Farnsworth House

Welding

“Any steel framework is an arrangement of components that transfer forces in their connections”

In the Welding chapter of Construction Matters, Windeck mentions that the most important attribute of a wedding system is jointing. Rigid connections transfer forces in all directions and make the framework stiff. Welding allows for connections without additional plates or fasteners.

There are five basic welding joints:

A fillet weld unifies steel pieces along the line in which they meet while a plug weld connects overlapping plates at certain points. The plug weld distributes stress over a larger area.

Farnsworth House

The Farnsworth House by Mies van der Rohe was built in 1951 on the outskirts of Chicago. The glass pavilion creates a gentle relationship with its surrounding environment, connecting the inhabitor (Dr. Edith Farnsworth) to the ten acres the house rests on.

To the left is a diagram of how force travels to the ground (the ultimate resting place for force).

The one-story house’s structure is made of eight I-shaped steel columns with floor-to-ceiling windows in between. The steel columns are the only part of the structure that Mies allowed to disturb the ground so the floor and roof are both supported by them.

When force comes down vertically on the Farnsworth House, it travels to the closest beam, down the beans to reach the outside frame. From there it splits up to find a column to travel down to reach the ground. I included two arrows pointing at each other on the bottom level of the frame to indicate how the frame is being held together.

Forces are going to take the path of least resistance on their journey.

Although the fastest path may be turning left to find the closest column, the force will still split off to the right and travel to the closest column that way as well. There would just be more force going to that column on the left, creating an uneven distribution.

The Farnsworth House has multiple welding joints. In places where the joints cannot be seen by inhibitors, there are conventional bolted connections. This type of joint spreads out the forces over a larger area, creating less stress on that joint. Mies uses plug welding for visible connections.