A review of the state of the art of timber gridshell design and construction

Timber gridshells are lightweight doubly curved structures. They are generated by deforming a flat timber grid towards a curved shell-like target shape. The designer can achieve a best fit approximation to a pre-determined target shape by varying the grid, boundary geometry and member stiffness. Thus a wide variety of built forms can be created. Additionally timber is a renewable resource. Despite these advantages, few timber gridshells have been realised. Bending active gridshells are complex to analyse, design and construct. The research presented here is a comparative study of a number of existing timber gridshells in terms of approach to design and analysis, material selection and construction process. The joints, the number of layers, type of bracing and type of covering are also examined. Barriers to the more frequent adoption of timber gridshells in design are identified. Research currently underway at the University of Limerick is aimed at reducing these barriers.