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208 STRUCTURE AS ARCHITECTUREmight encourage us to physically connect with it through touch.Structure is rarely experienced through smell, although the fragrance offreshly milled and erected timbers might be savoured. And, apart froman awareness of the acoustic screening or the reverberation propertiesof concrete and masonry structural walls, structure rarely impingesupon one’s sense of hearing.TRANSFORMATIVE POWER OF STRUCTUREThroughout this book many examples illustrate how structure transformsotherwise bland surfaces and spaces, both exterior and interior.By virtue of its composition-making and space-making qualities, structureintroduces visual interest and character. Surfaces take on a degreeof interest and ‘spaces become places’. Additional architectural enrichmentflows from structure’s interaction with light, or by offering meaningto viewers through its representational and symbolic qualities.Structure is not a neutral architectural element. It influences the spacearound it, and its very presence invites architectural analysis or readings.This book encourages architects to develop a strong proactive stancetowards structure, rather than resigning themselves to perceiving structureas purely utilitarian. Architects should allow their design ideas todrive the structural design. They should make the most of structure asan architectural element, beginning with its form and layout, and furtherenliven their designs through structural detailing. The architecturalsuccess of any structure should be assessed by the extent to which itrealizes a design concept, or in other words, enriches a design.This perception of structure creates opportunities rather than constraints.Such a positive attitude releases structure from the shackles ofconventional practice and its two masters of constructability and economy,and frees it to play more substantial functional and aesthetic rolesin architecture. Just as a structural overlay upon an architectural plan orsection bestows an additional sense of constructional reality to anotherwise diagrammatic representation, exposed structure transformssurfaces, spaces and viewers’ experiences of built architecture.STRUCTURAL DIVERSITYThere are a surprisingly large number of modes by which structureenriches architecture – the most important being to assist the realizationof the design concept. In order to achieve this goal, exposed structurewill be prominent in one or more of the areas of architecturediscussed in the previous chapters, such as in intensifying or contrastingwith architectural form, or modifying the visual appearance of the exterioror interior of a building. Structure, in all likelihood, will also be