Engineers and architects looking to integrate structural design techniques into their architectural projects will find interest in this free online course: professors from the Department of Structural Engineering and Building Physics at the School of Architecture of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (ETSAM) are offering the course “Structural Design: Learning Through Case Studies” through the Ibero-American digital platform Miriadax.
The course offers case-study-based learning, allowing students to draw their own design conclusions. To do so, the curriculum explains the structural design process of ten buildings of increasing complexity, starting with residential and small institutional buildings and ending with more complex projects featuring structural solutions for large spaces.
For each of these ten buildings, the course analyzes the formal and stylistic intentions of the design architects. These decisions—alongside site constraints, typology, materiality, and regulations—form the basis for the structural design, shaping the decision-making process required to balance these parameters with the final structural system.
The student profile requires "prior training in the fundamentals of structural engineering, including knowledge of the strength of materials, structural analysis theory, and the basic behavior of structural materials, as well as some experience (academic or professional) in the conception and development of building projects," according to the course description.
This six-module course is an excellent opportunity to deepen structural knowledge. It spans over eight weeks (with an estimated 40 hours of study) and has been available on Miriadax since March 5.
If you are interested in taking this course, follow this link.
This article was written by Javier García Librero. The translation is powered by AI.
