SEF Spring Lecture 2025 - The Shape of Stress

As time progresses, structural engineering has become increasingly focused on analysis, with solutions needed for geometries defined either by architects or driven by mass production and economics. Our bodies instinctively understand how gravity works, but how can we make definitive sense of the ever-increasing numbers presented in digital results? While the numbers provide a clearer view of the results for discrete elements, intuition, innovation, and visualization are essential to verify and build confidence in a digital solution. Historic structural failures have occurred that could have been easily recognized and prevented with a thorough understanding of the shape of stress. Visual techniques exist in many of the subfields of structures but are not combined as a discussed or valued methodology. Through more than three decades of innovative work, Paul Endres of Endrestudio has employed the principals of visual structural design in a uniquely integrated architecture + structural research and design practice. While there are economic benefits to designing with the 'Shape of Stress,' material reduction provides dramatic savings in the earth's resources, supporting environmental objectives and creating spaces and structures that we can embrace and remember. 1 CE credit Learning Objectives Understand the value in visual intuitive design principles. Identify techniques useful in interpreting computer results Using the shape of stress to inform conceptual design decisions Presenter: Paul Endres