliatos, Architectural Technology, Symmetria Editions, Athens, 1999.
• Sylvia Leydecker, “Nano Materials in Architecture, Interior Architecture and Design”, 2008

• Mario Salvadori, Why Buildings stand up- The strength of Architecture, Norton and Co, 1990.
• W.Huntington-R. Mickadelt, Building Construction Materials and Types of Construction, J. Viley and Sons, 1981.
• Mario Salvadori, The bearing structure in architecture, Themeli Editions, Athens, 1981.
• Gyula Sebestyen, New Architecture and Technology, Architectural Press, 2003, ISBN 0-7506-5164-4.
• “A Green Vitruvius, Principles and practice of sustainable architectural design”, 1999, ISBN 978-1-873936-94-8.
• N. Hawkes, MACmillan P.G.,Structures the way things are built, Oxford,1993
• J. Gordon, Structures of why things don’t fall down, Da Capo Press,1978
• Klaus- Michael Koch, “Membrane Structures”, 2004, ISBN 3-7913-3049-7.

The taught part of the course is delivered to the students by means of lectures and computer-aided presentations. Lecture notes and presentations are available through the web for students to use in combination with the relevant textbooks.

Lectures are supplemented with project work carried out on an individual basis. Students are requested to design and produce construction details for a small light structure. During the semester, course instructors are making comments and corrections on the students’ proposals, at every stage of the process.