Re: spectacular and serene

[Charles J Knight <c dot knight at juno dot com>]

> > > Oh well, I'm not so big on the dome idea, I actually am into
> > > earth-sheltered housing. I joined this list because of the idea 
> > > 
> > Fantastic!  My personal favorite structure is a tension 
> structure,
> > actually a simple one -- the radial tent.  But, you've got to fit 
> 
> What is a radial tent?

Try to imagine this shape in your mind.

OK, take a hula hoop and put it on the floor.  Place stretchy fabric 
over it, and attach it around the edge.  Now, pull up at the center.
The central point will rise and be a "sharp" point, the rest will gently
curve down to the hula hoop. 

That's a radial tent, and it's one of the 2 easiest-to-design tensile
structures out there.  The other is the hyperbolic saddle (Pringle's
potato chip) form.

The general class of forms is called an anticlastic curve, which
means that it curves in both directions, oppositely, at once.  

> I'm more into build-it-once permanence, myself, which is one of the
> reasons I favour earth-sheltered houses.  But then again there are 

Well, so am I, to a point.  The Colisseum is a "build it once" kind
of concrete structure, and it outlasted its usefulness by quite a few 
centuries.  (Uh, >15 of them, if memory serves)

I also believe in treading lightly.  There is a happy medium.  I'm
thinking earth bermed with a tensile roof, for my dream house.  Even
got a spot on one of my family's farms picked out, overlooking a
spring fed pond, on the edge of an outcropping of rock.  It'd be
pretty.

My favorite feature of the tensile architecture, is the fact that your
roof is translucent, eliminating the need for artificial  interior light
during the daytime.  It also makes for a natural "heat chimney"
which would be good for venting during Texas summers.  Besides,
our bedrock is only a few feet down at most..."underground" homes
here are above ground, with a sod roof.

Yes, I've thought about this...

> fabulously durable materials available. Hmmm. I like the idea of
> tensegrity applied to houses, I guess it would be especially useful 
> in a
> treehouse, all that dynamic retensioning would be handy in a wind.

It's not quite tensegrity, but it is more dynamic than the average 
concrete dome.

> I'm offline for a bit, btw, so I'll be occasionally replying via
> batchmode.  Argument with ISP.  :-(

I always keep at least 1 free account active...they make good
backup or list-email accounts.

My original ISP was excellent (flash.net) with one exception.
Their billing department would not send me a bill, and then
accused me of not paying for my account.  The president of
the company resolved it, though, so I still have to give them
high ratings overall.

     -- Chuck Knight

P.S.  Here is a repost of some of my favorite tension structure URLs.

The Tennesse Pavillion (last URL) is 2 radial tents over a hyperbolic 
saddle, and is my personal favorite.

http://www-ec.njit.edu/civil/fabric/ is the main NJIT site for this
type of structure, and the main one for this structure.  LOTS of
technical information and equations.
 
http://xarch.tu-graz.ac.at/home/gernot/skin/membranesoftware.html
is the site for some rather expensive patterning software
 
http://www.archrecord.com/CONTEDUC/ARTICLES/9_00_1.asp
is just an interesting site.
 
http://www.geigerengineers.com/project.cfm?projcatID=2
Sample projects using tensile membrane construction, including a
"superdome" construct.
 
http://www.freeway.cl/symphony/pag12.htm
Someone's thesis on tensile architecture...quite a good site.
 
http://architecture.mit.edu/house_n/web/resources/tutorials/House_N%20Tut
orial%20Tensile%20Structures.htm
Not sure what this site is -- it doesn't display right in my browser,
but it's MIT, so it's probably pretty good.
 
http://www-ec.njit.edu/civil/fabric/gallery1.html
is a gallery of some "common" and some "spectacular" fabric
structures.  The "tennessee pavillion" by Horst Berger is my 
personal favorite, click on its image to view a full screen pic.
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