This week I began by documenting my previous work again with a bit more clarity especially with the soap bubbles. Then I enhanced my icosahedron by cladding it to reflect the soap bubbles and cladding the entire model. The unintended side effect of this was that the cladding itself gave the model much more stability and strength than the original tension wires. This brings up questions like could this be a potential avenue to explore, structural cladding systems, or is it not a scale-able concept. I also read more from Eisenman and began looking into Calatrava and his architecture which seems to go hand in hand with my "lightness, flight" observations. His architecture though not precisely in the same area to my original concept is a very close example of what maybe is called activated tension architecture. I am trying to find a copy of the book Santiago Calatrava: Sculptectures. I think his work contains part of what I am interested in perusing. Also in relation to Calatrava's work I am diagraming what to me seems relevant to my project in a hangglider.
Eisenman is well known for his almost formal approach to architecture and his distance as it were from free-form architecture. But in reading his book the "Formal Critique of Modern Architecture" I could see several similarities between his observations of form and tensegrity. Firstly he talks a great deal about the volume. This is very much so what geodesics is about as well. Geodesics concentrates on how to make the volume efficient. The apparent rigidity of geodesics if it could be called that is a fallacy. The geodesic is all about the efficient transfer of load. There is also much regularity and repetition of form in geodesics that is only now being capitalized on with the advent of computers. Finally the icosahedron though irregular amongst tensegrity models is a very regular shape with its compression and tension members requiring precise lengths to achieve. And though the tension wires form a somewhat cellular shape the compression members are very conventional.
Eisenman makes the comment in his book that the volume must react to external conditions as well as being able to adapt to various internal situations. This to me seems to reflect the ideas of tensegrity and geodesics. I believe the word Eisenman uses is deform. This is something that can literally be accomplished in geodesics. I would suggest that though Eisenman was not a proponent of free form architecture the inherent regularity of tensegrity when applied to free form is still along the same track of "Formal Critique of Modern Architecture".
Calatrava's Milwaukee Art Museum: Perhaps Performance Activated Tension
The museum is basically inspired by flight and the ocean. Part of it resembles the prow of a ship and the shading device obviously resembles a bird or some other object in flight. The part of the project that interests me however is the tensional possibilities it suggests. Though not directly communicating the ideas of tension the shading device indicates the use of the building. When the wings are up the building is open and when the wings are down it is closed. This building is a great example of how a building can visually show changing conditions. Calatrava is influenced by many of the same architects and ideas that have captivated Norman Foster, Otto Frei, and Buckminster Fuller. His buildings seem to be pushing in the direction I am interested in.
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