In the present work, an optimization method is proposed in order to produce innovative stiffening layouts for large stiffened cylindrical shell structures, as they appear in the aerospace industry. A componentbased logic is applied on a ground mesh of structural elements (shells and beams), which was inspired by techniques of explicit topology optimization on solid elements (plane or tridimensional massive models). Geometric components, representing the layout of the stiffeners (i.e. location, shape and size), are projected onto the ground mesh, resulting in controlled sets of active beam elements. These sets constitute the structural representation of the stiffeners' layout in the optimization model, which is then used to evaluate the objective and constraint functions of the optimization problem as well as their semi-analytical sensitivities. By applying the optimization method to compliance minimization problems, we show the efficiency and accuracy of the The authors acknowledge ONERA and CNES for co-funding this project.