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Tensile membrane structure model
So second year is here (yay?), and I've been tasked with analyzing Frei Otto's 1967 German Pavilion. Now I have to make my own forms and shapes with the same principles, and I was wondering what materials to use that could recreate such tensile membrane structures at a small scale?
Thanks all :)
Pantyhose.
Do some research. There are plenty of photos and documents showing Otto in his studio doing tests with soap bubbles and armatures, string, nylon, etc
Go to an outdoor store and look at the hiking tents for ideas. They have been proven in very high wind, extreme conditions. The flexible poles can be made of carbon fibre or fiberglass. Some versions have the poles inside the tent so no 'cables' at all are required to achieve tension. You can make the structure redundant so the failure of one element will not cause collapse.
I did a tensile structure in undergrad and dark grey thread looks surprisingly elegant as small-scale steel cable.
Pantyhose was also a great suggestion.
Cheese cloth, my first arch. job was to build a kick ass model which featured a tensile canopy. I believe the model is still on display 10 years later
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