Project Nervi: Aesthetics and Technology

Abstract

Project Nervi: Aesthetics and Technology in Building Pier Luigi Nervi questioned the nature and physical impact of the relationship between aesthetics and technology from the viewpoint of architecture, engineering and construction; this question remains vital for both academy and profession. Project Nervi, a collaboration of the CMU School of Architecture and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, was formed to extend the engineers proposition of the relationship of aesthetics and technology by undertaking an empiric research project to characterize the relationship between material placement and aesthetics in architecture with reference to the correlation of material placement and performance found in nature. The tools of Processing and Grasshopper combined with physical modelling are used to better understand Nervi's structural/visual thinking of the cast concrete floor plates at the Palace of Labour (1961), the Gatti Wool Factory (1951) and the Palazzetto dello Sport (1957) and to morphologically further these prospects. In the second part of this study, we apply the pattern research to two relatively new building materials, plywood and carbon fiber for lightweight stressed skin construction based on force trajectories.