Project data
Architect: Ruge Architekten
Engineering: z3rch
Structure: Tensigrity structure with loop cable
Material: PVC/PES membrane, steel + steel cables
Covered Area: 55 sqm
photos: 3dtex, z3rch
The City Hall of Monastery Lehnin, near Berlin, was looking for a structure that would provide sun protection for a tourist information pavilion made entirely of glass. The designed structure is a tensegrity, ie, it is held only by the final membrane tension. The form finding process took an incredible amount of time to find for stability and center positioning of the masts. Using computational methods for “form finding” we could not reach the goal of centering the mast loop cable. Because of that, we turn to do physical models, to study the natural behavior of the form we were looking for. After studying these physical models we went back to computational models with experimental and tangible understanding of what we wanted to build. So we decided to build a perfectly vertical tension cable that allowed us to center the mast. With this design we also managed to decrease the diameter of the perforation of the membrane or loop cable achieving a greater covered area.