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ustainable architecture does not just mean reducing energy consumption, for instance in air-conditioning systems, but also the decision to use construction methods and materials exploiting as few resources as possible. In addition to possessing these requisites, tensile structures are also a valid alternative to constructions using conventional systems and materials. The roof over Erasme Station shows that urban infrastructures may also be places for experimenting with alternative solutions, somewhere between engineering and architecture. Rejuvenating a place with no distinctive features by means of a landscape design was one of the main objectives. Furbished with a light and transparent structure, the new station is no longer just a public passageway, but a stylistically significant urban-scale project, a distinctive design compared to the usual idea of accessory parts of infrastructures being mainly functional constructions. Situated near Erasme Hospital, the station is an authentic landmark thanks to its special design, capable of standing out without clashing with a setting which, thanks mainly to the originality of the project, actually has its own identity enhanced. The lightness of the tensile structure refers back to its installation idiom, to an object that goes beyond its own specific function to focus on communicating values belonging to the realms of art, in this instance designed to mark a place with a powerful identity and also introducing the poetics of the transient and a structure capa-
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Modelli del sistema strutturale costituito da arcate metalliche che ricopiano il profilo della copertura tensotesa in tessuto di fibra di vetro. Models of the structural system composed of metal arcades copying the tensile pattern of the roof made of a fiberglass fabric.
ble of changing its image over time. A feature that even takes shape in the mere alternation of night and day, when the long row of metal arches fills with light, turning a shelter into a fantastic tepee of wonders, capable of converting a station into a landscape commemorating the past. Samyn has already shown great design expertise in setting out wide spaces through unconventional tensile structures on other occasions, such as for example the M&G Research Center in Venafro, Italy. It is actually the highly original structural design that makes Erasme Station such a distinctive work of architecture. After all this really is architecture’s reason for being: it is free from all outside influence, such as, for instance, the identity associated with a given geographical place or an antiquated classification system from way back in the past, that focuses on criteria of exclusiveness, antagonisms and oppositions. If relations needed to be found with certain archetypes, then the project in question is not unlike a tent, which was originally a light, nomadic shelter gradually transformed down the ages into permanent structures like temples and palaces. Composed of tubular steel bays holding up a membrane made of a fiberglass fabric impregnated with PTFE, the tensile structure shelters the platforms where the trains arrive and depart, making outside light filtering in and reducing the feeling of claustrophobia in underground premises to a minimum.
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