Assignment2-structure

STRUCTURE TECHNIQUES
Foam geometries of cellular materials and using of morphogenesis form can bring the structure system to be operable which are strong enough to make an “attractive paradigm for development in material science and for new structural systems in architecture and engineering.”1

The morphogenesis system in architecture is “understood as a group of methods that employ digital media not as representational tools for visualization but as generative tools for the derivation of form and its transformation often in an aspiration to express contextual processes in built form”2 which means that morphogenesis in architecture can conveys the relationship to the processes of morphogenesis in nature. The „Water Cube‟ project explains the utilization of the potential of its bubble soap structure to adapt to environmental conditions and this cellular structure system is highly adapted.
For this „Water Cube‟ building, there are lots of technical structures behind it. Figuring out how to make it work turned out to be very difficult and as mentioned above in Design and Geometry section, the team explored evolutionary biology of 19th century and 20th century‟s geometry and finally accepted and used the Weaire and Phelan‟s idea to illustrate their idea and also used parametric modeling software to processed architects and engineers to automate design processes and accelerate design iterations.

The team designed the structure to minimize the material usage and they saved on 30 percentages less of using steel that is an equivalent post-beam structure.3 As they want to perform the building „Water Cube‟ to be an ecosystem, they designed it to be 'very green blue cube, with an insulated cavity as a thermal buffer.‟4 To achieve in this design, the team processed to chose Ethylene Tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE) for the material of the building‟s cladding system. ETFE is a „transparent form of the plastic Teflon‟5 which is very eligible source to create translucent pillow for the cladding. Compare with the glass material, ETFE was much better in acoustic and insulating properties, and also the weight, 1 percent of an equivalent glass panel, eliminate the need for a secondary structure to support the skin which helps “reduce reduce the gravity and lateral loads that the structure would be subject to during a temblor.”6 The team estimated that the ETFE skin will save 30 percentages of the energy consumption by reducing the need for electric lighting and mechanical heating, as the ETFE cladding box is well-detailed and insulated with the steel space frame. They also chose space frame parts with 22000 steel tubes which “welded to 12,000 nodes holds the cells in place and provides a column-free structure with spans of 396 feet in either direction.”7
The most curious and amazing part of this building‟s structure is the building heats and lights itself. Most of the year through, the swimming pools needs to be heated up and the team started to think about the „Greenhouse‟, which is a building that captures and holds solar energy. This idea would be the most efficient structure for the „Water Cube‟ with the ETFE. Due to the chemical water treatment in the pool and air pollution outside of the building, would cause the corruption. Even though the ETFE is strong and resistant to degradation from ultraviolet light and the air pollution, the team suggested to place the steel frame inside of cavity which made of two layers of ETFE pillows. For the result, they built the cavity of the roof as 25 feet deep and 12 feet for the wallside.8 With the cavity of ETFE allowed the venting of excess heat by opened in summer time and permits to contain the heat in winter time. Also it cleans up itself for the outside part of the ETFE, accumulation of dusts and dirt should wash away after each rain, but the dust is everywhere in inside of the building.
Through the study of the Water Cube structure part, it suggests to think of the relationship between an organism and its environment. As the techniques improvement, people think of word of „green, sustainable and ecology‟ which brings the emphasis of the relationship with the human and the built environment. In the book of Evolutionary Architecture by Tsui and Versatility and Vicissitude edited by Hensel and Menges explains the Nature is the basis for design of architecture and how to connect the nature with the architecture design and the ecosystem of the building. I thought these ideas are very relates to the „Water Cube‟ design ideas which is symbolic of Water bubble and the structure built as ecosystem. Also the use of cellular materials can offer the new performance. It has the potential to re-inform the material strategies of morphogenesis architecture engineering and construction.