The concept of the Staggered Truss System was developed by a team of architects and engineers from the Departments of Architecture and Civil Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) who combined their respective talents to achieve this imaginative and efficient steel framing system. The system consists of a series of story-high trusses spanning the total width between two rows of exterior columns and arranged in a staggered pattern on adjacent column lines, as shown in the following figures.