Abstract
Professor Tien T. Lan, the important founder and outstanding pioneer of spatial structure in China, passed away on November 23, 2022. Immediately the next day, Professor Alireza Behnejad, the Chief Editor of the International Journal of Space Structures (IJSS), sent email to us and recommended a publication of a special issue in memory of Professor Lan. We thought it was a great idea and accepted his invitation as guest editors.
After several discussions, the title of the special issue is finally determined as “The Advances of Spatial Structures in China: In Memory of Tien T Lan,” which mainly include two parts, that is, memory articles and technical papers. In the first part, we invited Alireza Behnejad, John Abel, Rene Motro, Matthys Levy, Ken’ichi Kawaguchi, Tianjian Ji, and Peter Lim, who had close relationship with Professor Lan, to recall Professor Lan’s international contributions and remarkable personality. The most important contribution of Professor Lan is that he had led technological progress and promoted engineering development of spatial structures in China. Therefore, in the second part, three technical papers relating to advances of spatial structures in China in the past two decades have been included, ‘which are “Recent development and engineering practices of space grid structures in China” by Professor Yao-Zhi Luo and Yu Xue, “The development and engineering practice of building cable structures in China” by Professor Zhi-Hua Chen, and “Development of membrane structures in China”’ by Professor Suduo Xue. In addition, a paper introducing Professor Lan’s significant contributions in research and design, and the social initiatives and accomplishments is presented by Yigang Zhang, Feng Liu and Suduo Xue, et al. Moreover, there is close relationship between China and Japan in the spatial structures community. Therefore, a paper entitled “Earthquake Response Evaluation of Cylindrical Latticed Roofs Supported by BRBs—Comparison of responses based on Chinese Codes and Japanese Regulations” is contributed by Yuji Takiuchi, Shiro Kato and Shoji Nakazawa, et al.
We hope that this special issue will bring us the most precious memories of Professor Lan and promote the development and progress of spatial structures.