Chris Williams
Chris Williams is an Artistic Professor at the Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Chalmers University. Chris joined Ted Happold’s group at Arup in 1972 where he worked on Frei Otto’s Multihalle gridshells in Mannheim and was responsible for the structural analysis and physical model testing. In 1976 he came with Ted Happold to the Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering at the University of Bath. His research interests hinge on the relationship between geometry and structural action as applied to towers, bridges and fabric and shell structures, as well as the response of these flexible structures to wind.
His work in the generation of structural form through biological and other analogies has led to collaboration on projects including the Millennium Dome, the British Museum Great Court Roof, Japanese Pavilion Expo 2000, the Weald and Downland Museum, the Savill Building, the Gardens by the Bay glasshouses and the Netherlands Maritime Museum. His work on these projects involved writing project specific software for geometry definition and structural analysis.