ABSTRACT
Gridshells formed of materials such as wood or bamboo are not true shells in that these materials are anisotropic, i.e., have varying strengths in each direction. It is possible to consider prefabricating laths of bamboo using glue-laminating technology in making bamboo plywood or strip flooring. The shells have anticlastic surfaces that provide greater resistance to out-of-plane buckling because tensile forces running in one sense direction of the shell tend to be resisted by compressive forces of equal magnitude in the opposed sense direction. The gridshells have ruled surfaces formed by lofting between two source shapes, or, more precisely, by sliding a straight line over and perpendicular to the two source shapes. Shell geometry is not arbitrary if used as a structural form. If the form is to resist load in an efficient manner - as is inherent in the shell form - specific analysis is necessary to find the optimal form and it is called "formfinding".
