A design work that Daniella Ioannidou, Eleanor Ring, Cecilia Lester and I produced while pursuing our studies in Interior Architecture at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol). A group project where Tensegrity was explored; through model making and full-scale prototypes. The structure explored and exploited geometry, materiality and the principles of compression and tension in inventive and visually daring ways. The explorations began with sketch models and progressed to a large scale demonstration structure which made clear the structural principles at work and made an attempt to escape the symmetry found in most Tensegrity structures.
What is Tensegrity?
Several definitions have been established by different experts. Dr Valentín Gómez Jáuregui, making an attempt to explain it as simply as possible, suggests that "tensegrity is a structural principle based on the use of isolated components in compression inside a net of continuous tension, in such a way that the compressed members (usually bars or struts) do not touch each other and the pre-stressed tensioned members (usually cables or tendons) delineate the system spatially." The bars are floating in the air, without any contact with a "solid" support, there is the absence of prestress. It is a "floating compression" as Kenneth Snelson called it when he created the "30’ Cantilever" (1967).
