Redesigning a classic Panton chair

This tensile structure is a product of a competition held by Vitra this spring; the task was to redesign the classic Panton chair and the winning entry proposed this structure where the edge of the chair acts as a geometric boundary for a net of cables. I think it is an elegant fit, and it shows an interesting use of a cable net structures, which is often associated with large scale structures, sometimes more impressive than beautiful. 

Picture from http://deco-design.biz/british-panton-chair-competition/

The japanese pavillion at expo 2000 in Hannover

My first post (excluding my own projects) on my blog will be my perhaps all time favorite architectural design; the japanese pavillion at expo 2000 in Hannover by japanese architect Shigero Ban. His lifelong exploration of paper as structural material is inspiring and has created new standards for paper architecture. 
The pavillion was designed in collaboration with Frei Otto and is a gridshell covered by a membrane. The geometry is advanced but the structural elements and connections are designed with a simplicity which is absolutely beautiful. From my point of view the pavillion is a climax of all the earlier paper structures designed by Shigero Ban. I can highly recommend studying Bans work and will recommend the book "Shigero Ban" by Matilda McQuaid.

Picture from http://www.shigerubanarchitects.com/SBA_WORKS/SBA_PAPER/SBA_PAPER_10/SBA_paper_10.html

Tensegrity sculptures at Roskilde festival

In the spring we were contacted by Camilla from green footsteps at Roskilde festival - she liked the sculptures and asked us if we would exibit them at Roskilde festival. Difficult decision? Not at all! We were very happy and started off by fine tuning the light installations with the help of my friend Martin who has godblessed electrician skills. With his help the sculptures were secured against rain, beer and urin - and were then ready to be put on the bus again; this time to the second largest music festival in Europe!!!

Tensile Structures

After working a little bit with textiles on the tensegrity project, I wanted to investigate the subject further. Peter had been working with textiles for an emergency tent project and also wanted to know more about these kinds of structures. So we teamed up for the final year project on the bachelor programme in Architectural Engineering at DTU.

The shape of tensile structures cannot be dictated - it must be found in a formfinding process where equilbrium is assured in the whole structure. We used a numerical Formfinding method called Dynamic relaxation which is based on the equations of motion. We wanted to create a small parametric design tool in MATLAB, which was able to find the shape of a cablenet structure with any given geometric and statical boundary conditions. Feel free to contact me to recieve the programcode. The design tool works pretty well and can perform a simple static analysis with a given load. To visualize the output of the program, we imported a geometry in to AutoCAD. This was done using a small LISP program and required a bit of "handwork". Flattening a triangulated surface was done manually in AutoCAD and was quite time consuming, but resulted in a cutting pattern which was used to build a paper model.

Tensegrity light sculptures

Katrine, Tobias and I decided to do a project for CO2PENHAGEN festival 2009 - which was the first CO2 neutral festival in the world. The festival was a very ambitious, and in the end successful event, where all the energy consumed was produced on site using energy sources with no positive emision of CO2. Our idea was to create some landmarks on the festival site, to help create a visual identity for the festival. Designing sculptures for a CO2 neutral festival has obligations; to make a sustainable project, we decided to make structures that could be reused again and again. As a gimmicky event we also wanted to be able to transport the structures by bus. This limited the size of the structural elements, and became an important design parameter. After a long process of investigating different structural concepts for the purpose, we fell in love with the concept of tensegrity - a structural concept which only consist of members in either compression or tension. The principle was first described by Buckminster Fuller and has been used mainly in sculptural projects, especially by Kenneth Snelson who was a student of Buckminster Fuller.
In our working process we also investigated different materials suitable for the concept - we ended up using glassfiber from the dansih producer Fiberline - the glassfiber pipes used are extremely light and we were able to use a profile with a material thickness of only 2 mm - this allows the integrated LED lights to shine through and create an image of floating light tubes in the dark.

Concert hall

Text will be posted soon

Running track and bridge design

Will be posted soon

Urban planning

16:9 house

The 16:9 house was designed in a first year course at DTU. I was to design a small dwelling (max 25 m2) for a movie enthusiast. I was interested in the relation between reality and fiction, and decided to stage reality in the 16:9 format. So i applied this ratio throughout the design - movies can be projected onto the shutters on the inside and on the outside, and when the movie is done a rearrangement of the shutters will stage a new setting. So the main room of the house is composed to act as cinema where either a movie or the garden view will be the point of focus. Sleeping/cooking/toilet facilities are extruded from the main volume and can be closed of by sliding doors.