z3rch

Schlagwort: Stainless steel cables

  • Oxygen – San José, Costa Rica (2018)

    Oxygen – San José, Costa Rica (2018)

    Project data

    Architect: Jerde
    Engineering ETFE + cable structure, cutting patterns: z3rch
    Main contractor ETFE-Cushion: 3dtex
    Assembly: Lonas Lorenzo
    Manufacturing ETFE: Novum
    Manufacturing Stainless Steel Cables: Jakob
    Structure: Cable net supported ETFE cushion
    Material: ETFE natural + IR-Cut, Stainless steel cables
    Covered Area: 1.600 sqm
    photos: 3dtex, Lonas Lorenzo

    etfe cushion

    San Francisco de Heredia will soon be home to Oxígeno, a unique recreational and commercial space that combines nature and human relaxation in a development that “will be unique in the world.” For this amazing project it was asked to us to developed a cover for the main food court of the almost 125.000 sqm recreation and shopping area.
    The job was to developed an ETFE roof for 1.600 sqm, the idea, to do one big ETFE cushion!

    The roof has a diameter of 45m and the ETFE material is supported by a cable net attached to a steel structure provided by the client. Very important in this project is the safety system against water ponding, a system developed by the firm 3dtex, which does not use the plastic tube inside the cushion, achieving first a better safety of the system and second a much clear and elegant architectural design of the structure.

    In this way the country of Costa Rica and the city of Heredia not only became it first ETFE cushion roof but also the biggest in the world.

    Here we leave you a video of the assembly!video: Julián García | editing: Andres Aguirre

  • Bus terminal Aarau, Switzerland (2013)

    Bus terminal Aarau, Switzerland (2013)

    Project data

    Architect: VJA Architekten
    Engineering: form-tl
    Structure: ETFE pneumatic structure
    Material: ETFE foil, steel + steel cables
    Covered Area: 1.000 sqm
    photos: Eduard Hueber, Niklaus Spoerri, z3rch


  • Monastery Lehnin, Germany (2014)

    Monastery Lehnin, Germany (2014)

    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.