ETFE: Technology and Design 9783764386245, 9783764385637

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ETFE Technology and Design -

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Annette LeCuyer -- ------

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VVlth contnbut Ions y Ian Liddell, Stefan Lehner a id Ben Mor ris

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The enclosed sample is Fluon ETFEfilm of 250 microns thickness which was used on the National Aquatics Center in Beijing. We would like to thank AGC Chemicals for their kind donation of these samples.

Graphic design: Esther Mildenberger, envision+ www.envisionplus.com Cover photograph: Ben McMillan This book is also available in a German edition: ISBN 978-3-7643-8562-0 Library of Congress Control Number: 2008920812

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the Internet at http://dnb.ddb.de.

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in other ways, and storage in data banks. For any kind of use, permission of the copyright owner must be obtained.

2008 Birkhauser Verlag AG Basel· Boston· Berlin P.O. Box 133, CH-4010 Basel, Switzerland Part of Springer Science+Business Media Printed on acid-free paper produced from chlorine-free pulp. TCF 00 Printed in Germany ISBN 978-3-7643-8563-7 www.birkhauser.ch 987654321

Contents

10

Introduction: Pleasure. Power and f-'a\/lOCid

32

Material Matters: ETFE

42

Stefan Lehnert II Risk and RAliilhilitv

46

Soft Structure

70

The Performative Skin

94

Variable Skin """""--""-""""-"-"-""

114

Life

126

The Communicative Skin

136

The Climatic I-mtolr"'o

146

Ben Morris II ETFE Futures

150 155

Credits The Authors

156 157

Index

159

Illustration Credits

160

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Ian Liddell Sustaining New Technologies

It is rare to have a new material introduced into the building construction industry that has had such an impact on the design and performance of buildings as ETFE foil. Over the past century there have been numerous examples of new materials and technologies that have been advanced by inventive engineers. In many cases, these materials have been popular for a brief period and then have died away

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For me the story began back in 1980 when Buro Happold was working on a study to build a covered city in the Arctic, called 58 Degrees North. The site was in Northern Alberta about 160 kilometers north of Fort MacMurray on the Athabasca river where Syncrude was mining tar sands. The climate there is grim with very low temperatures in the winter and swarms of biting black

to a lower level of use. Concrete shells were developed

fly in the summer. The study was led by a Canadian archi-

in the 1950s and flowered in the 1960s, but the change in building economics and design fashion and the exacting

tect, Arni Fullerton, who had enlisted the help of a number

requirements of concrete technology finished them off.

of experts from Canada and Europe. These included Frei Otto, a research group from the architecture and building

Fabric architecture blossomed in the 1980s and 1990s

engineering department of Bath University led by Ted

but since then has been in decline. Likewise, there was a

Happold, and Mike Barnes from City University in London.

marked change in the use of glass when float glass was introduced around 1955. With toughening and laminating techniques, larger panels were possible. However, the

Other advisors included a cultural anthropologist, Ed Van Dyke; a horticulturalist, Peter Thoday, then at Bath University, who gave advice on conditions for plant growth;

weight of glass and problems with fracture and seals have meant that multi layer construction on roofs is still risky and expensive. Now, ETFEfoil cushions are providing new opportunities for lightweight, tough and durable en-

and a specialist on the impact on human performance of light and visual stimuli. At that time, the engineering group was working on a research program on air-supported structures and the

closures, and there seems to be every reason for building applications of ETFE to continue to grow and diversify.

use of fabrics on bui ldi ngs. There was a lot of pressu re from the fabric industry to go for a PTFE/glass fabric solution.

7

Ian Liddell_Sustaining New Technologies

1_58 Degrees North, an enclosed City-in-the -Arctic scheme designed in 1980, was to be clad with ETFEcushions.!

After visiting some stadia with air-supported roofs, the team felt that this material- with about 10 percent translucency and dirty liners that gave a yellow tinged lightwas the wrong answer. We believed strongly that the enclosing membrane for the arctic city had to be transparent to the full visible light spectrum to give stimulus to the occupants in the cold winter months and to enable plant growth. As well as being transparent, the cladding would have to be at least double skinned to provide some insulation and eliminate the build up of freezing condensation on the inner surface.

and we discovered that ETFE had a very strange load extension curve with a small elastic range and a 400 percent strain to failure. This characteristic gave ETFE extraordinary toughness, making it practically impossible to tear since the crack tip - the sharp end of a crack where there are normally high stress concentrations causing the crack

The obvious options were glass or rigid clear plastics, but both had major disadvantages. A representative from

wide, the width of the foil sheet, with the edges fixed

DuPont in Switzerland suggested using a fluoropolymer foil known as Tedlar. We had considered this material

to propagate - always yielded. The design team felt that ETFEmust be the right answer for our proposed ai r-su pported envelope enclosi ng 150,000 square meters. The structure was a cable net and the cladding was to be ETFE foil cushions 1.8 meters into a stainless steel profile with EPDM rubber gaskets. The proposal was received enthusiastically by the client Tom Chambers, who was the minister for Housing and

but had eliminated it because it was not flame resistant.

Public Works in the state of Alberta. However, shortly

Other alternatives on offer were Teflon-FEP and ETFE,

afterwards the price of oil fell and the Syncrude expansion

which DuPont called Tefzel. FEPhad already been tried at the Arnhem Zoo but had quickly torn. The DuPont representative explained that, because ETFE had a reasonable

was abandoned. When it was restarted ten years later, robotic technology had reduced the need for large numbers of operatives, so the project was never built.

level of elastic behavior and remarkable toughness, it might be suitable. Tension tests were run at City University,

My next venture into the use of foil came when Buro Happold was asked in 1987 to advise on a scheme to

Lid,dell_Sustaining New Technologies

8

Key

Long Term HouSIng

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2_Plan for projected covered city with housing for 10,000 mining workers. / 3_Sketch cross section I

semi-outdoor spaces with a system inducing an upward flow of fresh air ventilation. Some of the hospital rooms,

tations. Importantly, this project also opened the door for ETFE cushions to be used on a range of urban buildings. The project architect for the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital atrium roof, who became deeply involved with the detailing of the aluminium, was Ben Morris, who then went on to join and develop Vector Foiltec. The third project I want to mention is the Hampshire

with windows opening out into the atria, depended on

Tennis and Health Club, which was commissioned by

cover the atria, or internal streets, of the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London. The architects were thinking of a fabric roof but we proposed an aluminium structure clad with ETFEcushions, which would have better light transmission and insulation. The atria were planned to be

these spaces for light and air. At this time, ETFE foil had

a young company that wanted a new image for their club.

been used for a few swimming pool enclosures. For these projects, the company Vector Foiltec had developed an

The design team proposed to cover the tennis courts with a lightweight translucent ETFE foil roofthat would make the courts feel like they were outside, but without the

aluminium framing system to hold three layer cushions offoiL Our roof structure, based on aluminium arches

disadvantages of blinding sun, wind and rain. After discus-

spanning 18 meters, incorporated drainage channels and

sions with Ben Morris, we opted for a roof with tensioned

concealed the inflation pipes for the ETFE cushions. Since there was some nervousness about using a new

cables supporting ETFE cushions. A scheme was prepared and a price was agreed with the client that allowed for de-

material on an urban building, the ETFE scheme was compared with a conventional steel structure clad partly

velopment work on the detailing. Unfortunately, the start was delayed by contractual negotiations and very little time

in steel sheeting and partly in glass. A detailed whole life cost analysis was carried out that demonstrated that ETFE foil offered significant advantages with low maintenance costs. The roof was built and so far has lived up to expec-

was allowed for prototype evaluation. Notwithstanding the fast pace of the contract, and after some hiccups, the structure was completed in 1995 and the tennis halls have been a huge success ever since.

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The outer and inner foils are white tinted to about 50 percent translucency. The sun is reduced to a small red dot, eliminating all glare and making ideal conditions for tennis. The result is that in summer all the interior courts are fully booked, while the external courts, which are free of charge, are hardly used. The experience of these tennis halls enabled the ETFE cushion system to be used on other cable structures, exploiting the benefits of wide spans with minimal structure. I always regret that we did not use ETFE foil on the Millennium Dome, but the technology at that time was not sufficiently developed to use it on such

sures and that has the potential to be used to realize the dream of covered cities. But will the technology follow the pattern of other new technologies and fade away? At present, there is interest in ETFE cushion enclosure systems from all parts of the world, and the amount of foil being installed is increasing annually. The evidence is that this proliferation is being driven by cost advantages and environmental benefits. However,the risk of the technology waning is also ever-present, arising from the possibility of systemic failures requiring expensive remedial work. With other new technologies such as air-supported fabric

a time critical project.

roofs, the seeds for failures were sown by the desire of

Since these early applications, ETFE foil cushions have lived up to expectations of being remarkably robust and

project managers to drive down costs through competition and so-called value engineering. While ETFE cushion

durable. Cuts do not propagate, even under severe wind

technology looks deceptively simple, it requires careful

effects, and can be repaired with ETFE adhesive tape. While

engi neeri ng and detaili ng to avoid problems. Foil engi neers and contractors should be selected with care. Vector

walking on the cushions is not recommended, the roof of the Hampshire Tennis and Health Club now features a set of large indented footpri nts up one of the cush ions where a maintenance man with heavily treaded boots has walked. The exciting thing is that we now have a material that can be used for constructing large environmental enclo-

Foiltec, the pioneers, have worked tirelessly to understand the nature and behavior of ETFEand to make the innovations that have enabled this technology to succeed.

Pneumatics - ideas and technologies Air, used as a building material, is a recent phenomenon in architecture. While the first half of the 20th century was dominated by innovative ideas, the second half witnessed the proliferation of increasingly ambitious built projects. As with many advances in architecture and engineering, this evolution is the result of a symbiotic relationship between the imagination and the application

In pursuit of pleasure, it is suggested that Leonardo da Vinci, who drew flying machines and, like many artists of the late 15th centu ry,used pig's bladders for the practical purpose of storing pigments, was also perhaps "...the earliest artist to have understood the inherent aesthetic character of air, [when he] created a pneumatic environment by using inflated pigs' bladders in a small room."4

of new technologies. Because of their newness in archi-

Lana advanced the scientific imagination by proposing a spherical balloon of thin copper sheet that would work

tecture, pneumatics have tended to be identified with the avant-garde but, beyond the confines of the discipline, they have a long history. Images from Assyria show warriors crossing rivers on air-filled goatskins,' and the Greeks and Romans used inflated animal skins both to make underwater breathing devices and air mattresses to rest soldiers." In the 13th century, the idea of a lighter-than-air balloon was suggested by Roger Bacon, a Franciscan friar who mixed mysticism, alchemy and scientific methods of inquiry to imagine a "huge globe of thin metal that would rise to the heavens when it was filled with the very thin air of the upper atmosphere."3

By the latter half of the 17th centu ry, Father Francesco

on the basis of a vacuurn.> In 1783, these lighter-than-air ideas became real when the Montgolfier brothers, French paper manufacturers and amateur scientists, sought "to enclose a cloud in a bag" and successfully launched a linen bag lined with paper that was 107 meters in diameter and filled with air heated by a fire." Their experiment quickly transformed into a spectacle when they repeated the demonstration before the king at Versailles in the presence of an estimated 100,000 spectators, who flocked to the event "like pilgrims drawn to a hearsay miracle."7 Made of cotton lined with paper, the Versailles balloon introduced the concept of

11

Introd uction _Pleasure, Power a n ~~ayl?ad

.So

D E RE 1.1 I LIT A R I

F LA; VII VEGETI I

LIB. 1111.

2

1-2 _ Engravings fr om Script ores rei militar is, 1532, show Roman use of infla ted animal skins far underwate r breath ing devices and air matt resses. I

payload by carrying a shee p, a duck an d a rooste r. Several mon t hs lat er, another Mon tgolfie r balloon inaugur at ed manned flight and was followed closely by the journey of Jacques Charles and Nich ola s Robert in a hydrogen -filled valved balloon made of rubber-i mpregnat ed silk." By the end of 1783, balloon f lig ht, previously only imaginable, .....was rapid ly becomi ng a popular, romantic and ubiqu it ous adven ture,"? Pleasur e and power were inext ricably inte rt wined in t he balloon. Alt hough th e Montgo lfi er balloon was decorat ed wit h golde n fl eur s-d e-li s to fl atter th e king, an observer

neous and visce rally aro used...The sense t hat t hey [th e crowd] were witnessi ng a li berating event - an augury of a fre e-floating future - gave them a kind of temporary fellowsh ip in the open air."10 Notwith stand ing th is democrat ic sp ectacle, as instruments of strategic powe r, balloons were read ily approp riate d for military app li cat ions, including aerial observation of battlefields and supervision of artillery fire, ini tially by Napoleo n's t roops and th en in numerous conflicts up to and including World War I.ln 1849, th e not ion of payload became more aggress ive when th e Austrians bombed

of t he event concluded t hat it turned the civil , mo ral and politi ca l world upside down; t hat reli gion had become

Venice us ing 200 sma ll hot air ba lloon s, which had only

subse rvient to science; and th at ma n was master of nature. With the benefit of hindsight, the cont emporary historian

were also adopt ed as a means of t ransp ort f or polar explorers , but th ey were unmanageabl e and easily fell prey to

Simo n Schama reinforces th e profo und implicat ions of the

th e whims of severe weath er and at mos pheric condition s.

balloon at Versai ll es: "In st ead of being an obje ct of pr ivileged vision - t he specialt y of Versailles - t he ba ll oon was

By 1900, t o overcome t his problem, Montgo lfi er's "globe airostatique" had evolved int o the cigar-s hape d dirigib le,

necessarily t he visua l property of everyone in t he crowd . On th e grou nd it was st ill, to some exte nt, an aristoc rat ic spec tac le; in t he ai r, it became democrat ic...As a spectacle, it was un predictable; its crowds were incohe rent, sponta-

or direct able, ai rshi p with a stee ring st ructure. Seeking a light weight propul sion syste m for t hese lig hte r- t han-air ships , coal and ste am were superse ded by gasoli ne and t he internal combustion engi ne. Dir igibles were ap prop riated

limited effect because of un predi ct ab le wi nds." Balloon s

12

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3_M ont golfier's balloon at Versai lles in 1783 honored the ki ng, yet symboli zed nascent demo crat ic power. / 4_Ki t e balloon s were used f or aerial supervision of bat t lefie lds fro m the Napoleoni c Wars through World War I. /

for milit ary applications and, in the civil ian domain, expanded the concept of payload, logging thousands of kilomet ers of transatlantic passenger t ravel. However, fill ed with hydrogen, t hey repeatedly fell vict im to cat astro phic f ires, and t he t ravel and tou rism ente rp rise came t o an abrupt halt with t he f iery crash of t he Hindenburg in 1937. Nonethe less, dur ing World War II, balloons conti nued to be used for exploration and as defensive barrages; airships for minesweep ing and reconna issan ce work ; and infl at ables for decoys and temporary build ings. In their publication TheArchitecture of War , Keith Mallory and Arvid attar observed, "Durin g 1900 -45 , one can identify the emergence of two st rands of military bu ilding acti vity: f irstly an evolutio nary stran d which countered new development s like t he tank simply with further variatio ns on th e t heme of fortress design; and second ly a strand wh ich responded to real quantum shifts in the availabi lity of techn ology,in an altogether more innovative way."12 This second st rand focused on lightness, providing fertile terri tory for thinking beyond the airship to the development of air- supported structu res for te rrestrial defense, high altitud e scient if ic research and th e Space Race. The ad-

vances of these programs would in turn have a profound impact as the y percolated from the powerful military-in dustrial comple x int o the public realm . Paradise - ideas and technologies In parall el wit h t he evoluti on ofth eories and tec hnologies of pneumatics is t he history of attempts to bot h imagine and build an ideal environment. One of the oldest and most enduring ideas is th e notion of a garden paradise. The Garden of Eden, documen ted in t he Old Testament and wit h a name derived from the Hebrew word for "delight ," is a concept man ifest in many ancient cultures .The word

"paradise" connotes garden, circular enclo sure and wall . In bot h Eden and paradise, the earthly garde n is bounded, with th e perfected and pleasurable harmony of huma n bein gs and natu re wit hin the garden starkly contrasted with a host ile environmen t beyond. Paradise was also pursued pragmatically, notab ly by the Romans, who created artificial climates in heated enc losures.P During the Renaissance, humanistic preoccupations produ ced another it erat ion of t he ideal world .The imag inary island in Sir Thomas More's book Utopia , writ t en in

6

5

5_Jn 1901, an early dirigible won a prize for navigating an 11 km round trip from St. Cloud to the Eiffel Tower in 30 minutes. / 6_The Garden of Eden contrasts harmony of man and nature within the bounded domain with a hostile environment beyond. /

1516, was the conceptual site of a perfect social and political system. Focusing principally on man's relations to fellow man, the concept of Utopia was nonetheless, like the Garden of Eden, a bounded domain in which harmonious social relations were posited in opposition to harsh conditions elsewhere. At the same time, the systematic study of nature in the Renaissance produced botanical gardens, the first in Padua in 1543, which sought to gather the world into a single domain. These early scientific versions of the Garden of Eden advanced with the creation of artificial climates for growing plants deveoped in greenhouses. By 1654, in a treatise on forcing and greenhouse gardening called The Garden of Eden published by Sir Hugh Platt, the sacred ideal had seemingly been subordinated to secular realities, although "[g]reenhouse gardening still had overtones of profane conjuring." 14 During the 17th and 18th centuries, following the same path as pneumatics, the secular transition was more emphatic. The British and Dutch financed seed and plant gathering expeditions around the world and, at home, developed increasingly sophisticated gardens and buildings to house them,

creating what was effectively an "environmental machine." A private zoo and gardens near Leiden were described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus as "masterpieces of Nature aided by Art." 15 The enclosed, perfected world imagined in the Garden of Eden was being energetically constructed by man. By 1817,when John Claudius Loudon, an entrepreneur engaged in the burgeoning business of gardening, praised the ability of glasshouses to "...exhibit spring and summer in the midst of winter...to give man so proud a command over Nature," the harmonious balance of the Eden ideal had been profoundly shifted. "[This] culture of environmental fantasy," 16 coupled with the abolition in Britain of the glass tax in 1840 and the development of economic methods of mass producing glass, led to a dramatic increase in the construction both of conservatories - which created benign artificial environments for plants by using heat, ventilation and shading devices - and of glazed arcades and atria to provide similar advantages for human beings. The technological advances that generated the great 19th century horticultural glasshouses culminated in the Crystal Palace, designed by the gardener Joseph Paxton,

7

7~_Leiden University Botanic Gardens, as recorded in 1718, were foremost among man's efforts to gather nature into a constructed and secular Garden of Eden. /

which translated man's command of nature into an overt

century. Likewise, the Crystal Palace - erected in just six

statement of political and economic power. The perfect and

months, enjoyed for the five months of the Great Exhibition,

harmonious Garden of Eden was the empire and its fruits

then swiftly dismantled - was, like Montgolfier's balloon,

the greatest global collection of man-made goods and

seemingly spontaneous and ephemeral. This new sense

chattels ever assembled. Nature was not entirely banished

of lightness in buildings, both actual and phenomenal, was

from this garden of commerce, with the building envelop-

to contribute significantly to the emergence of pneumatic

ing enormous mature trees on its site in Hyde Park. The

forms of architecture. During the 20th century, the pneu-

profou nd impact of this immense envi ron mental enclosure,

matic imagination!'' and visions of a perfect world would

the largest ever constructed at the time, was recorded

intersectto produce a new generation of theories and

by Richard Lucae, a 19th century German critic: "As in a

proposals for the built environment, each manifesting a

crystal, there is no longer any true interior or exterior. The

different synthesis of the desires for pleasure, the imper-

barrier erected between us and the landscape is almost

atives of political and military power, and the economic

ethereal. If we imagine that air can be poured like a liquid,

necessities of payload.

then it has, here, achieved a solid form, after the removal of the mould into which it was poured. We find ourselves within a cut-out segment of atmosphere. It is, in my opinion, extraordinarily difficult to arrive at a clear perception of the effect of form and scale in the incorporeal space."17 Lucae's language, in addition to suggesting a paradisiacal experience in which the vault of the sky has been built by man, also foreshadows the terminology of pneumatic structures that would be developed during the 20th

L_Adriaan Beukers and Ed van Hinte. Lightness (Rotterdam: 01 0 Publishers) 1998, p.157. 2__ Leonard C. Bruno. The Tradition of Technology (Washington DC: The Library ofCongress) 1995, p.18. 3__ Roger N. Dent. Principles of Pneumatic Architecture (New York: Halstead Press Division, John Wiley + Sons, Inc.) 1972, p.24. Refers to History of Airships byB. Clarke. 4__ W. Sharp. "Air Art," Architectural Design (March 1968) p.99. 5__ Dent, op. cit.,p.24. 6__ Bruno, op.cit., p.209. 7__ Simon Schama. Citizens - A Chronicle of the French Revolution

IntroductionPleasure, Power and Payload

15

8

8_The Crystal Palace of 1851 exemplified the architectural quest for lightness that would emerge to dominate the 20th century. /

(New York: Alfred A. Knopf) 1989, p. 124. 8__ Bruno, op. cit., p. 109. 9__ ld. at p. 209. 10_ Schama, op. cit., p. 131. 1 L Beukers and van Hinte, op. cit., p. 154. 12_ Keith Mallory and Arvid Ottar. The Architecture of War (New York: Pantheon Books) 1973, p. 269. 13_John Hix. The Glass House (London: Phaidon Press Ltd) 1974, p. 9. 14_ld. at p. 10. 15_ld. at p. 13. 16_ld. at p.19. 17_John McKean. The CrystaL Palace (London: Phaidon Press Ltd.) 1994, p. 32. 18_ The phrase "pneumatic imagination" is from the essay by Marc Dessauce entitled "On Pneumatic Apparitions" in The Inflatable Moment (New York: Princeton Architectural Press and The Architectural League of New York) 1999, p. 13.

The first pneumatic building proposal is attributed to Frederick William Lanchester, an English engineer, who patented a design for a field hospital in 1917.This fabric tent without poles or conventional structure was to be supported by low air pressure and entered by means of air locks. Some 20 years later, collaborating with his architect brother, he designed a pneumatic exhibition building 300 meters in diameter that was supported by air pressure

and their construction. Fuller drew attention to the issue of lightness in buildings by critical examination of their weight compared to more eff icient ships, airships and airplanes. At various points in his career, he developed ideas and constructed prototypes for lightweight transportable structures for military use and, for a period after World War II, promoted ideas aimed at converting military tech-

and restrained by a cable net.' In 1942, prompted by the

nology to civilian applications. Payload became a central preoccupation for Fuller.

demands of the War Production Board in the United States,

The concept of lightness, of doing more with less, was an

engineer Herbert H. Stevens and designer Al Bush devel-

index of both industrial efficiency and environmental

oped a scheme for an airplane factory with a clear span

responsibility. In 1951, long before sustainability assumed its environmental mantle, he coined the term "Spaceship

structure of 366 meters that was to be achieved with 1.2 millimeter thick steel sheet supported by air pressure."

Earth," which recognized the planet as a secular Eden,

With technology lagging behind the imagination, all of these projects were unbuilt.

a bounded and benevolent domain in which survival depended on the harmonious balance of man and nature. This enduring theme in his work surfaced again in 1969 in the book Utopia or Oblivion, which contrasted the ideal with its potential failure. Throughout his life, Fuller sought

Lightness

Buckminster Fuller - whose wide-ranging visionary intellect engaged him in design, science and industry and as a consultant to business and government - made major contributions to both the concept of lightweight structures

to apply his sweepi ng ecological philosophy th rough design proposals. His early Lightful Houses research focused on new forms of mass housing that were both "lightweight"

The Pneumatic trnaginationArclutectural tdeas and

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17

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1_Buckminster Fuller's 1929 Dymaxion House proposal incorporated pneumatically stressed structural components. / 2_Plan, isometric and elevation /

and, like paradise, "de-lightful."The houses, which featured tensile structures and were made of new lightweight materials that were prefabricated, were to be transported to site by helicopter and conceptually moored like airships, touching the earth lightly. These evolved into the 1929 Dymaxion House - the name a fusion of the terms dynamic and maximum - a mass-produced single family dwelling conceived as an analog of a natural system such as a tree or human being. The central mast of the house was to be "made of duralumin tubes, inflated to high pressure, in triangulation with piano-wire steel- similar to a battleship mast or a dirigible mooring...The floors likewise, in tension

The dual significance of geodesics has been described in the following terms, which allude to both payload and paradise: "As technical artifacts, they aimed at maximum efficiency in the relationships of volume to weight, use of materials to useful surface, and assembly time to mobility. As sociocultural alternatives to typical rectangular architecture, the dome crystallized society's dreams of a life liberated from constraints and tutelage."6 Pneumatics and geodesic principles came together in a collaboration between Fuller and Berger Brothers of New Haven, which produced lightweight domes using pneumatic sandwich panels made from a dual-walled membrane held together

between their triangular supports, are softened by pneumatic pressure between two flexible shells, the upper one which might be something like synthetic approximations of leather."4The Dymaxion House was not realized and, by the time that the concept evolved into the prototypes of the Wichita House, which were constructed in 1944-46, pneumatics no longer played a structural role. Fuller's development of lightweight geodesic and tensegrity structures is credited with helping scientists and doctors to recognize these same structures in nature."

by drop threads'? This fabric was manufactured in a single weaving process, which had been developed concurrently by Goodyear in the US using the trade name "Airmat," and by the military Research and Development Establishment at Cardington in the UK.8 Bubbles and paradise

Fuller also produced the Garden of Eden projects, a series of geodesic studies that included a house built in the Hollywood Hills in 1962 and the steel framed, acrylic clad

18

3

The Pneumatic lmagination.Architectural Ideas and Applications

4

3_3he US Pavilion for the 1967 Montreal Expo, designed by Buckminster Fuller, was a 76 m diameter two layer geodesic dome clad with transparent acrylic panels. / 4_Buckminster Fuller's prototype for a pneumatic geodesic dome was made from a dual-walled , single woven membrane. /

US Pavilion for the 1967 Montreal Expo. In these buildings, in which the bounded domain of paradise was manifested as a constructed vault of the sky, "...Fuller pursued the goal of optimum development of geodesic domes as 'environmental controls,' as spatial and climatic skins, as regu lators and valves of the desi red exchange with the environment...The idea was to work together with Nature."9 Although not air-supported, these structures were con-

a large cable net roof, one of a number of unbuilt projects for human settlements in extreme climates that Otto pursued throughout his career. Reflecting on these studies, Otto reinforces Fuller's notion of the ephemeral as materially efficient and ecologically sustainable: "Our large-scale covering projects for the Arctic and our shade roofs in the desert were consciously utopian and planned as 'nonbu ild ings.'The fi rst ones date from 1951-52. I located them

ceived as approximations of pneumatic membranes"? and

in extremely inhospitable areas in order to show that it was

were presented by Fuller and discussed in the popular

also possible to create paradisiacal environments there ...

press as bubbles. Both pneumatic and ephemeral, bubbles proved to be compelling imagery for Fuller's crusade for

I can only imagine such utopias being realized in an extremely lightweight form that does not burden the ground

lightness, making tangible a concep-tual connection he

on which they stand in physical, chemical or visual terms and that can be removed without leaving a trace." 12

had expressed as early as 1938 in Nine Chains to the Moon, in which he recorded the formula: Efficiency = doing more with less. :. EFFICIENCY EPHEMERALlZES11 Fuller's 1960 bubble montage of the 2 mile (3.2 kilometer) diameter dome over Manhattan captured media attention, but it was not the first proposal for a large-scale environmental envelope. Earlier, the young German architect, Frei Otto, had proposed a "City in the Antarctic" under

At the Institute for Lightweight Structu res in Stuttgart, which he founded in 1964, Otto articulated the principles and structural theory of all manner of lightweight structures and explored the potential of air as a structural element. Drawing from an understanding of biology, initially intuitive and empirical, then subsequently nurtured by close collaboration with the biologist Johann-Gerhard Helmcke in Stuttgart's Biology + Building research unit,

5

5_Buckminster Fuller's Manhattan bubble envisioned an urban scale climatic envelope.! 6_Jrei Otto studied bubbles and pneus as natural structu res of maximum efficiency.!

6

Otto concluded that all cells are fluid-filled membranes, either pneus filled with air or hydros filled with water.

Otto's work was focused as much on the psychology of "light-hearted improvisation"16 as on the natural principles

Form-finding experiments with soap film bubbles, natural pneus, were documented in his comprehensive treatise, Zugbeanspruchte Konstruktionen (Tensile Structures), published in 1962, which sought to "...promote air as the most lightweight of all building materials." 13

of lightweight construction. Just as Fuller's structural concepts proved to have parallels in nature, bubbles - as structures of maximum efficiency using a minimum of material- were prime exemplars of nature's economy of means. Although Otto researched bubbles extensively, his only realized pneumatic structure was a High Voltage

For Otto, bubbles had not only structural and environmental implications but, through their identification with the ephemeral, were also politically freighted. His vision of "]a] gentle roof-like a cloudscape"14 was a reaction

Research Lab in Cologne, constructed in 1966,17 More significant was the stream of proposals from 1941 onwards that, in addition to city-scale bubbles, included inflatable

against National Socialist preoccupations with monumen-

airplanes and "airfish,' industrial sheds and convention

tal architecture some decades earlier and a response

halls. In schemes for vast air-supported greenhouses,

to the subsequent material destruction of World War II. As Winfried Nerdinger notes, both Sigfried Giedion and the

his principles came full circle, synthesizing structure and enclosure with nature in a vision of a 20th century Eden.

Bauhaus celebrated the evolution of modern architecture as a process of dematerialization, "Iblut other than Frei

Composite structures and variable skins

Otto, very few people developed a 'philosophy' of light weight construction with social connections. One who did was Buckminster Fuller, who defined the weight of build-

anspruchte Konstruktionen is a compendium of inflated

ings as a measure of the standard of development not just of industrialization, but also of mankind."15 Like Fuller,

In addition to documenting Otto's own research,Zugbeobjects, buildings and structures ranging from sails, which he calls the oldest pneumatic structures, to paddling pools and satellites. Importantly, it includes two topics that

7

8 9

7_Frei Otto's 1965 study for an air-supported greenhouse enveloped nature on a vast scale.! 8-10_ln the 1960s, phys icist Nikolaus Laing proposed a series of multi layer film building skins with dynamic environmental 10

performance controlled by variable air pressure. 8

Pneumatic wall in closed position on right turns a reflective surface to the outside.

9

Dual chamber system provides increased thermal insulation.

10 Dual chamber system closed on right to produce black body effect during the night.!

would, during the final decades of the century, become the most prominent areas of pneumatic exploration in architecture - cush ion structu res, or "pneu matically tensed envelopes that are closed on all sides and have a comparatively flat shape," 18 and composite structures, which

could reduce the amount of terrestrial energy needed for heating and cooling. In the June 1968 issue of Architectural Design, Laing's moveable films, partly coated with metals, are described as capable of"...regulat[ing] precisely air temperature, light, humidity, rainfall and air circulation,

combine pneus with skeletons. Otto links composite structu res di rectly to natu re, observi ng: "The body structu re

with solar radiation as the only energy input, except for negligible amounts of subsidiary energy for control purpos-

of animals and human beings is a composite of rigid and

es (air pressure to deploy the membrane elements)." Sug-

compression-resistant members (bones, skeleton), sur-

gesting that the culture of environmental fantasy of earlier

rounded by numerous tension elements such as sinews

centuries remained a vital force, theAD text concludes, "Tropical climates can be created in Newfoundland, and

and membranes....The muscles are parcels oftissue enclosed by membranes. Since the tissues, whose individual cells are under blood pressure, exert a load on the

zero temperatures in the Sahara ...extending the human habitat beyond the presently favoured regions. There could

enveloping membranes similarto that induced by a gas or

be one cheap and portable element combining all the

liquid, it is not surprising that all tissue elements enclosed by membrane constitute pneumatically formable shapes, i.e., the obvious relationship of all pneumatic structures

functions of the usual climatic control environmongery."2o

to these natural shapes is not accidental but inherent in the structu re."19

life buildings.

At a colloquium held at the Institute for Lightweight Structures in 1967,the physicist Nikolaus Laing presented studies of a multi layer dynamic pneumatic envelope that

Early pneumatic buildings Although Buckminster Fuller and Frei Otto significantly advanced both the theory and propaganda promoting

It would be more than three decades before this concept of a thin film dynamic skin would be fully realized in long-

21

The Pneumatic lmagination.Architectural ldeas anl(dJ,t,IJelicatiolls

14

11

15

12 16

11_Walter Bird's radome prototype, developed in 1948 to shelter radar antennae from extreme Arctic environments, spawned numerous pneumatic structures for military applications. / 12-13_ln 1957, LIFE magazine popularized Birdair's air-supported swimming pool enclosures as climatic envelopes. /

__--=_..---1 13

14-16_The 1959 Boston Arts Center Theater featured a 44 m diameter air-filled cushion held by a steel frame. /

pneumatic structures, others applied and commercialized these principles. The engineer Walter Bird, whose career began in research, is credited with realizing the first air-supported building structures. Working at the Cornell Aeronautical Lab, Bird successfully designed radar antennae as pneumatic cushion structures on steel rings." He was subsequently commissioned by the US Air Force in 1946 to design building enclosures for early warning radar antennae that were required to be portable and transparent to radar signals, while also providing shelter from harsh

shelters and greenhouses. His swimming pool enclosures, which featured on the cover of LIFE magazine in 1957, signaled increasing public acceptance of air architecture, and companies offering inflatable buildings as products proliferated both in the United States and Europe. Architects also began to take notice. In 1959, architects Carl Koch and Margaret Ross, collaborating with the engineer Paul Weidlinger and Birdair, designed the Boston Arts Center Theater. The design team initially investigated pneumatic formwork for the construction of

arctic environments. Following successful testing of prototypes for low-pressure air-supported radomes in 1948, over

a concrete dome. However,with insufficient project funds to construct a permanent building, they turned to tem-

a hundred of these buildings were constructed during the

porary structures. Because of the significant clear span

1950s using synthetic fibers like nylon and terylene coated with vinyl, neoprene or hypalon.V With the durability of

required by the theater, they developed a composite pneumatic and skeletal structure, with a roof that was a 44

pneumatic structures in extreme climates proven, Walter

meter diameter air-filled cushion of vinyl-coated nylon

Bird set up the company Birdair Structures, Inc. in 1956 to

fabric. This cushion, 6 meters thick at the center when

continue to design inflatable antennae, towers and buildings for the military and to develop commercial applica-

inflated, was held in position by cables around the circumference, which were attached to a steel compression ring supported on steel columns.P

tions for air-supported and tensile fabric structures. Walter Bird's environmental bubbles were popularized by preengineered pneumatic storage facilities, construction site

In the year 1960, a pavilion for the US Atomic Energy Commission's traveling exhibition in South America was

22

The Pneumat ic Imagination cA rc hitectu ralldea ~ and~p pl i cat ions

18

19

17

20 17- 20.__The air- f ill ed and air -supported envelope of t he US At omic Energy Pavilion of 1960 was a st udy of cont inuous and comp lex curvat ure. !

hailed in Arc hitectura l Forum as "a great balloo n for peaceful ato ms."24It was desig ned by architec t Victor Lundy in collaboratio n with Birdair; structu ral engineers SeverudElst ad- Krueger Associates; and mechan ical engineers Cosent ini Associates . Descr ibed by Reyner Banham as "the f irst great monument of environme nta l wind-baggery'snilbr(jc~,Germany .

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