
Ruled surfaces in architecture | Tangente
Ruled surfaces
How can a surface made up of straight lines be curved? That is the paradox of ruled surfaces!


How can a surface made up of straight lines be curved? That is the paradox of ruled surfaces!


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A plane is generated by straight lines, and one might think it is the only surface that can be constructed in this way. But that is not so! Surfaces generated by straight lines even have a name: ruled surfaces.

Architecture today combines practicality with spectacle. New digital techniques make it possible to design buildings with extraordinary forms.

If we restrict ourselves to a surface, the shortest path from one point to another is called a geodesic. This concept leads "straight" to non-Euclidean geometries and applications in navigation and cartography.

Every regular curve is the envelope of all its tangent lines. For conics, these tangent lines are particularly easy to construct geometrically, making it possible to produce them by folding.
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