Kandahar University

Engineering Faculty
Architectural Engineering Department

Conservation of Historic Building

Lecture 02: Structural Action of Historic Building
Text-Book : Conservation of Historic Building, Third Edition
Presented By : Hameed Ahmad

1401/01/14

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General Outlines:
 Development
 Analysis and Assessment
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o
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Development

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Development:
 What is reputed to be the oldest surviving timber roof truss, found in the church of St Catherine on
Mount Sinai, dates from the sixth century.
 In Japan a timber pagoda at Nara, dated A.D. 670, is the oldest complete timber building in the world.
 The same city has a Buddhist temple, the Toruji, that is the largest in the world, which is a rebuild of
an even bigger eighth century design.
o Both are framed structures using the tensile strength in timber in order to cantilever the wide roof
overhangings that are characteristic of oriental architecture.

 Early mediaeval roofs consisted of couples of rafters pinned together at the apex and having a short
collar about one-third of the way down.

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Development:
 In late mediaeval times the roof came to be built using principal rafters with purlins supporting
common rafters.
 Palladio’s sixteenth century bridge over the river Cisman near Barrano, Italy, was an important
achievement in truss design.
 Wren’s truss for the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, was also a noteworthy example of the seventeenth
century, and from the eighteenth century we have examples of scientific trusses such as:
o St Paul’s
o St Martin

 The American timber trusses and bridges from the first half of the nineteenth century, using
magnificent timber from the white pine, made a contribution to the development of this form.

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Development:
 Because of shortage of timber in Europe, wrought iron and steel replaced timber for large-span roof
construction in the nineteenth century, early examples in England being Euston Station, London, in 1837,
and Liverpool’s Lime Street Station, in 1849.
 In London, in 1875, Liverpool Street Station by Fairburn and Hodgkinson is significant in that the
principle of continuity is introduced into a multi-span steel-framed structure with arched trusses of
graceful design, resting on tall cast-iron columns.
 Mies Van der Rohe’s Crown Hall, built in 1956 at the Illinois Institute of Technology, with its clean
detailing in welded steel, is likely to become an historic building.
 Space frames, three-dimensional trusses with rigid joints are a more recent development based upon
sophisticated structural analysis and welding techniques.

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Analysis and Assessment

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Analysis and Assessment:
 The development of effective triangulation in timber trusses was hampered by difficulties in jointing, as
the joints themselves are generally the points where trusses fail.
 Wood used for trusses creeps as a result of the tensile stresses imposed by:
o The structure
o Movements caused by variations of humidity
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Thank You!

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