Abstract

Tensional-integrity and Stress-Integrity: some considerations about structures in architecture and cultural heritage Engineers and architects often ask themselves about which one is the most suitable form of the structures in function of the load and constraint conditions, but, is it really necessary to look for an answer for this question? Probably Nature already contains the answer: it spontaneously optimizes the form of her structures in function of boundary conditions; in this sense the tensegrity structures, inspired from nature’s basics, assimilate the main concepts of structural optimization. This strategy of design optimization can be extend in the form of The “Galilei’s Design Optimization”, named in this way in honor of one of the first scientists who debated this problem. This type of structural optimization has two fundamental benefits: it allows to obtain free architectural forms and it is not bounded to the material chosen for the structure’s construction. The main concept is that, for every fiber of the material, every section and every element of the structure, the stress is equal to yield stress of the material assumed. This structural optimization, bio-inspired, generally can reduce the sections of every element and, for this reason, can be implemented for the study of a large-scale roof, which is particularly streamlined and not impacting the context: these characteristics determine that this design strategy can represent a possible solution to the problem of conservation of archaeological excavations, which necessarily must be protected. Therefore this paper proposes to implement the optimization criteria absorbed by tensegrity as form-finding strategies for architectural structures that can, as optimized, be perfectly responsive to the need to protect historical pre-existences.