History
This form of construction has only become more rigorously analyzed and widespread in large structures in the latter part of the twentieth century. Tensile structures have long been used in tents, where the guy ropes and tent poles provide pre-tension to the fabric and allow it to withstand loads.
Russian engineer Vladimir Shukhov was one of the first to develop practical calculations of stresses and deformations of tensile structures, shells and membranes. Shukhov designed eight tensile structures and thin-shell structures exhibition pavilions for the Nizhny Novgorod Fair of 1896, covering the area of 27,000 square meters. A more recent large-scale use of a membrane-covered tensile structure is the Sidney Myer Music Bowl, constructed in 1958.
Antonio Gaudi used the concept in reverse to create a compression-only structure for the Colonia Guell Church. He created a hanging tensile model of the church to calculate the compression forces and to experimentally determine the column and vault geometries.
The concept was later championed by German architect and engineer Frei Otto, whose first use of the idea was in the construction of the West German pavilion at Expo 67 in Montreal. Otto next used the idea for the roof of the Olympic Stadium for the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.
Since the 1960s, tensile structures have been promoted by designers and engineers such as Ove Arup, Buro Happold, Walter Bird of Birdair, Inc., Frei Otto, Mahmoud Bodo Rasch, Eero Saarinen, Horst Berger, Matthew Nowicki, Jorg Schlaich, the duo of Nicholas Goldsmith & Todd Dalland at FTL Design & Engineering Studio and David Geiger.
Steady technological progress has increased the popularity of fabric-roofed structures. The low weight of the materials makes construction easier and cheaper than standard designs, especially when vast open spaces have to be covered.
Read more about this topic: Tensile Membrane Structures
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