How the Tensile Yome Works

The History of
Tensile
Architecture
      Most buildings today are
basically compression structures.
Blocks or bricks are piled on top of
one another to form walls, or else
wood or metal are used to create
frames for rigid materials to hang
from and sit on top of.
      There is another way to build,
though, using flexible materials and
   
the force of tension, rather than
weight, to hold things together.
Although Tensile Architecture is a
fancy modern name for it, this is
probably the oldest and simplest
method human beings have devised
to provide shelter. But not all tensile
structures are buildings. Sailboats,
balloons, and even early airplanes all
play into the origins of tensile
architecture.

Tents, Tipis, and Yurts

     A tent is any supported structure
covered by flexible material. Tents
 may not be as durable as conventional buildings, but
they require far less material to create. This makes them
more economical and portable. Tents arose where two
conditions prevailed: a shortage of suitable building
material and a need for mobility.

     The oldest tents known come from Siberia, Lapland, Iceland and Alaska. To shield themselves
from icy winds, nomadic hunters hung animal skins over large bones. If trees were available,
branches were used as supports. Sometimes birch bark was used to cover the frame. Since these
materials are completely biodegradable, it's impossible to say just how human beings have been
making tents. The evidence found thus far dates back at least 40,000 years. Thirty thousand years
later, woven fabric was first incorporated into the tent. 

      The ideal tent shape for shedding precipitation,

withstanding extreme winds, and venting indoor fires is
the cone. Cone-shaped tents are found throughout the
Northern Hemisphere. Usually a "cone" of tree saplings
were nested together to support a covering that sheltered
the lower portion of the tent, leaving the top open to
exhaust smoke.
 
  The American tipi is considered a masterpiece of structural
design. Native Americans improved on the simple cone
shaped tent by adding smoke flaps and a wall liner. The
flaps, which can be turned
to take advantage of the
prevailing winds, serve as
an adjustable vent. The
liner forms a double wall
with the outer covering,
creating an insulative space and helps draw out the smoke from a
fire. The liner is wedged to the ground while the outside covering
is above the ground to create a convection current of cool outside
air that travels behind the liner and draws the smoke out through
the smoke flaps.

     In the summer, the base of the outer wall is rolled up to allow
cool air to enter. On windless or especially hot days, a small fire
will actually increase the cooling effect for natural air conditioning.

      Native American ingenuity also extends to the support system. Tipi poles are shaved
meticulously smooth, so that moisture that enters the smoke flap opening collects on them and
runs down the poles to drain behind the liner.
 

    While Native Americans were perfecting the cone

design, desert peoples such as the Bedouins, Berbers,
Moors, and Kurds were developing the "black tents." The
black tent gets its name from the black goat hair used to
weave its covering. This loosely woven cloth allows air to
pass through while providing shade in hot and arid
climates. Should this material get wet, however, its fibers
will swell and repel rain.

      Black tents utilize all the features that to this day allow tensioned structures to function (see
"How the Tensile Yome Works"). The fabric is draped over ropes, which are supported in turn by
a series of poles. The ropes carry the load to the stakes, which tension the structure and anchor it
down.

      The ger (called a yurt in Russian) is among the most luxurious of the dwellings conceived by
nomadic tribes. These shelters provide comfort and warmth in one of the highest and bleakest parts
of the world, the Siberian steppe. The ger employs a circular lattice wall frame with a felted wool
covering and a wooden door. A central opening in the roof allows the smoke from a cook stove to
exit. Like the tipi, the ger is rich with religious symbolism; every part of it has symbolic
significance.
       As people settled into agriculturally fixed communities, tents
were assigned the role of providing shelter for religious events,
social gatherings, and housing great armies. Most of these tents
consisted of a central mast surrounded by a conical membrane or
two masts and a steeply gabled roof.

    Nowadays, the most familiar large tensile shelter is the circus

tent. Early circus tents used a simple umbrella shape, however,
they had the disadvantage of the central compression post being
placed in the center of the performance space. By adding support poles,
the center could be left free, and this led to the famous three ring circus.
In their heyday around the turn of the century, these giant circus tents
took up two acres and could hold over ten thousand people, enough for
"the greatest show on earth".

Sailing Ships
      More than five thousand years ago, seafaring Mediterraneans found a way to harness the wind.
And from that point on, the nautical sail has always incorporated the elements of tensile
engineering, with pneumatic forms in the canvas, tension components in the rigging, and
compressive support in the mast. By the nineteenth century, sailing ships had reached a remarkable
level of sophistication in wind propulsion.

     The first major use of tensile principles in architecture came from transferring sailing
technology. Roman coliseums and amphitheaters were frequently covered in retractable fabric
roofs held up with masts and cables. And it was retired sailors who operated these complex
canopies. The convertibility of these fabric roofs arose from their inability to construct a
permanent roof capable of withstanding winds and heavy precipitation rather than a preference for
opening up their amphitheaters.

Flying Machines
      Tensile principles arrived on land not only by sea but by air as well.
Like birds, aerial structures must be strong and lightweight. For this,
tensile structures are ideal.

     The Chinese developed elaborate tensile systems in the form of kites.

The box kite, in fact, was the forerunner of the early airplanes. The Wright
brothers used a series of fabric clad frames, strengthened by tension cables
and separated by compression members. This allowed their plane to be
both light enough and sturdy enough to take flight.
 Bridges
     For 4,000 thousand years tensile principles have
been used in bridge building as the only way to span
large distances. Throughout the Far East and South
America, suspension bridges made of rope and bamboo
were used. Although bamboo is quite strong, it is not
very durable. A more lasting solution came in 100 AD,
when the Chinese invented wrought iron.

      Some of the early bamboo bridges could span over

800 feet. It was not until the introduction of steel cable in the nineteenth century that western
engineering could greatly increase that span. The inventor of steel cable was John Roebling who
designed a number of suspension bridges in the United States. His masterpiece, the Brooklyn
Bridge still remains one of the finest bridges ever built.

Modern Tensile Architecture

      Despite all these precedents, tensile architecture never really took off until after WWII. Until
then, no one had quite solved the dual problems of developing strong yet durable materials and
reliably solving the complicated structural problems. A few isolated pioneers made valiant
attempts, but with little success.

     Frei Otto was the seminal figure in the development of tensile architecture. He was the first to
lead away from the simple geometric solutions to the organic free forms that could respond to
complex planning and structural requirements. The secret of Otto's success lies in his study of the
self-forming processes of soap bubbles, crystals, microscopic plants, animal life, and branching
systems. He found that natural objects will create forms that are very efficient, wasting nothing
and use a minimum of material.

        In the 1960's, Otto founded The Institute for Lightweight Structures part of the University of
Stuttgart in Germany. This innovative think tank published
scores of books and papers packed with innovative ideas and
trained a generation of European engineers. The future of
lighter, more efficient, and adaptable structures had just
begun.

Cable Net Structures

      Frei Otto's first large-scale project was the sprawling
86,000 square foot German Pavilion for the Montreal Expo
in 1967. At the time, there was no fabric strong enough to
withstand the tension required for such a huge structure.
 Instead, Otto designed a network of interconnected
cables to form the surface structure with a fabric
membrane hung just below the cable net. It was the
first structure to introduce the organic and free
flowing shapes of tensile architecture.
      Otto's crowning achievement, however, was the
stadium roof for the 1972 Olympic Games. This
elegant cable net structure with acrylic panels
covered over 40,000 square feet. It has been hailed as
one of the greatest landmarks of the century.

Air Supported Structures

      The Chinese developed the first hot air balloons
from paper. In the eighteenth century, lightweight, close weave cotton fabric made the first
passenger hot air balloons possible, and this led to the giant gas-filled airships and zeppelins of the
early twentieth century. The development of synthetic fibers such as nylon and improved coating
techniques led to a barrage of innovative balloon designs, and the appearance of the first
pneumatic buildings during the Second World War.

    Although Frei Otto published exhaustive studies of the possibilities of utilizing air-supported
structures, it was Walter Bird who put the ideas into practice. Walter Bird formed Birdair, which
along with Geiger Berger designed and implemented several large air supported shelters. These
low-pressure air-supported structures maintain a fabric membrane in tension by supporting it
against the lower outside pressure. In this sort of structure, this difference in pressure can be quite
small and internal occupants can safely breath the air.

      By giving the surface a low profile curvature and reinforcing the fabric with a grid of high
strength cables, large spans could be achieved at a fraction of the cost and construction time
required for conventional structures. However, their dependence on mechanical devices has proved
problematic and has led to a number of disturbing deflations. Still, pressurized buildings led the
way to a greater acceptance of fabric structures and opened the way for a new, less controversial
structural system of tensile fabric architecture.

Tensioned Fabric Structures

      Tensile structures are one of the most promising trends in contemporary architecture. Once
again, this era started in Germany in the 1950's, when Frei Otto began building cotton fabric
canopies using tent technology. Otto realized that structural and architectural forms are
inseparable. He argued that flexibility is a strength, not a weakness (see How the Tensile Yome
Works). He proved that large tensile fabric buildings were possible, even though the materials and
construction methods necessary were not yet available.

      Today, tension membrane structures finally benefit from fabrics stronger than steel, with a
guaranteed life span of over thirty years. These provide an elegant, energy efficient and
 economical solution where large open spans are required.
 

     The second major challenge in tensile engineering was solved

by Horst Berger, a civil engineer. Berger put Frei Otto's theories
into practice and is easily the one individual most responsible for
the introduction of tensioned fabric structures into modern
architecture. In 1974, Berger figured out how to mathematically
describe and determine the shape of a tensioned fabric structure. Until this breakthrough, tensile
forms could be determined by painstakingly building models that could be dipped into a tank of
soap.

      Given a fixed set of points, soap film naturally forms the ideal shape that will work for a
tensile structure: the minimal surface area achievable between these points (see How the Tensile
Yome Works). The soap film model was photographed in front of a grid to be measured and then
transferred into a pattern. Now a computer can do all the form
finding and patterning.

   As if this achievement were not enough, Berger has also been
responsible for some of the first, biggest and most beautiful
tensile structures in the world. The largest to date is the Haj
Terminal Building in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. This massive
structure accommodates over 700,000 pilgrims on their way to
Mecca each year, all in the space of one month. Its 210 cone
shaped canopies cover 105 acres and can shelter up to 100,000
people!

      Berger also helped build the roof of the Great Hall at Denver International Airport. This tensile
masterpiece is considered the test case for large tensioned fabric structures. Located in an area of
significant snowfall, extreme winds and occasional severe hailstorms, its success has silenced any
concerns about the suitability of tensile roofs in these conditions.

     The first tensioned fabric roof in an extremely cold climate houses the Lindsey Park Aquatic
Center in Calgary, Alberta. Built in 1983, this structure combines layers of teflon-coated fiberglass
fabric with a translucent fiber wool filling. The membrane has an insulative value of R16 to R20
while still transmitting four percent of the available sunlight. This is enough to illuminate the
entire facility in the daytime without the use of artificial light. It even allows for considerable
indoor landscaping.
      The Tensile Yome by Red Sky Shelters marks a new era of small
scale tensioned fabric structures that can be built more economically than
conventional shelters. By using a minimum of materials they represent a
return to the simplicity of the age-old tent and a huge step towards a more
sustainable and practical shelter systems.

Bibliography

Berger, Horst: Light Structures-Structures of Light: the Art and Engineering of Tensile
Architecture. (1996) Basel; Boston; Berlin: Birkhauser. Not only has Berger engineered several
tensile structures, he has also written the best book available to introduce and explain tensile
architecture.

Hatton, E.M.: The Tent Book (1979) Houghton Mifflin Company: Boston. Comprehensive
history of tents from ancient to modern. Includes a now dated tent buyers guide.

Otto, Frei (editor): Tensile Structures (1962) The MIT Press: Cambridge and London. Two
volume classic put out by the Institute for Lightweight Structures (now out of print) illustrating
thousands of innovative ideas.

home | features | profile | Yome uses | Q+A | roof fabric | insulation

Yome Kit | set up | replacement parts | warrantee | prices | contact
Red Sky e-mail: isis@redskyshelters.com

Cable Net Structures

I have investigated special layouts for cable nets that are suitable for mesh reflectors.
Most existing cable nets are kinematically indeterminate (i.e., they are structural
mechanism that rely on the geometric stiffness resulting from the state of prestress) and
therefore lack accuracy and stiffness, which are essential for space applications. Drawing
inspiration from the symmetry of spiders' webs, I have proposed a new double-layer
cable network, made from a tessellation of hexagons and triangles, whose top layer can
be used to support a reflective wire mesh. This special cable network has only two states
of self-stress (hence, it can be pretensioned by controlling the length of only two cables),
and it is kinematically determinate (i.e. 'rigid'). This concept retains the main positive
aspects of cable-nets, while eliminating their drawbacks.

Santiago Calatrava
Santiago Calatrava and Felix Candela [SCEA}

Santiago Calatrava is a Spanish architect working in Paris and Zurich who is

recognized as one of the world's innovative architects. Trained as a sculptor, an
engineer, and an architect, he synthesizes new technologies and new forms in all his
projects, including a memorable bridge in Barcelona and train stations in Zurich and
Lyon. His work transcends the traditional boundaries between art and architecture
as well as between engineering and architecture. Calatrava's projects have won
critical acclaim internationally and are widely published both in Europe and in the
United States.
© Smithsonian Institution

Bach de Roda - Felipe II Bridge

Barcelona, Spain | 1984-1987

"The bridge spans the railway tracks between the main streets 'Bach de Roda' and 'Felipe
II', which run from north to south, connecting the sea and the city.

Materials and dimensions:

Double arch and middle section of the road and footpath, steel; lower part of the steel
arches, steel and concrete combination; abutments, white concrete; total length 180m,
max. span 68m.

The twin arches widen slightly at both ends, increasing structural rigidity and
permitting the passage of pedestrians on footpaths to either side. Steps follow the line
of the arches on both sides of the railway. The roadway lights are in the middle of the
bridge, while the footpath is lit by strip lighting integrated into handrails." [SCEA}

Exterior View
SKETCH.GIF at www-scf.usc.edu

*Milwaukee Art Museum

*Smithsonian Magazine: "Transforming the beauty of skeletons into architecture."
*The Milwaukee Art Museum

BCE Place
Toronto, Canada | 1992
*MAM: The Architecture of Santiago Calatrava
Plans and Photograph

Bibao Airport Terminal

Bibao |

METROPOLITAN BILBAO- NEW TERMINAL AT BILBAO AIRPORT

proyectos

City of Sciences
Valencia |

Valencia City of Sciences Visualization

Lyon-Satolas Airport
Lyon, France | 1994

*MAM: The Architecture of Santiago Calatrava

Lyon-Satolas Airport

Alamillo Bridge and La Cartuja Viaduct

Seville, Spain | 1987-92

*Smithsonian Magazine: "Transforming the beauty of skeletons into architecture."

Lyons-Satolas TGV Railway Station
Lyon, France |

assembly structure -- president study

Photograph and Drawing

St.Gallen Bus Stop

St.Gallen, Switzerland | 1986

Page of Santiago Calatrava

Swissbau Concrete Pavillion

Basel, Switzerland | 1989

"My aim in designing the FSB pavillion was to show that, as a building material,
concrete can forge a link between building engineering technology and the perfect
forms of nature.

The elements display an essential but rather neglected feature of concrete, namely, its
capacity for being moulded. In Spanich concrete is called 'hormigon' - which means
"mouldable."

Prefabricated elements are the optimal answer to the demand for freedom of design.
Top material quality, small tolerances, and the repeated use of moulds ensure
economy of production even with difficult shapes." [SCEA}

Santiago Calatrava
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
 Santiago Calatrava Valls
Personal Information
Name Santiago Calatrava Valls
Nationality Spanish
Birth date July 28, 1951
Birth place Valencia
Working Life
Practice Name Santiago Calatrava
Significant Buildings Ciutat de Les Arts i Les Ciències
Significant Projects Athens Olympic Sports Complex
Awards and Prizes See below

Santiago Calatrava Valls (born July 28, 1951) is an internationally recognized and
award-winning Spanish architect and engineer whose principal office is in Zurich,
Switzerland.

Calatrava was born in Valencia, Spain, where he pursued undergraduate studies at the
Architecture School and Arts and Crafts School. Following graduation in 1975, he
enrolled in the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zürich, Switzerland for
graduate work in civil engineering. In 1981, after completing his doctoral thesis, "On the
Foldability of Space Frames", he started his architecture and engineering practice.
Classed now among the elite designers of the world, he has offices in Zurich, Paris, New
York and elsewhere.

Calatrava's early career was dedicated largely to bridges and train stations, the designs for
which elevated the status of civil engineering projects to new heights. His elegant and
daring Montjuic Communications Tower in Barcelona, Spain (1991) in the heart of the
1992 Olympic site was a turning point in his career, leading to a wide range of
commissions. The Quadracci Pavilion (2001) of the Milwaukee Art Museum was his first
major US building. Calatrava’s entry into high-rise design began with an innovative 54
storey high twisting tower, called Turning Torso (2005), located in Malmö, Sweden.
Calatrava is currently designing the future train station - World Trade Center
Transportation Hub - at Ground Zero in New York City.

Calatrava’s style has been heralded as bridging the division between structural
engineering and architecture. In this, he continues a tradition of Spanish modernist
engineering that includes Félix Candela and Antonio Gaudí. Nonetheless, his style is very
personal and derives from numerous studies he makes of the human body and the natural
world.
Puente del Alamillo at night, Seville, Spain, (1992)

Contents
[hide]
 1 Calatrava as sculptor
 2 Recognition
 3 Recent Projects
 4 Criticism
 5 Notable works
o 5.1 Completed
o 5.2 Under construction/Proposed
o 5.3 Never Built
 6 Awards
 7 Exhibits
 8 See also
 9 References and notes

 10 External links

[edit] Calatrava as sculptor

Calatrava is also a prolific sculptor and painter, claiming that the practice of architecture
combines all the arts into one. In 2005, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York
City, held an exhibition of his artistic work, entitled "Santiago Calatrava: Sculpture Into
Architecture." Exhibitions of his work have also taken place in Germany, England, Spain,
Italy and elsewhere.

[edit] Recognition

Calatrava has received numerous recognitions. In 1990 he received the "Médaille d

´Argent de la Recherche et de la Technique", Paris. In 1993, the Museum of Modern Art
in New York held a major exhibition of his work called “Structure and Expression." In
1998 he was elected to become a member of "Les Arts et Lettres," in Paris. In 2004, he
received the Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architects (AIA).
In 2005, Calatrava was awarded the Eugene McDermott Award by the Council for the
Arts of MIT. The Award is among the most esteemed arts awards in the US. [1]

Ciutat de les Arts i les

L'Umbracle at the Ciutat Ciències, Valencia, Milwaukee Art
The interior of the de les Arts i les Ciències Museum
Spain.
BCE Place Galleria, in Valencia (1996).
Toronto (1992).

Turning Torso in
Malmö, Sweden

[edit] Recent Projects

One of his newest projects is a residential skyscraper named "80 South Street" after its
own address, composed of 10 townhouses in the shape of cubes stacked on top of one
another. The townhouses move up a main beam and follow a ladder-like pattern,
providing each townhouse with its own roof. The "townhouse in the sky" design has
attracted a high profile clientele, willing to pay the hefty US$30 million for each cube. It
will be built in New York City's financial district facing the East River.

He has also designed the proposed skyscraper, the Chicago Spire, in Chicago. Originally
commissioned by Chicagoan Christopher Carley, Irish developer Garrett Kelleher
purchased the building site for the project in July of 2006 when Carley's financing plans
fell through. Kelleher is currently in negotiations with Carley and Calatrava to purchase
Calatrava's design for the building. Kelleher's close working relationship with the Anglo
Irish Bank, and his own wealth which will allow him to personally finance 100 percent of
the equity in the project, will make it easier for Kelleher to build this project than it was
for Carley. Kelleher plans to begin construction of the building in spring of 2007 for
completion in 2010. When completed, the Chicago Spire, at 2,000 feet tall, be the tallest
building in North America.

Calatrava has also designed three bridges that will eventually span the Trinity River in
Dallas. Construction of the first bridge, named after donor Margaret Hunt Hill, has been
repeatedly delayed due to high costs, a fact that has sparked much controversy and
criticism. If and when completed, Dallas will join the Dutch county of Haarlemmermeer
in having three Calatrava bridges.

Women's Bridge, in Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires.

His nephew Alex Calatrava is a professional tennis player.

The Olympic Velodrome, one of many buildings Calatrava designed for the Athens
Olympics.

Bahnhof Stadelhofen in Zürich.

Tenerife Opera House, Canary Islands, Spain

[edit] Criticism
Calatrava's work in Bilbao has been criticized for impracticiality. The airport lacks
facilities and the bridge's glass tiles are prone to break and getting slippery under the
local weather[2]. In 2007, Calatrava sued Bilbao[3] for allowing Arata Isozaki to remove a
bar from the bridge to connect it to the Isozaki Towers,

[edit] Notable works

[edit] Completed
 Trinity Bridge, footbridge over River Irwell, Salford, England
 Oberbaumbrücke, Berlin, Germany
 Alameda Bridge and metro station, Valencia, Spain
 1983-1984, Jakem Steel Warehouse, Munchwilen, Switzerland
 1983-1985, Ernsting Warehouse, Coesfeld, Germany
 1983-1988, Wohlen High School, Wohlen, Switzerland
 1983-1990, Stadelhofen Railway Station, Zürich, Switzerland
 1983-1989, Lucerne Station Hall, Lucerne, Switzerland
 1984-1987, Bac de Roda Bridge, Barcelona, Spain
 1984-1988, Barenmatte Community Center, Suhr, Switzerland,
 1986-1987, Tabourettli Theater, Basel, Switzerland,
 1987-1992, BCE Place (atrium), Toronto, Canada,
 1989-1994, Aéroport Lyon Saint-Exupéry "Satolas" TGV Station, Lyon, France
 1992, Puente del Alamillo, Seville, Spain
 1992, Puente de Lusitania, Mérida, Spain
 1992, Montjuic Communications Tower at the Olympic Ring, Barcelona, Spain
 1992, World's Fair, Kuwaiti Pavilion, Seville, Spain
 1994-1997, Campo Volantin Footbridge, Bilbao, Spain
 1996, Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències, Valencia, Spain
 1998, Estação do Oriente or (Gare do Oriente), Lisbon, Portugal
 1998, Puente de la Mujer, in the Puerto Madero barrio of Buenos Aires, Argentina
 2000, New terminal at Bilbao Airport, Bilbao, Spain
 2001, Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
 2003, James Joyce Bridge, bridge over River Liffey, Dublin, Ireland
 2004, redesign of Athens Olympic Sports Complex, Athens, Greece
 2004, Sundial Bridge at Turtle Bay, Redding, California, USA
  2004, Three bridges (called Harp, Cittern and Lute) spanning the main canal of
the Haarlemmermeer, Netherlands
 2004, University of Zurich, "Bibliothekseinbau" library remodelling, Zürich,
Switzerland
 2005, Turning Torso, Malmö, Sweden

[edit] Under construction/Proposed

TGV train station in Liège, Belgium - Under construction

Sundial Bridge at Turtle Bay in Redding, California.

 World Trade Center Transportation Hub, New York City, USA
 Atlanta Symphony Center, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
 TGV Railway Station, Liège, Belgium
 Palacio de Congresos, Oviedo, Spain
 Chicago Spire, Chicago, USA
 Margaret Hunt Hill bridge, Dallas, Texas, USA
 City Entrance Bridge, also known as 'Strings Bridge' Jerusalem, Israel
 80 South Street, 835 foot tall stack of 10 condominum units on New York City's
East River, starting at $27 Million each. [1]
 Medio Padana TAV Station, Reggio Emilia, Italy
 3 Bridges on the A1 Motorway and TAV Railway, Reggio Emilia, Italy
 Piazzale Roma Footbridge over the Grand Canal, Venice, Italy
 Campus, Maastricht, Holland

Calatrava has also submitted designs for a number of notable projects which were
eventually awarded to other designers, including the Reichstag in Berlin and the East
London River Crossing.
View of the proposed bridge at The future transit hub at the
Calatrava's 2,000 feet (610
the entrance to Jerusalem, World Trade Center site in
m) tall skyscraper the
currently under construction as New York City, to be
Chicago Spire in Chicago,
part of the Jerusalem Light completed in 2009. This is an
formerly named the
Rail (Mass Transit) Project. early rendering. The project
Fordham Spire, will be the
Proposed completion: 2008 being built has much shorter
tallest building in North
spires.
America when it opens in
2010.

[edit] Never Built

 A campus building for Ryerson University in Toronto Canada. His design was
dropped for a less expensive design.

[edit] Awards
 1992 London Institution of Structural Engineers Gold Medal
 1993 Toronto Municipality Urban Design Award
 1996 Gold Medal for Excellence in the Fine Arts from the Granada Ministry of
Culture
 1999 Prince of Asturias Award in Arts
 2000 Algur H. Meadows Award for Excellence in the Arts from the Meadows
School of the Arts, Southern Methodist University
 2006 Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts from the Council for the Arts at MIT,
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
 2005 AIA Gold Medal
 Designation as a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum in
Davos
 2007 Awarded with the Spanish National Architecture Award

[edit] Exhibits
A special exhibition has been presented at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through
March 5, 2006 [2]. Images from the exhibition.

[edit] See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
Santiago Calatrava
 Category:Santiago Calatrava structures

[edit] References and notes

 Tzonis, Alexander (1999). Santiago Calatrava: The Poetics Of Movement.
Universe. ISBN 0-7893-0360-4. 
 Tzonis, Alexander (2004). Santiago Calatrava: The Complete Works. Rizzoli.
ISBN 0-8478-2641-4. 

1. ^ Established to honor Eugene McDermott, founder of Texas Instruments and

long-time friend and benefactor to MIT, the award was created by the Council for
the Arts at MIT in 1974, and further endowed by Eugene's wife, Margaret. Since
its inception, the Council has bestowed the award upon 31 individuals producing
creative work in the performing, visual and media arts, as well as authors, art
historians and patrons of the arts.
2. ^ Entre losetas y y arquitectos 'estrellas', El Correo, 24 February 2007.
3. ^ Calatrava lleva a los tribunales su guerra con Isozaki por los puentes de
Uribitarte, El Correo, 22 February 2007.

[edit] External links

 Official Website
 Santiago Calatrava News Aggregator
 Structurae: Santiago Calatrava Valls
 Great Buildings On-Line: Santiago Calatrava
 Unofficial website
 Extended profile of the architect in the NYRB, December 2005
 The New Yorker, October 31 2005, "The Sculptor"
 The Guardian, January 17th 2006, "The Gaudí Effect"
 Many pictures of Calatrava's Art on Trekearth
 Calatrava's 80 South Street condo design for New York
 120 meters Obelisk project in Madrid
 The CAC and other Urban Projects in Valencia, Spain article at ErasmusPC
 CNN interview with Santiago Calatrava
 Oviedo (Spain) congress center
Tensile structure
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The world's first steel tensile structure by Vladimir Shukhov (during construction),
Nizhny Novgorod, 1896

The Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Kings Domain, Melbourne

A tensile structure is a construction of elements carrying only tension and no
compression or bending. The term tensile should not be confused with tensegrity, which
is a structural form with both tension and compression elements.

Most tensile structures are supported by some form of compression or bending elements,
such as masts (as in the Millennium Dome), compression rings or beams.

Tensile membrane structures are most often used as roofs as they can economically and
attractively span large distances.

Contents
[hide]
 1 History
 2 Types of structure with significant tension members
o 2.1 Linear structures
o 2.2 Three-dimensional structures
o 2.3 Surface-stressed structures
 3 Cable and membrane structures
o 3.1 Membrane materials
o 3.2 Cables
o 3.3 Structural forms
o 3.4 Form finding
o 3.5 Pretension
 4 Simple mathematics of cables
o 4.1 Transversely and uniformly loaded cable
o 4.2 Cable with central point load
 5 Tensioned cable oscillations
 6 Notable structures
 7 Gallery of well known tensile structures
 8 See also
 9 External links

 10 Further reading

[edit] History
The Olympic Stadium in Munich makes extensive use of tensile roofing structures.

This form of construction has only become well understood and widespread in large
structures in the latter part of the twentieth century. Tensile structures have long been
used in tents, where the guy ropes and/or provide pretension to the fabric and allow it to
withstand loads.

A very early large-scale use of a membrane-covered tensile structure is the truss-roofed

exhibition pavilions for the Nizhny Novgorod Fair of 1896 by Vladimir Shukhov, and the
Sidney Myer Music Bowl, constructed in 1958.

The concept was later pioneered by German architect and engineer Frei Otto, who first
used the idea in the construction of the German pavilion at Expo '67 in Montreal. Otto
next used the idea for the roof of the Olympic Stadium for the 1972 Summer Olympics in
Munich.

Since the 1960s, tensile structures have been championed by designers and engineers
such as Ove Arup, Buro Happold, Frei Otto, Eero Saarinen, Horst Berger, Matthew
Nowicki, Jorg Schlaich, the duo of Nicholas Goldsmith & Todd Dalland at FTL Design
& Engineering Studio and David Geiger.

Steady technological progress has increased the popularity of fabric-roofed structures.

The low weight of the materials makes construction easier and cheaper than standard
designs, especially when vast open spaces have to be covered.

[edit] Types of structure with significant tension

members
[edit] Linear structures
 Suspension bridges
 Draped cables
 Cable-stayed beams or trusses
 Cable trusses
  Straight tensioned cables

[edit] Three-dimensional structures

 Bicycle wheel (can be used as a roof in a horizontal orientation)
 3D cable trusses
 Tensegrity structures

[edit] Surface-stressed structures

 Prestressed membranes
 Pneumatically stressed membranes

[edit] Cable and membrane structures

Simple suspended bridge working entirely in tension

[edit] Membrane materials

Common materials for doubly-curved fabric structures are Teflon coated fibreglass and
PVC coated polyester. These are woven materials with different strengths in different
directions. The warp fibres (those fibres which are originally straight—equivalent to the
starting fibres on a loom) can carry greater load than the weft or fill fibres, which are
woven between the warp fibres.

Other structures make use of ETFE, either as single ply or in cushion form (which can be
inflated to provide good insulation properties or for aesthetic effect—as on the Allianz
Arena in Munich. ETFE cushions can also be etched with patterns in order to let different
levels of light through when inflated to different levels. They are most often supported by
a structural frame and do not relay on double curvature for their strength.

[edit] Cables

Cables can be of mild steel, high strength steel (drawn carbon steel), stainless steel or
polyester or aramid fibres. Structural cables are made of a series of small strands twisted
or bound together to form a much larger cable. The properties of the individuals strands
of different materials are shown in the table below, where UTS is utimate tensile strength,
or the breaking load:

E (kN/mm2) UTS (N/mm2) Strain at 50% of UTS

Solid steel bar 210 400–800 0.24%
Steel strand 170 1550–1770 1%
Wire rope 112 1550–1770 1.5%
Polyester fibre 7.5 910 6%
Aramid fibre 112 2800 2.5%

Steel cables are either spiral strand, where circular rods are twisted together and "glued"
using a polymer, or locked coil strand, where individual interlocking steel strands form
the cable (often with a spiral strand core).

Spiral strand is slightly weaker than locked cell strand. Steel spiral strand cables have a
Young's modulus, E, of 150±10 kN/mm2 (or 150±10 GPa) and come in sizes from 3 to 90
mm diameter. Spiral strand suffers from construction stretch, where the strands compact
when the cable is loaded. This is normally removed by pre-stretching the cable and
cycling the load up and down to 45% of the ultimate tensile load.

Locked coil strand typically has a Young's Modulus of 160±10 kN/mm2 and comes in
sizes from 20 mm to 160 mm diameter.

[edit] Structural forms

Air-supported structures are a form of tensile structures where the fabric envelope is
under supported by pressurised air only.

The majority of fabric structures derive their strength from their catenary shape. By
forcing the fabric to take on double-curvature[1] the fabric gains sufficient stiffness to
withstand the loads it is subjected to (for example wind and snow loads). In order to
induce an adequately doubly curved form it is most often necessary to pretension or
prestress the fabric or its supporting structure.

[edit] Form finding

The behaviour of structures which depend upon prestress to attain their strength is non-
linear, so anything other than a very simple cable has, until the 1990s, been very difficult
to design. The most common way to design doubly curved fabric structures was to
construct scale models of the final buildings in order to understand their behaviour and to
conduct form-finding exercises. Such scale models often employed stocking material or
tights, or soap film, as they behave in a very similar way to structural fabrics (they cannot
carry shear).

Soap films have uniform stress in every direction and require a closed boundary to form.
They naturally form a minimal surface—the form with minimal area and embodying
minimal energy. They are however very difficult to measure. For large films the self-
weight of the film can seriously and adversely affect the form.

For a membrane with curvature in two directions, the basic equation of equilibrium is:
where:

 R1 and R2 are the principal radii of curvature for soap films or the directions of the
warp and weft for fabrics
 t1 and t2 are the tensions in the relevant directions
 w is the load per square metre

Lines of principal curvature have no twist and intersect other lines of principal curvature
at right angles.

Geodetic or geodesic lines are the shortest line between two points on the surface.

In a pre-stressed but unloaded surface w = 0, so .

In a soap film surface tensions are uniform in both directions, so R1 = −R2.

It is now possible to use powerful non-linear numerical analysis programmes (or finite
element analysis to formfind and design fabric and cable structures. The programmes
must allow for large deflections and have constant stress finite elements.

The final shape, or form, of a fabric structure depends upon:

 shape, or pattern, of the fabric

 the geometry of the supporting structure (such as masts, cables, ringbeams etc)
 the pretension applied to the fabric or its supporting structure

It is important that the final form will not allow ponding or water, as this can deform the
membrane and cause failure.

Snow loading can be a serious problem for membrane structure, as the snow often will
not flow off the structure as water will. For example, this has in the past caused the
(temporary) collapse of the Minnesota Metrodome, an air-inflated structure. Some
structures prone to ponding use heating to melt snow which settles on them.
Saddle Shape

Hyperbolic paraboloid

There are many different doubly-curved forms, many of which have special mathematical
properties. The most basic doubly curved from is the saddle shape, which can be a
hyperbolic paraboloid (not all saddle shapes are hyperbolic paraboloids). This is a double
ruled surface and is often used in both in lightweight shell structures (see hyperboloid
structures). True ruled surfaces are rarely found in tensile structures as they generally
take the form of catenaries. Other forms are anticlastic saddles, various radial, conical
tent forms and any combination of them.

[edit] Pretension

Pretension is tension artificially induced in the structural elements in addition to any

self-weight or imposed loads they may carry. It is used to ensure that the normally very
flexible structural elements remain stiff under all possible loads.

A day to day example of pretension is a shelving unit supported by wires running from
floor to ceiling. The wires hold the shelves in place because they are tensioned - if the
wires were slack the system would not work.

Pretension can be applied to a membrane by stretching it from its edges or by

pretensioning cables which support it and hence changing its shape. The level of
pretension applied determines the shape of a membrane structure.

[edit] Simple mathematics of cables

[edit] Transversely and uniformly loaded cable

For a cable spanning between two supports the simplifying assumption can be made that
it forms a circular arc (of radius R).

By equilibrium:

The horizontal and vertical reactions:

By geometry:

The length of the cable:

The tension in the cable:

By substitution:
The tension is also equal to:

T = wR

The extension of the cable upon being loaded is (from Hooke's Law, where the axial

stiffness, k, is equal to ):

where E is the Young's modulus of the cable and A is its cross-sectional area.

If an initial pretension, T0 is added to the cable, the extension becomes:

Combining the above equations gives:

By plotting the left hand side of this equation against T, and plotting the right hand side
on the same axes, also against T, the intersection will give the actual equilibrium tension
in the cable for a given loading w and a given pretension T0.

[edit] Cable with central point load

A similar solution to that above can be derived where:

By equilibrium:
By geometry:

This gives the following relationship:

As before, plotting the left hand side and right hand side of the equation against the
tension, T, will give the equilibrium tension for a given pretension, T0 and load, W.

[edit] Tensioned cable oscillations

The fundamental natural frequency, f1 of tensioned cables is given by:

where: T = tension in newtons, m = mass in kilograms and L = span length.

[edit] Notable structures

 Millennium Dome, London by Buro Happold and Richard Rogers Partnership
 Olympiapark, Munich by Frei Otto
 Ashford Retail Village, Kent, UK
 Beckham Academy, London by Buro Happold
 Barclays Bank Headquarters, London
 Ingalls Rink, Yale University by Eero Saarinnen
 Pengrowth Saddledome, Calgary by Graham McCourt Architects and Jan
Bobrowski and Partners
 Denver International Airport, Denver
 Georgia Dome, Atlanta by Heery and Weidlinger Associates
 Imagination Headquarters, London
 Dorton Arena, Raleigh
 Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Melbourne
  Columbus Center, Baltimore, Maryland
 Pier6 Music Pavilion, Baltimore, Maryland
 Carlos Moseley Music Pavilion, New York, NY
 Finnish Chancery, Washington, DC
 Plashet Bridge, London by Birds Portchmouth Russum Architects
 National Symphony Orchestra, Washington, DC
 Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence
 Modernization of the Central Railway Station, Sofia, Bulgaria

[edit] Gallery of well known tensile structures

The roof tensile The Millennium Dome, The THTR-300 cable-

structures by Frei London, by Buro Denver International net dry cooling tower,
Otto of the Happold and Richard Airport terminal hyperboloid structure
Olympiapark, Rogers by Schlaich
Munich Bergermann & Partner

[edit] See also

 Thin-shell structure
 Hyperboloid structure
 Vladimir Shukhov
 Frei Otto
 Tensegrity
 Gridshell
 Gaussian curvature
 Principal curvature
 Geodesics

[edit] External links