The Railway Station “Stuttgart 21” Structural Modelling and Fabrication of Double Curved Concrete Surfaces

Abstract

Contemporary architecture often asks for complex double curved surfaces while the engineering of such structures often becomes a challenge. This paper illustrates the tasks that emerged and the methods developed during the engineering process of the new railway station “Stuttgart 21”. One of the main challenges in generating a structural model out of the architectural design was the definition of the middle surface for the concrete shells and the need to obtain a meshed system with continuously varying shell thicknesses. Both tasks were solved using RhinoScript, which was also used in the further design stages to define the rebar cage on the basis of a parameter-based optimized design. Fabrication costs were thereby minimized by reducing the number of reinforcement types throughout the structure.