ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book seeks to provide the reader with both the technical background required to appreciate the role of structure in architecture and discusses of all aspects of this role, including the contribution of structure to architectural form and style and its importance in relation to questions such as environmental sustainability. It provides insights into both the methodology of structural engineering in relation to architecture and its historical development. The book presents the reader a wide appreciation of the particular contribution that structural engineering makes to architecture in all of its forms. It addresses the debate is often diminished by a degree of misinformation, or even simply a lack of understanding of structural principles, by the participants and this is one of the problems of architectural interpretation that it is the intention.
