Structural understanding of polyhedra: T. Wester's works and geometric duality
Résumé
INTRODUCTION: At the First International Seminar of Structural Morphology at Montpelier in 1992, Ture Wester presented his research work, "An approach to a form and force of language based on structural dualism", in these terms:
« The structural primitives: the lattice and the plate structure, may be regarded as polars or duals on all structural levels, i.e. kinematic stability, structural mechanics and elasticity. (…) The geometry which is tied to this dualism, the polar reciprocation, creates a structural morphology which is interesting in several aspects not least because it creates an entity in the perception of the basis of the structural complex. It is a major quality that all the archetypal geometrical elements in Form Language: point, plane and line can be assigned to archetypal structural counterparts. This leads to the assumption that Form Language as approached by many authors might in a meaningful way be extended to a Form and Force Language without losing exactness. » (7/11 September 1992. LMGC, Montpellier.)
SCIENTIFIC ISSUES: In my teachings respecting the seismic performance (Directed works, design project) and the structural morphology at ENSAL, I often relied on this geometric mode of understanding structures - one of the major problems in construction is first the question of the indeformability. The aim being to propose a simple classification, holistic and pedagogically interesting ; this system makes it possible to consider the different possibilities of bracing of the flat-faced buildings and / or smaller scale objects, while opening up the possibility of creative expressions.
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES: So I continued the research of T. Wester to enrich them, on three main points:
- The introduction of the "connection by embedding" in this classification of the modes of stability of polyhedra,
- The topic related to the opposition/dualism between the longitudinal shear forces in the "plate structure", and the pin-jointed in the "lattice structure"…
- Finally, the question of stability of the cube and dodecahedron with this last system.
The work presented in this article re-start work on this thinking, seeking solutions and, above all, proposing didactic - and concrete pedagogical - tools to develop, from the principle of duality, a global, coherent and efficient classification of simple polyhedral structures.
METHODOLOGY: The approach uses an epistemological strategy consisting in making a detour from the outside of European thought, to be able to reveal the unthought. Its follows the methodology borrowed from F. Jullien which consists of placing two Greek and Chinese thoughts "in vis-à-vis", to put their "relation in tension" and make work the difference of their potential. (Jullien, 2012)
The argument is based on two ancient texts, Greek and Chinese, dating from the fifth century BC. J.-C.: the "Timaeus" of Plato (53c) and the "Hong Fan" chapter of "Shu Jing". The method consists of bringing together these two systems (Serres, 1977): a formal, geometrical one, the five Platonic solids (Πλατωνικό στερεόet), and the other energetic, the five Chinese elements (wuxing), at the base of the Chinese tradition - the principle of opposition / complementarity in Chinese culture referring to duality as a classificatory criterion.
ARGUMENT: In this phase of the research, to question the possibilities of the materialization of polyhedra from their geometric properties is therefore to specify their own "structurel" characteristics. In order to develop this research in a clear way in this paper, it will first be necessary to summarize preliminary results which already make it possible to examine how the regular polyhedral forms can be qualified according to a "structural" approach (results presented in an article published for a symposium in September 2018 by Peking University). "Structural" is understood in the sense of Alain Renier (1992): - "any arrangement which, in the languages and the human signs, produces meaning ... Unlike the "structurel", the "structural" cannot be directly identified and explained..."
This approach also shows that a multidisciplinary research, or even transdisciplinary (geometry, mechanics, construction, epistemology, didactics, pedagogy ...), can renew the perspective on these problems of statics and thus to provide « reliance operators » to fight against the compartmentation of knowledge (Morin, 1997).