Mike Schlaich, professor at TU Berlin and the Managing Director of schlaich bergermann and partner, was yesterday evening at IAAC. He mainly spoke about lightweight structures made with concrete. He made an overview of concrete shells through history showing Felix Candela’s work who was able to build 4 cm shells with his hyperbolic paraboloid. The thickness was the minimum and the structures become lighter. He is trying to follow the flow’s forces and the distribution of the bending moment. As an example of his work, he showed a bridge which appear from an artist scketch based on bending as a mirror axis, the tension and the compression. Mike Schlaich gave us an idea as well the current research on lighweight bridges at TU Berlin.
