The New Geometry of Building Structures, Wolfgang Schueller

*Daniel Libeskind

A new language of structures has been developing with respect to architecture. It may be characterized by the breakdown of the building into smaller assemblies, multilayered construction, complex shapes and spatial geometries, fractured forms (i.e., fractal mathematics), hinged assemblies, forms in tension and compression (i.e., buildings have muscles), mixed and hybrid structures, cast metals, light-weight composite materials, and so on. There is even an indication that certain passive structures may be replaced eventually by active structures with their own intelligence. We are already quite familiar with smart materials and energy.

Since the late 1980s , the field of architecture has witnessed revolutionary changes in design. Innovations in construction and project design made possible by digital technologies together with the development of new composite materials have enabled architects to create buildings with the most unusual and provocative shapes.Especially, Frank O. Gehry's projects brought attention to complex-shaped, unconventional design. The structures for these complicated designs can obviously not covered by traditional structure systemsThe organizing geometry of the new aesthetics, however, often is not regular anymore as for typical buildings. It may be random and dynamic as demonstrated, for example, by the Beijing National Stadium and the Beijing National Swimming Center. It is possible now with modelling software that designers can explore forms and situations that they may have not been able to conceive before. Freeform shapes in architecture have become a great engineering challenge.

Complex designs are those that cannot be described in basic geometric terms, they could be a result of experimental design processes or simply an architectural design concept. In either case, the design team has to be innovative and inventive in order to extract and design a building strategy to engineer the architectural object.Complexity can be a structural solution in itself; a pure, efficient structure is usually a complex shaped one. Catenaries are pure structural forms but they are expensive to build due to their complex geometries; beams are simple and cheap but are not an efficient form. Simulation, optimization and modeling provide ways of identifying a solution that meets these multiple demands. Free-form designs are shaped by the architect without referring to material and structural behaviors. Form-found designs are evolving structures, created through a dependency on physical forces, the constraints of materials and the effect of spatial boundary conditions.

Free forms, with the large and complicated structures necessary to keep them aloft, can be realized at a high price. As complicated building systems are employed, maintenance, access and installation become difficult and yet another expensive undertaking. Form-found structures are more efficient, as competing principles are assimilated and optimized throughout the design process by employing a parametric computational environment, there is an inherent flexibility allowing different design options to be explored. The use of parametric tools has become important, allowing us to explore multiple design alternatives in an interactive environment; this permits us to evaluate and compare different design solutions and to choose the most efficient one that pleases all parties and fits within the budget.

In free-form designs the complex hidden structure derived from intricate geometries and not from the nature of the support structure as convincingly demonstrated, for example, in the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, by Frank Gehry (1997), and by some of the work of Daniel Libeskind. For typical complex buildings, computers find the layout of structures within given boundaries.In form-found designs the structure as the primary idea of architecture, but not necessarily derived from traditional engineering thinking of optimization or standard construction techniques or tectonic expression, but from other intentions; architects invent structures: subjectivity and creativity are introduced in spite of the limits imposed by the rules and physical laws of engineering. In other words, the designer decides to expose the structure, rather than hide it behind a skin, in order to articulate its purpose and thereby enhances the quality of space such as articulating the illusion of weightlessness.The dialogue (or play) of architecture with structure, or symbolism with tectonics: e.g. the illusion of support structure, or the detail on a more local scale as a leitmotif.The organizing geometry of the new aesthetics often may appear as not regular as for typical buildings; the layout of structure may be random and fluid. It is possible now with modeling software that designers can explore forms and situations that they may have not been able to conceive before. Freeform shapes in architecture have become a great engineering challenge. The renowned structural engineer Cecil Balmond argues that structural engineers must become more intuitive and not just work towards the known; in other words, they must develop a less skeletal but more fluid understanding of structure. He points to the emergence of a new aesthetics of asymmetrical structures that oppose traditional notions of tectonic structures and stability. Structures derive from an animated sense of geometry possibly based on natural forms that are constantly changing where geometry evolves out of modeling and testing.

THE PRESENTATION OF THE NEW GEOMETRY OF IRREGULAR BUILDINGS IS AS FOLLOWS:

CHAOTIC ARRANGMENT OF LINEAR AND SURFACE ELEMENTS

CHAOTIC ARRANGMENT OF SPATIAL, POLYHEDRAL ELEMENTS IRREGULAR, FLUID, HORIZONTAL- SPAN STRUCTURES BEAM BUILDINGS COMPLEX WALL GEOMETRIES IRREGULAR, VERTICAL BUILDINGS

COMPLEX GEOMETRY: structure as the primary idea of architecture

Deconstructive philosophy in architectural theory (see Jacque Derridas influence on Peter Eisenman and Daniel Libeskind) had a great influence on the development of the new geometry in postmodern architecture that began in the late 1980s. It is characterized by ideas of fragmentation, an interest in manipulating ideas of a structure's surface or skin, non-rectlinear shapes which serve to distort and dislocate some of the elements of architecture, such as structure and envelope. The finished visual appearance of buildings that exhibit the many deconstructivist styles is characterized by a stimulating unpredictability and a controlled chaos.

The deconstructive architecture celebrates order in visual disorder in response to corruption, violence, and irrationality in life. It lets architectural form wildly spin out of control to violate perfection and cause torture and pain in reaction to the traditional values of architecture. It has its source in philosophical skepticism and chaos theory in science, which is based on the randomness and uncertainty that occur in catastrophes, failures, instabilities, accidental impacts, turbulences, and so on, in contrast to the linear models and predictability of the deterministic world.

CHAOTIC ARRANGMENT OF LINEAR AND SURFACE ELEMENTS

*Daniel Libeskind

*Jewish Museum, Berlin, 2000, Daniel Libeskind

*Felix Nussbaum-Haus, Osnabrueck, Daniel Liebeskind

*Felix Nussbaum-Haus, Osnabrueck, 1998, Daniel Liebeskind

*Vitra Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany, 1989, Frank O. Gehry: complex building bodies and irrational arrangement of shapes together with distorted geometry and construction cause an exciting space interaction.

*Frank O. Gehry found inspiration in an Arizona canyon, left, for the interior spaces of the offices and classroom tower, left, of the Peter B. Lewis Building, nearing completion on the campus of Case Western Reserve University. The design of the exterior began, as most Gehry buildings do, with highly conceptual sketches drawn by the architect, above.

VITRA FIRE STATION, 1994, WEIL am RHEIN, GERMANY, Zaha Hadid

VITRA FIRE STATION, 1994, WEIL am RHEIN, GERMANY, Zaha Hadid*

VITRA FIRE STATION, 1994, WEIL am RHEIN, GERMANY, Zaha Hadid*

*Twenty-six follies designed by the New York and Paris based deconstructivist architect Bernard Tschumi (1982). The red pavilions have different functions, they are landmarks and also pearls defining the landscape Parc de la Villette, Paris.

*Bus Stop Aachen, 1998, Peter Eisenman, folded steel structure that resembles a giants claw grasping the paving, or the folded steel shelter perches crablike on the square

The organizing geometry of the new aesthetics often is not regular as for typical buildings; the layout of structure may be random and fluid. It is possible now with modeling software that designers can explore forms and situations that they may have not been able to conceive before. Freeform shapes in architecture have become a great engineering challenge. The renowned structural engineer Cecil Balmond argues that structural engineers must become more intuitive and not just work towards the known; in other words, they must develop a less skeletal but more fluid understanding of structure. He points to the emergence of a new aesthetics of asymmetrical structures that oppose traditional notions of tectonic structures and stability. Structures derive from an animated sense of geometry possibly based on natural forms that are constantly changing where geometry evolves out of modeling and testing.

e.g. the sculptural structure as derived from other design ideas, such as the Phaeno Science Center in Wolfsburg, Germany (2005), by Zaha Hadid. e.g. the irregular and random type structure such as the Water Cube and "Birds Nest in Beijing (2008). The structural engineer Mutsuro Sasaki of Japan conducts experiments on refining the mathematical principles that allow buildings to escape rigid geometric forms and take on more biomorphic shapes. He helped to transform the complex geometries and ideas of architects like Toyo Ito and Arata Isozaki into reality.

For example, the structural engineer Mutsuro Sasaki of Japan conducts experiments on refining the mathematical principles that allow buildings to escape rigid geometric forms and take on more biomorphic shapes. He helped to transform the complex geometries and ideas of architects like Toyo Ito and Arata Isozaki into reality. Similarly, the renowned structural engineer Cecil Balmond of Arup argues that structural engineers must become more intuitive and not just work towards the known; in other words, they must develop a less skeletal but more fluid understanding of structure. He points to the emergence of a new aesthetics of asymmetrical structures that oppose traditional notions of tectonic structures and stability. Structures derive from an animated sense of geometry possibly based on natural forms that are constantly changing that is geometry evolves out of modeling and testing.

The organizing geometry of the new aesthetics, however, often is not regular anymore as for typical buildings. It may be random and dynamic as demonstrated, for example, by the Beijing National Stadium (Fig.10.12) and the Beijing National Swimming Center (Fig. 10.13). It is possible now with modeling software that designers can explore forms and situations that they may have not been able to conceive before. Freeform shapes in architecture have become a great engineering challenge.

Cecil Balmond - Informal Networks -3 November 2005Entitled Informal Networks, the talk detailed the Units research, including work hot off the computer, into new structural forms, forms that could be a catalyst for new building typologies, ones that allowed for notions of trace, skip, jump and overlap. Structures that are based on an animated sense of geometry, open-ended, scale less, based on Natural forms but understanding that Nature is not fixed or static but constantly changing. If architects are to apply the fruits of this research, Balmond argued, they need to change their way of thinking, to become more intuitive, not to work towards known outcomes. Beauty in Architecture, he suggested, lay in the process of construction, not with the finished object.

Mr. Balmond and the Japanese architect Toyo Ito played with a pattern of overlapping squares across a delicate lacelike skin for the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in London (2002). It was not only decorative but also supported the entire structure.Freeform shapes in architecture is an area of great engineering challengesand novel design ideas. Obviously the design process, whichinvolves shape, feasible segmentation into discrete parts, functionality,materials, statics, and cost, at every stage benefits from a completeknowledge of the complex interrelations between geometryrequirements and available degrees of freedom. Triangle meshes the most basic, convenient, and structurally stable way of representinga smooth shape in a discrete way do not support desirableproperties of meshes relevant to building construction (most importantly,torsion-free nodes). Alternatives, namely quad-dominantBMWs undulating steel forms, suggesting the magical qualities of liquid mercury, may be the closest yet that architecture has come to alchemy. An hourglass-shaped events hall grounds the building at one end, its torqued glass-and-steel form evoking a tornado drilling into the earth, Behind SANAAs illusion of weightlessness Mutsuro Sasaki ,for a competition proposal for a new train station in Florence with the architect Arata Isozaki, Sasaki generated a structure using compute methods rooted in evolutionary biology

Although architects and their works ARE sometimes featured on these art pages, strictly speaking, Mutsuro Sasaki, a structural engineer, shouldnt be here at all. Yet thanks to the talents of Sasaki and his colleagues, who know how to make architects fantasies come true, new possibilities for structural design are taking flight, contributing to exciting environments for the new millennium.

Currently a professor at Hosei University (and before that Nagoya University), Sasaki conducts experiments into new structural possibilities for architecture. In particular, his research concentrates on refining the mathematical principles that allow buildings to escape rigid geometric forms and take on more biomorphic shapes.

Anyone familiar with the work of Antonio Gaudi will be familiar with Sasakis interests, but where the Spanish architects approach was by necessity trial-and-error, Sasaki can, thanks to computer technology, talk of having a modern theoretical method to work Outside of the universitys research labs, Sasaki has helped transform the ideas of top Japanese architects like Toyo Ito and Arata Isozaki into reality. A good example can be seen in Gallery Mas garden, where stands a replica of a typical flux structure: the gateway to a convention hall in Qatar, the construction of which began in 2004 but has since been suspended. The basic design works on contrasts between the long, flat horizontal beam and the rounded tree trunk-like legs. The resemblance of these pillars to organic forms is no coincidence; Sasaki and the architect, Arata Isozaki, were inspired by the way that certain plants adapt to their environment, and they decided to apply these principles to architecture.

However, Tristram Carfrae now perceives a swing back towards the structural engineer, through the potential in advancing and extending building information modeling (BIM) and allied techniques, as part of the collaborative design process.

Carfrae describes how, historically, structural engineers were essentially trained to be numerate; that it was a form of applied mathematics above all. With previous tools, engineers were licensed to use them only when they've demonstrated an understanding their innards in detail. With the increased complexity of today's tools, that's generally not possible and certainly not scalable. Equally, using contemporary modeling software, engineers can explore situations that they may not have been able to conceive - put simply, situations and processes that can't be drawn. By constantly looking at these judgments on process from different perspectives, informed through collaboration, you should end up with an outcome that is richly imaginative and holistic, yet grounded in testing and modeling.

Volker Schmid forscht zu dem Thema der hybriden Bauweise. Sie ermglicht den Ingenieuren und Architekten eine neue Formensprache

Sei es das Paul-Klee-Zentrum in Bern des Architekten Renzo Piano, das schottische Parlament in Edinburgh von Henrique Mirailles oder das Haus fr Musik und Musiktheater in Graz - bei all diesen anspruchsvollen Projekten leitete Volker Schmid die Planung der Tragwerke. Und auch bei den berdimensionalen Fuballschuhen, aufgestellt zwischen Kanzleramt und Berliner Hauptbahnhof zur Fuball-Weltmeisterschaft 2006, hatte Volker Schmid die Hnde im Spiel.So unterschiedlich diese Bauwerke und Skulpturen sein mgen, ihnen ist gemeinsam, dass es sogenannte Hybridkonstruktionen sind, Konstruktio-nen, bei denen unterschiedliche Materialien miteinander verbunden werden. Beim Paul-Klee-Zentrum zum Beispiel, einem Museumsneubau, wurden wellenfrmige Stahltrger auf raffinierte Weise mit Glas und Holz kombiniert. Bei den Fuballschuhen wurde nach dem Sandwichprinzip ein Schaumstoffkern mit Deckschichten aus glasfaserverstrktem Kunststoff verbunden. "Jedes Material hat besondere Eigenschaften und ist deshalb fr bestimmte Aufgaben mehr oder weniger gut geeignet", sagt Schmid, der als neuberufener Professor an der TU Berlin das Fachgebiet "Entwerfen und Konstruieren - Verbundstrukturen" leitet und zuvor in London beim international renommierten Ingenieurbro "Arup" zu dem Thema der hybriden Bauweise forschte. Die Kombination von verschiedensten Materialien ermglicht es, so zu bauen, dass die Werkstoffe entsprechend ihren Eigenschaften optimal eingesetzt werden. Bauten nur aus Stahl oder Beton gehren der Vergangenheit an.

"Die intelligente Kombination unterschiedlicher Werkstoffe zu hybriden Tragwerken fhrt zu neuen, hocheffizienten Strukturen und einer neuen Formensprache", sagt Volker Schmid. Diese widerspiegelt sich zum Bei-spiel an der Mensa der Universitt in Karlsruhe. Hier wurde das Tragwerk aus Holz mit Polyurethan bestrichen, einer gummiartigen wasserabweisenden Schicht, wie sie zur Abdichtung von Betonbrcken verwendet wird. "Holz und Polyurethan sind so noch nie zusammen verwendet worden. Es entstand im Holzbau eine vllig neue Form", sagt Schmid.

Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, 1997, Frank Gehry

*Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, 1997, Frank Gehry

*Fluid architecture by a form active mold

*Fifteen years in the making, The Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles prepares for its opening. The concert hall was designed by the architect Frank Gehry, and is expected to open in Oct. 2003.

*Frank Gehry's Disney Hall. LA, 2003

*Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, 2003, Frank Gehry. Swirling forms typical of the concert hall's architect, Frank Gehry

*The Walt Disney Concert Hall is the home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Master Chorale. Monica Almeida/The New York Times

*Fisher Center, Bard College, NY, Frank Gehry, DeSimone, 2004

*MARTa, Herford, 2005, Frank Gehry, Bollinger & Grohmann

*Museum Marta, Herford, Germany, 2005, Frank Gehry

*The renovated Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 2008, Frank Gehry. It is not a perfect building. Yet its gorgeous billowing glass facade, which evokes a crystal ship drifting through the city, is a masterful example of how to breathe emotional life into a staid old structure.

*The renovated Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 2008, Frank Gehry. The new glass facade, swelling out one story over the sidewalk, seems to wrap the building and embrace passersby below. Its faceted glass panels, supported by rows of curved wood beams, evoke the skeleton of a ships hull or the ribs of a corset.

*The renovated Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 2008, Frank Gehry. The renovated Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 2008, Frank Gehry. The climax arrives in the Gallery Italia, a long narrow sculpture corridor just behind the new glass facade. The entire composition snaps into place. As you watch the figures jostling outside and then turn to the sculptures, urban life and art seem in perfect balance.

*The renovated Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 2008, Frank Gehry. A spectacular new spiraling wood staircase rises from the second floor, punching through the glass roof. The staircase leans drunkenly slightly to one side as it rises, and the tilt of the form sets the whole room in motion.

*Hysolar Institute, University of Stuttgart, Germany, 1988, G. Behnish and Frank Stepper

*Cental Station, Oberhausen, Germany, 1996, C. Parade Arch, Ralf Woerzberger Eng.

*Fr diese Trasse wurde ein zwischen der Arena Oberhausen und dem Centro, eine neue Haltestelle errichtet. Diese Haltestelle bildet mit ihrer aufsehenerregenden Architektur, die an die chaotische Anhufung von Trmmern erinnert, eine Landmarke innerhalb der umgebenden Konsumarchitektur. Rohre und Trger aus Stahl tragen die Dachskulptur. Metallene Dachflchenscheiben und scheinbar schwebende Fassaden aus Glas bilden die Hlle fr den Bahnsteig. Unter diesem befindet sich das Kundenzentrum in Massivbauweise.

*Cental Station, Oberhausen, Germany, 1996, C. Parade Arch, Ralf Woerzberger Eng.

*The M-House, Los Angeles, 2000, Michael Jantzen, Advanced Structures Inc. Los Angeles; This M-House was designed to function as a single private vacation retreat, or in multiple numbers and configurations, as a complete stand alone high tech resort complex. The house can be designed to be self sufficient, powered by alternative energy sources such as the sun and the wind.The M-vironments were developed to accommodate a wide range of markets. With different sizes, shapes, materials, and panel types, the system can be used for exhibit structures, pavilions, play environments for kids, retail spaces, office modules, and many other commercial applications.The structure can be assembled or disassembled by a crew of four in one week.Jantzen built this one-bedroom cottage entirely by himself

*UFA Palace Dresden (German Architecture Price 1999), COOP Himmelblau

*Food Theater Cafe, London, UK, 2001, Daniel Libeskind

CHAOTIC ARRANGMENT OF SPATIAL, POLYHEDRAL ELEMENTS

allusion of instability for unusual structures The structural design for Beijing's National Stadium was inspired by a bird's nest Unusual buildings and complex sculptures can seem to defy gravity. Arup.com reports on the tricks of the trade that make this happen. What we want people to ask when they see an unusual building is, how can that possibly stand up? says Arup Sports Darren Paine. His extensive experience of designing unusual structures ranges from glass sculptures to sports stadia. Clever application of geometry and materials are the fundamental tricks behind creating an illusion of instability. Whether its a small sculpture or a large-scale stadium, the same principles of space, light and materials is needed to create a false impression of weightlessness. Darren says, The only difference between a sculpture and a building is in the detail. With buildings you tend to focus more on whats on the inside, sculptures are more about whats on the outside.Simple solutionsIts not always the case that unusual form requires complicated facade for Munichs (Germany) new World Cup football stadium will be able to change colour when completed. This striking innovation requires a homogenous form and a facade clad in one material type. But a seemingly uniform design may need a more complex response. The office building over Charing Cross Station (London, UK) has a conventional outer form, but it needed a careful structural solution so that it could span several platforms.It gets much more challenging when a building needs to look like a work of art and the technological solutions are difficult. Sports stadia can present particular challenges. Unusual structure: interlocking planes on the Serpentine Pavilion 2002 Darren says, When designing stadia, were taking creative, non-linear designs, such as those designed for the Serpentine Pavilion (a temporary exhibition space in London, UK) and making them much bigger. There are three generic solutions for roofs on stadia: a design based around a cantilevered roof; a beam technique where the supporting element spans the full width of the stand; or a 3-dimensional system where the material elements and geometry are used to span the full perimeter of the stadium. Inspired by natureDarren believes there is value in looking at art and nature for inspiration to complex design challenges.He says, We can learn a lot from natural solutions in a mixture of ways. In nature, everything exists on a small scale. Its our job to find out how we can translate these onto a larger structure. Our experience puts us in a good position, and Im confident that well continue to develop challenging designs in the future. Darren Paine, Arup Sport The architectural concept for Beijing National Stadium was inspired by a birds nest. The venue for the 2008 Olympics - is as much about aesthetic detail on the outside as it is about spectator comfort on the inside. Darren says, Weve really had to push the more conceptual ideas for this one. The actual seating area is going to be very traditional, but to get there you have to pass through a very chaotic facade that, in engineering terms, is much more challenging to create.The structure is an interwoven series of beams giving an impression of weightlessness. Careful material selection also plays a part in the illusion. Steel was the natural choice because of its load to weight capacity. Darren says, If you imagine overlapping lollypop sticks so that they interlock to form a star shape, then you get the idea for how we started to think about the venue.Changing designHe believes that the way we will engineer unusual structures in the future is related to an increased acceptance of unconventional design. Darren says, Attitudes have come a long way from reactions to, say, the work of Spanish architect, Gaud, and to gothic architecture. People are more open to unusual ideas and the challenge for us is creating them on a much bigger scale. Our experience puts us in a good position, and Im confident that well continue to develop challenging designs in the future.

*Royal Ontario Museum, 100 Queen's Park, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 2C6, Canada, 2007, Daniel Libeskind, Arup Struct. Eng.

*Addition to Denver Art Museum, Denver, USA. 2006, Daniel Libeskind, Arup Eng.

*Addition to Denver Art Museum, Denver, 2006, Daniel Libeskind, Arup Eng.

*Addition to Denver Art Museum, Daniel Libeskind, Arup Eng.2006

*Addition to Denver Art Museum, Daniel Libeskind, Arup Eng.2006, Inspired by the Rocky Mountains while flying into Denver for his job interview, Libeskind started sketching the building on the back of his boarding pass. The sculptural addition, likened to a piece of origami for its many folds, angles and prows, will house special exhibits and galleries of modern and contemporary art, architecture, design and graphics. The five-level form is a series of spaces defined by nonorthogonal planar walls. There is little repetition and no typical floor.

*Addition to Denver Art Museum, Daniel Libeskind, Arup Eng.2006, Libeskind's Museum Residences are on the right.

*Addition to Denver Art Museum, Daniel Libeskind, Arup Eng.2006, Sequence 13 had more than 50 sleides to help workers visualize steps, both in 2D (top) and 3D (bottom three) (Images courtesy of LPR)

*Virtual Steel Work. 3D digital model for leaning structure included falsework, temporary steel, rigging frames and crane locations. Addition to Denver Art Museum, Daniel Libeskind, Arup Eng.2006

*Wolf Prix and Helmut Swiczinsky, the Austrian architects who founded Coop Himmelblau in 1968, have waited an unusually long time for a U.S. debut. It finally arrives next week, when the firm's soaring, audaciously sculptural new wing for the Akron Art Museum opens to the public. Made of steel, glass, concrete and aluminum panels, the $35-million building is attached to the museum's existing home, a Renaissance Revival post office built in 1899, like a spaceship hitched to a locomotive. After all, Coop Himmelblau German for "Blue-sky Collective," a name that suggests the dreamy nature of its work, if little of its toughness has had a strong presence in Los Angeles for years. Prix taught for a decade at the Southern California Institute of Architecture and still has close ties there and at Pasadena's Art Center College of Design. He has been a friend and mentor to local architects Thom Mayne and Eric Owen Moss. Coop Himmelblau was hired by the Los Angeles Unified School District, with a push and a donation from Eli Broad, to design a performing arts high school on Grand Avenue. But it won't be ready until next year at the earliest.

*The Akron Art Museum, Austrian architecture firm Coop Himmelb(l)au designed the addition, which is made up of soaring glass windows and angular metal forms. The addition attaches to the museum's original building, but as this rendering shows, the new design bears no resemblance to the museum's original home.

*Akron Art Museum, Akron, 2007, Wolf Prix and Helmut Swiczinsky (Himmelblau). Post architecture critic Philip Kennicott likens the new building to Transformers, the popular line of robot characters. He writes, "With its metal-mesh encased arms, its chrysalis glass core and its long thorax of aluminum-covered gallery space, [the addition] feels biomorphic and mechanical at the same time."

*It is a discombobulated building bristling with space-age energy, operating on different levels and at wild angles," he writes.

*This building is Coop Himmelb(l)au first commission in the United States. In 1980, the firm's lead architects wrote a manifesto proclaiming, "Architecture has to be cavernous, fiery, smooth, hard, angular, brutal, round, delicate, colorful, obscene, lustful, dreamy, attracting, repelling, wet, dry and throbbing."Roland Halbe - Roland Halbe

*he firm's style is known as "deconstructivist." Writes Kennicott, "It is so "deconstructed" -- whatever that means -- that it feels as if it might well have been a very normal looking building that someone decided to unfold into weird shapes on the drafting table."

IRREGULAR, FLUID, HORIZONTAL-SPAN STRUCTURES

*The 5-story DG Bank, Berlin, Germany (2001, Frank Gehry; Schlaich, Bergemann und Partners, structural engineers for skylights and interior glass system): In an effort to respect the surrounding architecture on Pariser Platz, which is dominated by the Brandenburg Gate, the building meets the surrounding traditional architecture, but the sculptural drama typical of Gehry's happens intside. Here, Gehry has stuffed the building with an amoeba-like auditorium, that is vaguely like a fish, covered with steel and glass. It is a definitively weird structure. It's as if a glass and chrome tumor erupted in the middle of a bank's grand lobby.

*Science and Technology Museum Shanghai, 2002, RTKL/Arup

Col. H. Weir Cook International Terminal, Indianapolis, 2008, Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum (HOK), Thornton-Tomasetti Engineers

*Col. H. Weir Cook International Terminal, Indianapolis, 2008, Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum (HOK), Thornton-Tomasetti Engineers. The terminal roof is shaped to create a symbolic threshold to the city and state, emanating from the civic plaza. The form is generated by joining the sheltering, centralized shape of an arch with the rise and fall of the building from check-in to departure. The arched roof will shelter the glass walls from the sun and allow sunlight through the skylights. The arching will promote natural cooling, by harnessing the airflow over its surfaces and the roof surface will reflect energy, limit heat gain and channel water for collection. Encompassing high glass walls, the building rises over the plaza to reveal a view of the aircraft apron and the city skyline.

*Col. H. Weir Cook International Terminal, Indianapolis, 2008, Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum (HOK), Thornton-Tomasetti Engineers. The terminal roof is shaped to create a symbolic threshold to the city and state, emanating from the civic plaza. The form is generated by joining the sheltering, centralized shape of an arch with the rise and fall of the building from check-in to departure. The arched roof will shelter the glass walls from the sun and allow sunlight through the skylights. The arching will promote natural cooling, by harnessing the airflow over its surfaces and the roof surface will reflect energy, limit heat gain and channel water for collection. Encompassing high glass walls, the building rises over the plaza to reveal a view of the aircraft apron and the city skyline.

New Trade Fair, Rho-Pero, Milan, Italy, 2005, Massimiliano e Doriana Fuksas Architects, Mero GmbH & Co. Schlaich Bergermann und Partner

*New Trade Fair, Rho-Pero, Milan, Italy, 2005, Massimiliano e Doriana Fuksas Architects, Mero GmbH & Co. Schlaich Bergermann und Partner

*Neue Messe Mailand, Mailand, Italien, 2005, Massimiliano Fuksas, Mero, Das VELA-Dach ist mit seiner geometrisch freien Wellenform den Ausstellungshallen angepasst. Seine durchschnittliche Hhe betrgt ca. 16 m. In einigen Bereichen berragt das Dach die Messehallen auf einer Hhe von 26 m, in anderen "fliet" es in Form von Vulkane und Halb-Vulkane bis auf Bodenhhe herab. Dem Entwurf der Freiformgeometrien liegt ein rhombisches Gitternetzes mit einer Seitenlnge von 1,8 m zugrunde. Um die zum Teil extremen Krmmungen realisieren zu knnen, teilen zustzliche diagonale Streben das rhombische Gitternetz bereichsweise in ein Dreiecksraster und garantieren so die notwendige ebene Lagerung der Glasscheiben. Die gesamte Dachstruktur besteht aus ca. 16.000 Knoten und 41.000 Stben. Durch eine speziell entwickelte Software fr die statische Berechnung und Fertigung ist MERO in der Lage die Konstruktion und Ausfhrung derartiger Strukturen in einem hohen Ma zu automatisieren.

Zaragoza Bridge Pavilion , 2008, Zaha Hadid, Arup

*Zaha Hadid?s Zaragoza Pavilion provided exhibition space and a pedestrian route over the Ebro River. Such were the goals for the combination bridge and building designed by Zaha Hadid Architects that served as the entry pavilion to this past summers Zaragoza Expo, in Zaragoza, Spain. The London-based firm was selected through a competition in mid-2005 and proposed a more than 900-foot-long, curvaceous structure, providing both exhibition space and a pedestrian crossing over the Ebro River. The organic and flowing geometry was not a formal response to the clients competition brief, insists Manuela Gatto, project architect. Instead, its configuration is contextual, she says. It is intended to provide multiple ways to appreciate the river.The steel bridge spans the Ebro in two sectionsone that is about 400 feet long, and another approximately 500 feet long, separated by an island. The shorter section, on the rivers north bank, is made up of three triangular tube trusses, or pods, that merge into one toward the opposite bank. Each is a truss that includes a hexagonal box beam at its crown serving as a top chord, and a ship-hull-like deck structure of steel plate serving as the bottom chord. Between the two are parallel ribs connected by orthogonal diagonal members. These diagrids resist shear forces and form the substructure for glass-reinforced-concrete facade panels. It is an interpretation of a traditional timber-covered bridge, says Kevin Acosta, a civil engineer with Arup, which provided all engineering services on the project.

*The pavilions hybrid nature added a level of difficulty to the geometrically complex project. For example, it needed to be designed to deflect less under gravity and lateral loads than a typical bridge would. And it included other elements atypical for bridges, such as fireproofing, interior finishes, and mechanical systems. Finding the best places to locate service corridors within the structure for lighting, air-conditioning, and other systems was especially challenging, says Acosta. These openings reduce the stiffness of the structure and most times require reinforcement around them, adding to the construction complications.Contractors started foundation work in early 2006, extending piles more than 230 feet deep, because of the poor bearing capacity of the karstic ground below the pavilion. The steel superstructure components, begun about a year later, were fabricated in Spains Basque region, in sections as large as road transportation limits would allow. Even so, on-site assembly and erection was labor intensive. The asymmetric structure was a challenge to put in place, says Gatto.

*Chris Lee & Kapil Gupta, C Quarters, Doha, Qatar. This large mall will be located on the edge of a state-sponsored campus, constructed in Doha, called Education City. The spatial system alludes to the surrounding sand dunes in a series of undulating voids and masses (image 1). The perforations in the structural system (image 2) are abstractions of traditional Islamic architectural elements. Image courtesy Chris Lee Architecture & Urbanism

Guangzhou Opera House, Guangzhou, Zaha Hadid

*Guangzhou Opera House, Guangzhou, Zaha Hadid

*A model of the London Olympic Aquatic Center, 2004.

*A model of the London Olympic Aquatic Center, 2004 by Zaha Hadid.

A digital impression of the framework of the aquatic centre roof; the roof weighs 2,800t and is already being acclaimed as a sculptural masterpiece.

*

Work has been completed on the 160m-long wave-shaped roof frame of Zaha Hadids Aquatics Centre for the London Olympics.Described as one of the most complex engineering and construction challenges of the Olympic Park big build by the Olympic Delivery Authority, the steel roof frame weighs more than 3000 tonnes and stands on only three supports.The roof was fabricated off site and assembled on temporary supports before being lifted and lowered into place.Work will now begin on the aluminium roof covering and timber cladding of the ceiling, which extends out of the buildings interior and over the northern roof supports.

*

*the 'mobile art' pavillion designed by zaha hadid has finished showing in tokyo and will now move to new york. the pavillion designed for fashion icon chanel includes works from 15 contemporary artists who each were asked to create a bag influenced by chanel's 2.55 quilted style bag, celebrating 50 years. the pavillion will be open to visitors at new york's rumsey playfield from october through to november 2008.The Mobile Art Pavilion for Chanel, initially inspired by Chanels signature quilted bag and conceived through a system of natural organisation, is also shaped by the functional considerations of the exhibition. However, these further determinations remain secondary and precariously dependent on the overriding formal language of the Pavilion. An enigmatic strangeness has evolved between the Pavilions organic system of logic and these functional adaptations arousing the visitors curiosity even further.In creating the Mobile Art Pavilion for Chanel, Zaha Hadid has developed the fluid geometries of natural systems into a continuum of fluent and dynamic space where oppositions between exterior and interior, light and dark, natural and artificial landscapes are synthesized. Lines of energy converge within the Pavilion, constantly redefining the quality of each exhibition space whilst guiding movement through the exhibition. The work of selected artists has been commissioned for the exhibition. Hadid created an entire landscape for their work, rather than just an exhibition space. Visitors will be guided through the space using the latest digital technology developed in collaboration with the artists.

*Mobile Art pavilion, Zaha Hadid. Engineered in partnership with Arups London office, the Chanel Contemporary Art Container meets seemingly conflicting criteria. Its stark white fiber reinforced polymer exterior and 530m2 of interior space are durable enough to handle large crowds, yet Chanels traveling pavilion also needed to be sufficiently light and compact to fit into shipping containers for a six-city world tour:

*CHANEL Contemporary Art Container, Mobile Art reflects Hadid's aversion to right angles and her ingenious forays into fluid space.

*The challenge, Ms. Hadid said, was to create a pavilion that was visually compelling and could be easily transported. The result is a 7,500-square-foot doughnut-shape structure with a central courtyard. Its lightweight panels can be packed in 51 shippable containers. Skylights admit natural light, and computer-generated lighting casts a rainbow of colors around the base of the exterior that glows day and night.

*The Pavilion follows the parametric distortion of a torus. In its purest geometric shape, the circular torus is the most fundamental diagram of an exhibition space. The organic shell of the Mobile Art Pavilion is created with a succession of reducing arched segments. As the Pavilion will travel over three continents, this segmentation also gives an appropriate system of partitioning allowing the Pavilion to be easily transported in separate, manageable elements. Each structural element will be no wider than 2.25 m. The partitioning seams become a strong formal feature of the exterior faade cladding, whilst these seams also create a spatial rhythm of perspective views within the interior exhibition spaces. Structural Engineer: ARUP [London]

*A view of the Mobile Art pavilion in Hong Kong.

Inflatable structural skin, various Norwegian Architects designed a temporary performance space for a world tour, 2009, Ramboll Whitbybird Struct. Eng., ESS/Tectoniks

*Various Norwegian Architects designed a temporary performance space for a world tour, 2009, Ramboll Whitbybird Struct. Eng., ESS/Tectoniks contractor, inflatable structural skin; Oslo-based Various Architects proposed a dynamic oval form of 90m x 60m ranging between 10 and 17m in height and covering 3,900sq m. The 2,000sq m performance space was covered by the bicycle wheel roof, with the radial truss supported on 12 columns spaced to frame the five 12m x 7m video screens and support the audiovisual equipment. This was surrounded by the public plaza and the back-of-house areas sited within an inflatable PVC outer skin, braced with a lightweight frame.The five-screen cinematic performance, based on poems by Henrik Ibsen and Mahmoud Darwish, is scheduled to come to London 2009. Stephen Melville is a director at Ramboll Whitbybird and Ross Smith is a design engineer.

*Norwegian practice Various Architects have sent us these images of their design for a mobile pavilion, one of three finalists in a competition organised by Yorkshire Forward. The Pavilion uses tried and tested inflatable technology consisting of pressurised tubes in a new and stunning way. The diamond-lattice structure creates a stable 3D superstructure enclosing the project. This adds stability to a series of domed shapes that are a triangulated network of tubes with dual-layer inflated cushions on each side to provide in-plane stiffness. The outer cushion of the volume is translucent, giving the volume visual depth; the inner layer is a white blackout fabric that allows the inner space to be darkened during the day. A 2m x 2m structural flooring grid with adjustable legs provides a stable base for the project. This is weighted down with the two shipping containers the project is transported in, and additional water filled weights to limit the need to transport heavy foundations.

National Stadium of Sports Affairs Council, Toyo Ito & Associates, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, 2009, As in many Ito-designed buildings, the stadiums architecture and structure are essentially one. Since the arena has little need for full enclosure, a series of massive structural elements, each one clearly articulated and connected to the next, defines the building. The sequence begins with the piles and raft foundations. These support the basements reinforced-concrete slabs and walls, which provide lateral stability as well as vertical load distribution. Most of the downward force comes from the concrete saddles above. Interspersed with openings and aligned like vertebrae, these monumental arches create the stadiums double-decker circulation spine. Their irregular formsnine different types in the body of the building alonewere made of poured-in-place concrete, as were the shoulder-angled beams supporting the upper seat decks and the roof. Bolted to the saddles and the beams are 159 cantilevered steel trusses. Arranged radially, they extend out over the seats and hold up the roof. Tying the trusses together, 32 oscillating spirals of steel pipe stand out as the exteriors most distinctive feature. Composed from hollow pieces measuring 13 inches in diameter and 20 feet in length, the tubes were factory made to Itos 3D specifications. Once welded together on-site, the pipes take on an entirely new character. Crossing over and under the trusses, they imbue the entire stadium with a sense of movement.

*

National Stadium of Sports Affairs Council, Toyo Ito & Associates, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, 2009*

National Stadium of Sports Affairs Council, Toyo Ito & Associates, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, 2009, In addition to their strong visual impact, the coiled steel members act as lateral bracing that holds the framework for the 229,314-square-foot roof. This intricate, scalelike surface shades the spectators with its 6,482 aluminum-framed glazed units. It is also a massive solar collector, as 4,482 of these sections contain pairs of 4-foot-square solar panels. Tempered glass plate of variable length mediates the energy-gathering units rigid flat shape and the stadiums irregular, curved geometry. Connecting these 2D and 3D elements was extremely difficult, says L.P. Lin of Fu Tsu Construction. In locations unsuitable for solar-energy collection, the glazing is made entirely of tempered glass. Rubber gaskets smooth out the roofs plane, while narrow troughs (or gutters) gather rainwater and direct it to underground cisterns supplying the soccer fields irrigation system.The largest solar-energy-generating stadium in the world, the building produces 1.1 million kilowatt hours annuallymany times more energy than it needs. As a result, the system funnels the excess directly to the Taiwan Power Company, eliminating the need for costly and space-consuming storage batteries. When the stadium hosts a major event, it simply buys back extra electricity for lights, air-conditioning, and twin JumboTron screens. Furthermore, according to Fu Tsu Construction, the solar panels are responsible for reducing the buildings CO2 emissions by as much as 660 tons annually.

*

*Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art, Shenzen, 2007, EMERGENT Tom Wiscombe, LCC

*Proposal Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art, Shenzen2007, EMERGENT Tom Wiscombe, LCC

*Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art, Shenzen2007, EMERGENT Tom Wiscombe, LCC

Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art, Shenzen, 2007, COOP HImmelblau

The Shenzhen Municipal Planning Bureau has commissioned COOP HIMMELB(L)AU to design the Museum of Contemporary Art & Planning Exhibition in Shenzhen, China. The building complex is assembled of the cut museum cuboid, the steel cone, and the massive base. The structure of the PE-Museum body consists of a spatial triple-layered framework, based on four differently shaped cores and one column of reinforced concrete. Additionally the structure is supported by the steel structure of the cone.

Sandwich structureThe three layered spatial framework Sandwich Structure allows large cantilevering building components. Compared to a single layered structure, the advantages are a higher static level and the integration of the upper and lower floors in one structure. Only where needed, the upper and lower framework layers are connected through the middle framework.To allow maximum spatial latitude the compound axes are reduced to the very requirements of the structural load-allocation towards the distributing and load-carrying elements (cores).

*

*Guangzhou Opera House, China, 2003-, Zaha Hadid Architects

*Abu Dhabi called Masdar City, Dubai, Adrian Smith (previously with SOM), 2008 project

*Abu Dhabi called Masdar City, Dubai, Smith (previously with SOM), 2008 project , an interior view of the Masdar complex.

*BMW Welt, Munich, 2007, Coop Himmelblau

*BMW Welt Munich, 2007, Coop Himmelblau

*Set against a backdrop of hulking factory sheds and 1970s office towers, the BMW Welt, this car companys fancy new delivery center in Munich, weaves together the detritus of a postwar industrial landscape, imbuing it with a more inclusive spirit, writes Nicolai Ouroussoff. Its undulating steel forms, suggesting the magical qualities of liquid mercury, may be the closest yet that architecture has come to alchemy.

*BMW Welt Munich, 2007, Coop Himmelblau

*Designed by Wolf Prix of the Vienna-based architectural firm Coop Himmelb(l)au, BMW Welt or BMW World joins an impressive list of high-profile architecture projects by German car companies in recent years, including Zaha Hadids BMW factory in Leipzig and UNStudios Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart.

*Whether from a passion for well-built machines or a more self-serving interest in architectures ability to promote an aura of technological sophistication, Mr. Ouroussoff continues, the auto companies are underwriting buildings that combine a stunning level of structural refinement with a flair for formal experimentation.

*BMW Welt a futuristic showroom scheduled to open in October, will compete for attention with similar museums at Porsche, Volkswagen, and Mercedes-Benz.

*Its cavernous main hall is packed with restaurants, a cafe and a shop hawking BMW merchandise. Clients arriving at the main showroom to pick up their new cars are handed frothy cappuccinos and led into a small booth where they can try out the cars special driving features by computer simulation. They then proceed down a grand staircase to a platform lined with BMW cars. As they approach the bottom of the staircase, spotlights light up underneath their car, which begins to rotate on a platform.

*That combination of a bold formal language and a subtle feel for context continues inside, where the interior is conceived as a vast public forum whose centerpiece is the automobile. Mr. Prix claims that the roof is large enough to cover Piazza San Marco in Venice, and at times its steel underbelly, animated with slashes of light, can evoke the fabric canopies that shade traditional bazaars in Middle Eastern cities.

*"An hourglass-shaped events hall grounds the building at one end, its torqued glass-and-steel form evoking a tornado drilling into the earth, sucking up energy from the passing cars. From here, the roof unfolds like a gigantic carpet draped over the main hall. Its curvaceous form billows up at some points and then sags at others, echoing the contours of the nearby park. A vertical band of glass cut into the main facade is set on an axis with the corporate tower across the street, locking the composition into its surroundings.

*Like many of their contemporaries who came of age in the 1960s and 70s, the Coop Himmelb(l)au designers try to locate the strands in recent history that are worth preserving, and then weave them into a composition of genuine civic stature."

*To emphasize a sense of mystery, the main hall is organized in a slight arc, so that it reveals itself only gradually. Shops line the hall on both sides, while spacious curved walkways crisscross the space overhead. A spiral auto ramp corkscrews through the center of the hall, connecting the main showroom to the street.

*What unites these various experiences is the flow of cars and people through the space. Visitors spill in from entrances on two floors. New buyers cruise down the ramp in their glistening cars, while pedestrians gaze at them from the elevated walkways. These streams form an intricate pattern, linking man and machine, inside and out. As a result, the structure is imbued with a level of dynamic energy barely imaginable by an earlier generation of Machine Age enthusiasts.

*Congress Center EUR District, Rome, Italy, Massimiliano Fuksa. The building is basically large, 30 meters high, translucent container that extends lengthways. On each side a square opens on to the immediate area and the city. The first converses directly continuously with the local area and can be crossed from viale Europa to viale Shakespeare.The second, a space that can be composed freely using moveable structures, is for welcoming conference participants and accompanying them to the various rooms in the center. Inside this shell, a 3,500 square meter steel and teflon cloud, suspended above a surface area of 10.000 square meter, is designed to hold a 2.000 square meter auditorium and various meeting rooms. When the cloud, supported by a thick network of steel cables and suspended between the floor and the ceiling of the main conference hall, is lit up, the building seems to vibrate. The construction also changes completely depending on the viewpoint of the observer.

*The idea came to me in a very special moment. I was at the seaside, a group of clouds where being blown quickly across the sky by a strong wind. As I looked at the clouds I remembered a dream I had had, which involved constructing a building that had no crystallized form at all."Massimiliano Fuksas

*Congress Center EUR District, Rome, Italy, 2008, Massimiliano Fuksa

the Giant Group New Pharmaceutical Campus, Shanghai, China, NY Times, 2020, Thom Mayne (Morphosis)

*the Giant Group New Pharmaceutical Campus, Shanghai, China, NY Times, 2020, Thom Mayne (Morphosis)

BEAM BUILDINGS

*Alan House, Los Angeles, Neil Denari (NMDA), architect, 2007, 1,050-square-foot addition that capitalized on the neglected backyard, seven feet below street level. From the outside, the new wing resembles a spaceship hovering over the pitched roof of the bungalow. Treads dramatically cantilevered from a wall lead down to a family room, which is framed in exposed structural steel and has a poured concrete floor.

*Porsche Museum, Stuttgart, Germany, 2009, Delugan Meissl

Porsche Museum, Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen , 2009, Delugan Meissl Arch, LAP Leonhardt, Andr und Partner. The building consists of two large structures: One is the "Basement out of which rise three highly loaded cores which bear the second structure, the "Flyer" that seems to float over the basement. The "Basement" ist a reinforced concrete structure. The waterproof base plate is designed according to the state of the ground partly as combined pile-plate-foundation and partly as raft foundation. The highly loaded cores (max N = 105 MN) with its up to 3.75 m thick base plates are founded on large bored piles. A total of 1,850 large bored piles with a diameter of 1,20 m and a maximum length of 25 m were drilled into the ground. Approx. 2,100 m pile-concrete was used.

The outer walls of the two underground storeys were constructed in waterproof concrete. The ceilings of the geometrically exigent "Basement" were designed as flat slabs of reinforced concrete, partly with wall-like cantilevers. The walls of the three highly loaded cores had to be made of up to 75 cm with walls due to the extrem loads and exceptional geometry. One of the Y-shaped piers is pretensioned with prestressed braidings. In "Basement" and cores approx. 21,000 m concrete were needed.

The actual exposition area of the museum is inside the 3-storey "Flyer". For this wide-span structure, a total of 5,000 t steel were needed in a hight of 16 m over the ground. By its complex steel structure, spans of up to 60 m and overhang of up to 45 m were made possible. The extremly high loads of the steel supporting structure are induced in the cores by storey-high steel built-in parts.*

ING-House, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Meyer en van Schooten , Aronsohn Raadgevende Ingenieurs

*ING-House, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Meyer en van Schooten , Aronsohn Raadgevende Ingenieurs . Sitting atop steel legs along a motorway and Thalys high-speed rail line, this bank headquarters looks like a large beetle in shiny glass and anodised aluminium. The immense volume stretches along 136 metres and rises to a maximum height of 48 metres; the V-shaped legs anchor the building. Its steel skeleton sits on beams with a 27-metre span that rest on abutments every 7.3 metres. The building enjoys geothermal climatic autonomy generated by the ventilated double skin faades, the possibility of opening south-facing windows and landscaped atriums at irregular intervals throughout the building.

ING-House, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Meyer en van Schooten , Aronsohn Raadgevende Ingenieurs *

*Bus station, Hoofddorp, Netherland, 2003, NIO Arch. Amazing Whale Jaw. 'People often wonder about the building's shape and what it represents, and there are a number of possible answers. A correct answer in architectural terms is that it can be viewed as a large boulder that has been worn away by footsteps and sight lines', Says NIO architecten on the design of The Amazing Whale Jaw. The building is completely made of polystyrene foam and polyester and is, as such, the world's largest structure in synthetic materials (50m x 10m x 5m). The available budget meant that it could never have been created using conventional construction methods.

*Bus station, Hoofddorp, Netherland, 2003, NIO Arch. NIO did their homework in testing their unconventional materials against active vandalism from knives, cigarettes, graffiti and so on, but may not have sufficiently anticipated the effect of less willful human wear and tear. Although the building is sculpturally well placed, and protected against vandalism, it does not feel empathetic towards the more benign hospital visitors it is there to serve.

*BMW Plant Leipzig, Central Building, 2004, Zaha Hadid

*University of Cincinnati Rec Center, 2006, Thom Mayne (Morphosis)

*Phaeno Science Center, Wolfsburg, Germany, 2005, Zaha Hadid

*Phaeno Science Centre Wolfsburg, Germany, 2005 Zaha Hadid Architects The Phaeno Science Centre, looking like a huge futuristic concrete-shelled beast escaped from a scene in Star Wars, is situated on a large landscaped square to immediately arouse the curiosity of visitors with its original shapes. On the south faade, 39 prefabricated concrete panels are set over a steel framework.

*Phaeno Science Center, 2005, Wolfsburg, Germany, Zaha Hadid

*Phaeno Science Center, Wolfsburg, Germany, 2005, Zaha Hadid

*Phaeno Science Center, 2005, Wolfsburg, Zaha Hadid

MAXXI museum, Rome, Italy, 2009, Zaha Hadid

Zaha Hadid Architects, MAXXI museum, Rome, Italy, 2009, The MAXXI should not be considered just one building - but several. The idea was to move away from the idea of the museum as an object and towards the idea of a field of buildings. After many studies, our research evolved into the concept of the confluence of lines, where the primary force of the site is the walls that constantly intersect and separate to create both indoor and outdoor spaces. Its no longer just a museum, but an urban cultural centre where a dense texture of interior and exterior spaces have been intertwined and superimposed over one another. Its an intriguing mixture of galleries, irrigating a large urban field with linear display surfaces.

*

The MAXXI should not be considered just one building - but several. The idea was to move away from the idea of the museum as an object and towards the idea of a field of buildings. After many studies, our research evolved into the concept of the confluence of lines, where the primary force of the site is the walls that constantly intersect and separate to create both indoor and outdoor spaces. Its no longer just a museum, but an urban cultural centre where a dense texture of interior and exterior spaces have been intertwined and superimposed over one another. Its an intriguing mixture of galleries, irrigating a large urban field with linear display surfaces.

*

*Abu Dhabi Performing Arts Centre, Zaha Hadid, the centre,2007 presented to the public, will be 62 metres tall and include five theatres.It appears to be an organic, almost living element given soul by the movement of people.

MAXXI museum, Rome, Italy, 2009, Zaha Hadid

Zaha Hadid Architects, MAXXI museum, Rome, Italy, 2009, The MAXXI should not be considered just one building - but several. The idea was to move away from the idea of the museum as an object and towards the idea of a field of buildings. After many studies, our research evolved into the concept of the confluence of lines, where the primary force of the site is the walls that constantly intersect and separate to create both indoor and outdoor spaces. Its no longer just a museum, but an urban cultural centre where a dense texture of interior and exterior spaces have been intertwined and superimposed over one another. Its an intriguing mixture of galleries, irrigating a large urban field with linear display surfaces.

*

The MAXXI should not be considered just one building - but several. The idea was to move away from the idea of the museum as an object and towards the idea of a field of buildings. After many studies, our research evolved into the concept of the confluence of lines, where the primary force of the site is the walls that constantly intersect and separate to create both indoor and outdoor spaces. Its no longer just a museum, but an urban cultural centre where a dense texture of interior and exterior spaces have been intertwined and superimposed over one another. Its an intriguing mixture of galleries, irrigating a large urban field with linear display surfaces.

*

MAXXI museum, Rome, Italy, 2009, Zaha Hadid *

*Boston Convention Center, Boston, 2005, Vinoly and LeMessurier

*Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, Boston, 2005, Rafael Vinoly Arch., LeMessurier Struct. Eng.

*University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, Chicago, 2005, Rafael Vinoly, Thornton-Tomasetti

*The Seattle Central Library, designed by Rem Koolhaas and Cecil Balmond.

*Seattle Central Library, 2005, Rem Koolhaas, Cecil Balmond

Casa da Msica, Porto, Portugal2005, Rem Koolhaas + Arup

*The Casa da Msica in Porto, Portugal, 2005, designed by the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas + Arup, houses a 1,238-seat performance hall, rehearsal space and recording studios for the Porto National Orchestra.

Polyhedral in shape, the building houses two auditoria and uses glass walls to regulate acoustics. The 1300-seat concert hall and 300-seat multi-use auditorium were carefully designed to cater for all kinds of performance. Silent, sliding seats operate in the main auditorium, whilst the smaller hall has a multi-format, flat floor and no fixed stage.*

Path Terminal, New York, 2009, Santiago Calatrava

*Path Terminal, New York, 2009, Santiago Calatrava

*Path Terminal, New York, Santiago Calatrava

Concert Hall , Tenerife, Spain, 2003, Santiago Calatrava,

*Santiago Calatrava, Concert Hall (1999-2003), Tenerife, Spain.

The Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 2001, Santiago Calatrava

*The Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 2001, Santiago Calatrava

Lyon Airport, France, 1994, Santiago Calatrava

*Lyon Airport, France, 1994, Santiago Calatrava

*Palau de les Arts (part of City of Arts and Sciences, which includes an aquarium and a science museum), Valencia Opera House, 2005, Santiago Calatrava like a surrealistic ocean liner or even gargantuan prehistoric creature cast in stone

*Ciudad de las Artes. Valencia, Santiago Calatrava , Santiago Calatrava

*ING Group Headquarters, Amsterdam, 2002, Meyer en Van Schooten Arch

*Kunsthaus Graz, Austria, 2003, Peter Cook und Colin Fournier, Bollinger und Grohmann Eng

*Museum BTS: Kunsthaus Graz, Austria, 2003, Peter Cook und Colin Fournier, Bollinger und Grohmann Eng. . The Kunsthaus seems to belong firmly in the first category, and yet it does so with a twist: it proclaims its own artistic singularity, yet it is also a high-tech machine offering a flexible environment to its users. Its appearance is highly memorable but it is a malleable one and will always retain an element of surprise: the outer appearance of its skin can, within limits, be changed electronically and its internal spaces constitute a black box of hidden tricks to be left in the hands of various curators. Each time one is sucked into the internal cavity of the Kunsthaus by the slow moving travelator reaching up to its belly, one will in effect be exposed to a different spatial and sensorial experience, to a different building.The genealogy of the projects biomorphic form lies in its designers long standing fascination with the animal presence of architecture and in the checkered history of the competition for the Kunsthaus, which was originally intended to inhabit a large cavity within the Schloberg, the hill standing in the centre of the city. The part adopted by the authors at the time was to line this rocky cavity with an organically shaped membrane filling its complex and rough internal contours and to allow this membrane to protrude out of the mountain and into the city, like the tail or tongue of a dragon. When the location of the museum was changed to its current site along the Mur, the dragon skin found its way across the river, flowed into the irregular geometric boundary of the new site and wrapped itself around the two elevated decks of the museum, forming an environmental enclosure that resembles neither roofs nor walls nor floors but a seamless morphing of the three.

The smoothness of the buildings resultant double curved surfaces has gentle and cuddly connotations which, combined with the peculiar nature of its nozzles, its multiple snouts and eyes, have led to the buildings friendly Alien nickname. Indeed, the building seeks, through its appearance and modus operandi, to be a friendly institution that is easily accessible to the public and adopted by the people of Graz as a strange but familiar part of the normal life of the city.

*Kunsthaus Graz, Austria, 2003, Peter Cook und Colin Fournier, Bollinger und Grohmann Eng

*Zenith Music Hall, Strasbourg, France, 2008, Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas . Its the skin that sets this latest Zenith apart. The material, a textile membrane, makes the building a bit like a tent, but in its materialization it fortunately goes beyond that. The membrane gets its form by five steel bars that go all around the faade. Like five hula-hoops. The bars tension the membrane, so that between the hula-hoops the textile shortens to create four extra folds. Very like hula-hoops the bars circle the oval concrete box - that contains the actual music hall - differently to each side. To create a front the faade cantilevers, to create a back the faade straightens. A very basic form-language that gives the technically all-sided object a simple direction and readability.

*With the Zenith near Strasbourg, the architects needed to accommodate 10,000 visitors on a 64-acre site that is being developed as an exposition park. In so doing, the Fuksases sought a dynamism in the form that is based on layered and rotated ellipsoidal steel rings and a poured-in-place-concrete structure wrapped in a vibrantly pumpkin-hued membrane of fiberglass and silicone. The Fuksases designed the steel rings as a series of shifted and overlapping ellipses, creating a dynamic form outside and bold spaces within. The translucent orange envelope, which glows like a large jack-o-lantern at night, is stretched over five steel rings that encircle the elliptical concrete core enclosing the auditorium. The tension between the lightweight membrane and the heavy steel-and-concrete structure represents an intentional dualism, says Massimiliano Fuksas, whose design for the Milan Trade Fair [record, August 2005, page 92], with its undulating glass canopy over a steel armature, explored this notion, albeit with lighter, more attenuated framing members.On the north side of the building, the overlapping ellipses form the lobby area: Here, large, canted steel columns, arrayed around the reinforced-concrete hall, plus intermediate braces, support the tubular elliptical rings. On the south side of the structure, where the space narrows, the braces alone connect the rings to the concrete core. The fireproof membrane of fiberglass with a silicone coating on both sides is composed of 40 pieces of fabric, with each seam of the panel electrically welded, then bracketed and bolted to the ring. Intermediary cables further hold the membrane in place and create the sharp creases in the profile.The roof structure is composed of 22 steel trusses, which radiate from a central hub to the concrete walls of the auditorium and from which catwalks are suspended. Included in that arrangement is a continuous cross beam that spans through the hub from one concrete wall to another

*Zenith Music Hall, Strasbourg, France, 2008, Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas

*Metropol Parasol", Jrgen Mayer Arch, a redevelopment project by J. Mayer H. for Plaza de la Encarnacion in Seville, Spain is one of the most striking projects I've seen in ages. Amazingly, it's under construction and is expected to be complete this year.

Metropol Parasol, Seville, Spain, 2009, Jrgen Mayer, Arup*

*The design is comprised of mushroom-like structures scattered about the site, linked together overhead like an amorphous parasol.

*The project includes "an archeological site, a farmers market, an elevated plaza, multiple bars and restaurants underneath and inside the parasols, as well as a panorama terrace on the very top of the parasols."

Plaza level and level 3*

*Arup created a 3d model to better understands the structure. The whole site will be shaded by six enormous parasols. These are made from timber plates covering an area of 150 m x 70 m. It will be one of the largest architectural timber structures ever built. Walkways on top of the parasols mean the visitors can enjoy the beautiful views overlooking the historical town centre of Seville.

*he Metropol Parasol scheme, with its large mushroom like structures, offers an archeological site, a farmers market, an elevated plaza, multiple bars and restaurants underneath and inside the parasols, as well as a panorama terrace on the very top of the parasols. Thought of as a light wood structure, the parasols grow out of the archeological excavation site into a contemporary landmark. The columns become prominent points of access to the museum below as well as to the plaza and panorama deck above, defining a unique relationship between the historical and the contemporary city.

*The project includes "an archeological site, a farmers market, an elevated plaza, multiple bars and restaurants underneath and inside the parasols, as well as a panorama terrace on the very top of the parasols."

*The mushroom-like, polyurethane-coated wooden structure will accommodate an archaeological museum in the basement, a covered market at plaza level and on the parasols a raised area for events with bars, restaurants and a panorama walkway.

COMPLEX WALL GEOMETRIES

IAC Building, New York, 2007, Frank Gehry

*IAC Building, New York, 2007, Frank Gehry, DeSimone Consulting En

Engineering

The New Geometry of Building Structures, Wolfgang Schueller