CASE STUDY 2 PROJECT: TEXTILE HYBRID M1 AT LA TOUR DE L’ARCHITECTE ARCHITECTS: INSTITUTE FOR COMPUTATIONAL DESIGN (ICD) AND INSTITUTE OF BUILDING STRUCTURES AND STRUCTURAL DESIGN (ITKE) YEAR COMPLETED: 2012 LOCATION: UNIVERSITY OF STUTTGART, GERMANY
SITUATED AT HISTORICALLY PROTECTED SITE OF A STONE TOWER BY LEONARDO DA VINCI. THE CANOPY WAS DESIGNED AND ORIENTED TO EXERT MINIMAL FORCE TO ITS SURROUNDING WHILE MAXIMALLY ARTICULATED. THE STRUCTURE WAS ACCOMPLISHED THROUGH A MACRO-SYSTEM OF INTERWOVEN BENDING RODS THAT FORM LEAF-LIKE SHAPES AND A MESO-SCALE DIFFERENTIATED CELL LOGIC. PHYSICAL EXPERIMENTS AND COMPUTATIONAL METHODS WERE CRUCIAL IN FINDING THE COMPARATIVE STIFFNESS AND PRE-STRESS BETWEEN COMPOSITE RODS AND TEXTILES TO ACHIEVE A STABLE FORM. A KEY FEATURE IN THE DESIGN WAS THE TEXTILE HYBRID SYSTEM OF THE STRUCTURE INTEGRATION AND HETEROGENEITY. THE ORGANIZATION OF BENDING-ACTIVE BEAMS AND TENSILE SURFACES CREATES MOMENTS OF LONG SPAN ARCHES FOR SPATIAL EXPERIENCES. “THE VERY NATURE OF THE SYSTEM DEMANDED SIMULTANEOUS STUDY OF HOW STRUCTURAL EQUILIBRIUM IS FORMED AND DETERMINATION OF THE SPATIAL PERFORMATIVE CAPACITY OF THE RESULT. AS SUCH, THE DESIGN METHODOLOGY WAS FORMED TO TRACK BOTH, ARTICULATION OF MATERIAL PROPERTIES AND DIFFERENTIATION OF SPATIAL CONSEQUENCES.”1 SPECULATING THIS DESIGN INCREASE THE POSSIBILITY TO FIND SUCH HYBRID TEXTILE SYSTEM THAT PEOPLE WANTED. IT PRESERVED THE HISTORICAL PROTECTED SITE WHILE MAXIMISING THE USE OF SPACE. EFFICIENT USE OF MATERIAL AND TECTONIC SYSTEMS REDUCE WASTE AND INCREASE THE OVERALL PERFORMANCE SUSTAINABLY.
1 Achim Menges, “Textile Hybrid M1: La Tour De L’Architecte | Institute For Computational Design And Construction”, Icd.UniStuttgart.De, 2012 <http://icd.uni-stuttgart.de/?p=7799> [Accessed 9 August 2018]. 8
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