So, my first foray into the wide world of structures…

There’s tone of information so I’m going to detail as much of it as I can here to act as a reference.

Structures can be broken down first into two categories: natural and manufactured

• Natural structures are classified as ‘not being made by people and occurring naturally in the environment.’
• Manufactures structures are classified as ‘being made by man and not occurring naturally in the environment.’

Simple really

These can be further broken down into more specific sections:

• Mass Structure – These consist of solid materials, a brick wall is a a manufactured example, or a mountain as a naturally occurring structure. Stone statues are a good example of a man made mass structure.
• Frame Structure – Some of the worlds most famous landmarks are frame structures, these consist of members fixed together e.g. welded or bolted.
• Shell Structure – These are cool, they involve a piece of material folded or shaped to give it strength like a piece of origami.
• Complex Structure – These use a combination of the types above, like the car body and roll cage of a rally car, shell and frame used together.

I’ve put together a gallery of examples of all the types of structures I’ve talked about above, hover over each to see what they are