An engineer specializing in new and conservation timber structures, Yeomans teaches timber conservation at the Weald and Downland Museum, which is affiliated with Bournemouth University in Britain. This book, though suitable for architectural students, was conceived and written as a guide for archaeologists, explaining some principles of structures to help them understand what they were uncovering. He covers brackets and bridges, girder bridges, arches and suspension bridges, the structural scheme for bringing the loads to the ground, walls, frames as a problem of stability, deflecting and bending moments in floors and beams, roofs to provide shelter, and structures in a three-dimensional world. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
The alliance between architecture and structural engineering is fundamental to the design of the buildings and bridges around us. Anyone who needs or wants to “understand” a building must have a good understanding of the structural concepts involved. Yet “structure” is often cloaked in mathematics – which many find difficult to get to grips with.
How Structures Work has been written to explain the behaviour of structures in a clear way without resorting to complex mathematics. Using the minimum of mathematics it explains the structural concepts clearly, illustrated by many historical and contemporary examples, allowing readers to build up a general understanding of structures. In this way they can easily comprehend the structural aspects of buildings for themselves.
Primarily aimed at students who require a good qualitative understanding of the behaviour of structures and their materials, it will be of particular interest to students of architecture and building surveying, plus architectural historians and conservationists. The straightforward, non-mathematical approach ensures it will also be suitable for a wider audience including building administrators, archaeologists and the interested layman.
