Self-Designing Structures - Frei Otto - Pidgeon Digital

Self-Designing Structures | Frei Otto | Pidgeon Digital 14/05/20, 15:52
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Self-Designing Structures
Frei Otto
FREI OTTO
©Frei Otto & The Institute For Lightweight Structures
https://www-pidgeondigital-com.proxy-auth3.iuav.it/talks/self-designing-structures/chapters/ Pagina 1 di 23
Very often I'm asked am I an architect or engineer or biologist or what else. Of

course my training is a training of architecture, and I'm a trained stonemason too.
But my heart is more one of a natural scientist. I am not so much interested as many
architects to force forms into a building, to model a building, and to talk on facades or
colours or sizes just done by man. I'm more interested to discover how structures
are made by nature. Many people do not know that in non-living nature, structures
are made, like stars, like mountains, like rivers, they are all structures. And these
structures are coming together and they are always done, even today. This is my
interest and the interest of our group, to study these self-designing structures.
SOAP BUBBLE
So we discovered very long years ago that one of the most important structures of
the non living nature are just the water drops in the fog, or the soap bubbles which
are blown up millions of years in the soap bubbles in the water. And from these
elements we know today that nature was a chemical process on the one side, and on
the other side it was a physical process. And what we are doing today in architecture,
of course only in the so called lightweight architecture, is just the same. The most
interesting processes in non-living and living natures are the self designing
processes. And to study these is a great adventure, how things are made by
themselves. We are interested in the self-making processes on the one side and in
the analysis of these processes on the other side. When we know a process, when we
know the object which the processes are made. We have to analyse it. It doesn't
matter if it's a mountain, a river, a natural column or arch, or just a soap bubble.
Analysing them means to know how much, it's one method of analysing, how much
material or how much energy is needed to make an object. Many objects in nature
are made with much less energy. Some objects are gaining energy; they are coming
together by themselves. But to know the material, to know the energy, is very
important. And third, it is to know the processes so well, that you are able to make
objects with the same processes of coming together. There are a few quite easy to
understand processes. Everyone knows when you have a tennis racquet and you
span a net in this racquet, and if the racquet is curved in a plane, that this net is a
plane. And when you have a soap bubble in your hands, and you put it in liquid and
you make your hands like a ring and put the soap bubble in, it gives a so called
minimal surface. That's one of those secrets. Another one is very much known from
lightning and rivers, and we know this structure and living nature quite well from
trees and from the elements of the body of animals. The so called tree structure of
the blood vessels are working like it. These are structures which can, not always,
arrange themselves like the rivers, or which are arranged by living nature to fulfil
certain functions. And automatically, man can use this type of structure for transport
but even for load bearing.
SIMPLE MEMBRANE STRUCTURE

But coming back to some examples. Many years ago we studied the most simple
membrane structure. A tent is a membrane structure, thin skin and you hang it
between some masts or between houses, and everyone knows that the tent hangs
very good if it's not flat spanned but somewhat warped. To warp a tent needs four
points. So we studied in the early fifties what could be the simple stiff and stable tent,
and we did arrive to the so called four pointed tent, which is, until now, about twenty
thousand times or more produced no one knows because many tent factories in the
world are doing it.
STRUCTURE FOR COLOGNE GARDEN EXHIBITION,

1957
We got to a range of other structures. We combined them the membrane is a very

simple support, an arch, and we could do a structure which was new in tent design, a
vertical very thin arch pre-stressed by a membrane. And this did lead to, I think,
hundreds of projects in the world done by different architects. But the main concern
was not to doing a building, just to study how a very flexible membrane could stiffen
a very thin compression structure quite similar to the wheel of a bicycle, where thin
wires are making it very stiff and the real reason that it's light. The studies for this
kind of structure we did in the early fifties. The first opportunity we had was for the
Garden Exhibition 1957 in Cologne. There is very thin steel arch, 36 meters span,
and on the arch there's a glass fibre membrane very heavily pre-stressed, it's white
and translucent and it's still standing because the city is re-erecting it every year. It
happens that we had the chance to design another building, then 1968, together
with Kenzō Tange, and Arup and Partners as engineers, for the Kuwait Sports City
for the Pan Arabic Games which were planned in this time. Of course we did not
build it but it doesn't matter. It was a very good study which we could do.
CANVAS COVER FOR STEEL FRAME STRUCTURE AT

BERLIN INTERBAU, 1957
Everyone knows that the tent is a large piece of cloth hanging on some masts, or
supported by some masts, and it is not so easy to understand how the form and the
shape of a tent is. Because these cloths are not following how designing architects
will want them. They have their own character. They are developing by themselves.
You just span the canvas then the tent is done. And we have been asked to cover a
huge steel frame, done for the Berlin Building Exhibition 1957. The steel frame was
horizontal and to cover it with a translucent skin. So we have just taken cotton
canvas and pressed these columns into the high, so the shapes developed by
themselves. We did not know exactly before how the shape was coming out. We
studied it by models.
6
CANVAS TENT FOR BERLIN INTERBAU
More clear, it is by this building, also for the Berlin Building Exhibition from 1957
that is one huge piece of canvas about six hundred square meters large, sewn
together, without any special cutting pattern and push the masts into the sky so that
they are going into the canvas and shaping the tents. Of course the masts are
rounded and it happened that this shape was coming out by themselves.
TENT OVER MINING TOWN, ALASKA

We used this method of stretching tents with the masts pretty often. One of the last
projects is this one where we are designing a cover for a small city in the northern
region of Canada where in this very cold area are mines for mining oil out of sands
near the Alhabaska River.
TREE STRUCTURE, MODEL

We studied in the last twenty years very much the so-called tree structures. These
are compression structures holding up ceilings and roofs, transmitting forces with a
low amount of material. We call them tree structures because in nature trees are
similar, and technically made trees are not new they have been used in the last
century for many steel buildings, even stone buildings in the Gothic period and
Antoni Gaudi did it for his churches in Spain. But there is a new generation of these
tree structures. We know better methods to design them, or the word 'design' is not
quite right, to evolve them with models and then using these models as design for
real structures. This one model we built upside down, stiffened it and turned it
around, checked the forces and the dimensions.
TREE STRUCTURE FOR SAUDI ARABIA

And this leads direct to this project in the Middle East where two structures are
standing one above another. The upper one is a shaded and glazed roof which is
protecting an inner garden with beautiful plants, flowers, trees, ponds and in the
middle is a domed hall, also on trees, also glazed in, but for sessions for the ministers.
10
TREE STRUCTURE FOR THE MIDDLE EAST

And also, in the next pictures of our largest structure, the diameter is about 65
meters, there are seven trees supporting a seating bowl for a new parliament. We
did it together with the architect Rolf Gutbrod, and with the engineers Ove Arup and
Partners.
11
MULTI-PURPOSE HALL , MANNHEIM. EXTERIOR

Domes, vaults, arches, they have their own secrets. They are shaping themselves. It's
only the question, like the tree structures, how man knows how they will shape
themselves. It's not necessary that domes and vaults are round or on a square plan. It
is possible to design them for every floor plan, and to discover for every floor plan
the so called minimal structure for it. It is quite difficult to do it, but there are some
methods. Everyone knows that an arch is following the line of the catenary of a chain
hanging down, and this gives the shape. Of course, connected with the correct
material and the correct weight. And so it's possible to discover the shape for really
every possible floor plan or question. We tried it several times, we built a chain net
hanging it down and combined it to the functions which are necessary. We built
several structures on it in the last twenty years. One of the most interesting is this
one. It was a multi-purpose hall for Mannheim jumping over a water stream, I think
two storeys, for a large hall, a multipurpose hall, a restaurant, connecting ways,
altogether one hundred and forty metres long, to design a hall free spanning fifty to
sixty metres and a restaurant spanning about forty to sixty metres. And we could use
this method, very thin lathes, because we hit the form of the minimum of material,
lathes only five by five centimetres thick, some of the lathes are one hundred and five
metres long, laying flat on the ground, and we propped them up with scaffold towers
in the three dimensional shape. Then we screwed the screws down and pulled out
the scaffold towers and the shell was free standing.
12
MULTI-PURPOSE HALL , MANNHEIM. INTERIOR

Quite interesting were the shapes which were coming out. They did come out, we did
not, could not, really design, only studied it correctly. Of course we did not know so
much then, at this time we would do it better now. But you see how the shapes are
developed, what is possible, and it gives an incredible freedom to the architects.
13
GERMAN PAVILION AT EXPO 67. WITH ARCHITECT

ROLF GUTBROD. ERECTION OF NET. EXTERIOR
Everyone knows fishing nets. Nets can be used for long spanning structures and
especially nets are following very controlled laws of shapes. It wasn't much used in
architecture, and it was not much known. We discovered that meshes from steel
cables, put together to a net, could be used for wide spanning structures. Now there
are many built in the world. But this picture shows you the erection of our first large
building; it was the exhibition pavilion for Germany at the Montreal Fair, 1967.
Prefabricated mesh, every mesh is fifty centimetres large, you can walk on it, and the
longest spans are sixty to seventy metres. One of the simplest structures which you
can do, you have to pre-stress the net and to avoid concentration of the forces
playing with big cables and smaller cables.
14
GERMAN PAVILION AT EXPO 67. WITH ARCHITECT

ROLF GUTBROD. ERECTION OF NET. INTERIOR
When the building was ready, everyone was astonished because it wasn't known that
these cable nets are real tent like structures. They're just tents, only the meshes are
somewhat wider. It has a disadvantage that it rains through and you have to hang
canvas underneath. But so it was possible to go in very big span and once more,
similar to the shell at Mannheim, with this method it is possible to cover every floor
plan. So you see it from outside, you see the building from inside.
15
OLYMPIC BUILDINGS, MUNICH. WITH ARCHITECT

GÜNTER BEHNISCH. EXTERIOR & INTERIOR VIEWS
OF CABLE-NET STRUCTURES
We have had a chance for another building designed by Günter Behnisch and his
partner, once more with the engineer Fritz Leonard. They have been the roofs for the
Olympic Games and our group helped here to make the shapes of these roofs. One
connecting big roof over eight hundred metres long covers different functions, the
Olympic Stadium, the sports hall and the swimming pool. It's once more a cable net,
and the cable net is covered with acrylic glass because the colour TV did not allow a
shade on the Olympic parcours and so we must have a glazed in roof which you can
see from underneath here, and it was necessary to develop a special kind of plastic
material.
16
SPORTS HALL , KING ABDULLAH UNIVERSITY,

JEDDAH. WITH ARCHITECT ROLF GUTBROD.
EXTERIOR & INTERIOR VIEWS OF CABLE-NET
STRUCTURES
Then we had another opportunity for a building on a different place, the sports hall
which we built, once more with Rolf Gutbrod and engineers Ove Arup and Partners
and Buro Happold, for the King Abdullah's University in Jeddah, spanning one
hundred and ten metres to about eighty metres, a cable net which is covered with a
double skin from coated polyester canvas, supported by a steel cable net with nearly
the exact details of the Montreal pavilion. The canvas has been white but we
expected that they are getting brown from the dust. So it happened that the building
looks like a continuity of the landscape, like the surrounding mountains. The building
is just standing on the edge of the desert near the old airport of Jeddah.
17
MUNICH AVIARY. WITH ARCHITECT GRIBL . WIRE

MESH STRUCTURE. EXTERIOR
The lightest tent which we ever built is this one, done for a Munich architect Gribl for
the zoological garden at Munich called Hellabrunn. It's an aviary about one hundred
metres long, forty metres wide, twenty metres high for large birds. It is wire mesh of
stainless steel, connected together to one long great piece. You don't see any seams,
and it's hanging on a few masts supporting these large pieces. But it's so thin that it's
difficult to photograph.
18
MUNICH AVIARY. WITH ARCHITECT GRIBL . WIRE

MESH STRUCTURE. INTERIOR UNDER SNOW
And when you are inside because people can walk through it you don't feel that you
are enclosed. Even the birds know their environment and they will not fly against the
wire mesh, so it was possible to make it so thin. Of course these nets of these thin
three millimetre thick wire can transmit huge loads. Wind loads but especially snow
loads, we had on one day a layer of snow, and automatically it was a closed tent. In
future, we want to study this method, not only to make aviaries, but connecting it
with a clear translucent foil for different purposes.
19
DOME TO COVER ARCTIC CITY. WITH ARCHITECT

KENZŌ TANGE
One of the possibilities with such material are large tents or air structures for arctic
regions. I was always studying possibilities to protect people in arctic regions. We
have done, as you have seen before, many projects. This one we did in the middle of
the 70s together with Kenzō Tange and Ove Arup for a so called city in the arctic. It's
a dome spanning two kilometres, two hundred metres high, covering a city which
could grow up to thirty thousand people. The covering is a steel cable net or just a
steel wire mesh like the aviary in Munich. The biggest problem here was to create a
very pleasant indoor climate. Today, millions of people live in the Arctic, most are
workers with their family. They have snow around nine months in the year, and they
love to have more green environment. So it is much important for the architect to
give them a climate where they really can survive mentally. It is a very difficult task
for environmental design.
20
FREI OTTO'S OWN HOUSE, WARMBRONN
A design for houses in winter is necessary not only in the Arctic region. Even in our
climate, in Germany, we have snow. And it's one task to design a house which can be
good in winter and in summer. And of course we will use solar energy. We did work in
Germany very long on this behalf, I did it as student and it was a famous German city
planner, Martin Wagner, which did a solar house in the 30s and we used these
methods to make a glass house and the sun is shining in and heating the house, quite
simple. But it's much more problematic as people think. But this house which is near
Stuttgart works quite effective. Of course it could be done better, and we will do it
better in the future. Its glass is heating it; the snow is melting and sliding down.
21
And when enough heat is created, we open the doors of the single family house
underneath and so the sun heat is going in the house. Quite simple method. But it's
not only a technical problem. It is not just a solar energy gaining machine. It is at the
same time important, and may be more important as a technical problem, to gain a
quality of living.
22

To have an indoor climate, an outdoor climate, a combination of outdoor and indoor,

to make a little paradise of a climate which is near to Man, and this was the task for
this house.
23
MULTI-STOREY ECOLOGICAL HOUSING FOR

BERLIN IBA
The city of Berlin is now preparing an international building exhibition which shows
different kinds of architecture, with buildings as it was done before in '57, and of
course with many special exhibitions. My group has been asked to design a so called
ecological dwelling block where we could use the experience of my own house but
for a multi storey building, to try to get a garden climate in the centre of the city of
Berlin. We are proposing to build just a skeleton, a structure out of Steel and
concrete, and in this skeleton people can have their own houses like birds sitting in a
tree. But of course we want owners which have some knowledge and experience to
live in garden type houses like my own one.
24
MULTI-STOREY ECOLOGICAL HOUSING FOR

BERLIN IBA
For this project we have a green site and we are looking to plant all roofs, terraces
and indoor gardens, and finally we are ending that the green area is even larger than
the ground on which the house is built. It is really possible and you get a complete
other type of building, what we are calling 'buildings looking like a tree'. We are
pretty sure that this will be a very important experiment, to try to give a living quality
to dense cities. We are working in two completely different ways. One is to study
nature and to study the processes which are making objects, objects in non living
nature even living objects, how trees and bones and animals are made, and we are
studying also those processes which are leading to techniques and buildings. But on
the other side we are looking forward to understand nature as totality. It means how
different objects, including all parts of nature, are coming together to a biological
totality. Normally this biological, totality is not seen with man. Man is a stranger of
nature. Man is the enemy of nature. Architecture is created against nature but now
man did win nature starts to be destroyed. And it's necessary to see the picture
different, that man is seen with nature in a total sense, to create new totality where
Man is really a part and not more the enemy.
25
FREI OTTO
A statement by Frei Otto in his native German.
Related talks:
Kenneth Frampton Roberto Burle Marx Paul Oliver

The Isms Of Architecture A Garden Is Like A Poem Building With Mud The Or
1982 1982 1982
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Self-Designing Structures | Frei Otto | Pidgeon Digital 14/05/20, 15:52

HOME ABOUT EXPLORE SUBSCRIBE FAQ CONTACT

Very often I'm asked am I an architect or engineer or biologist or what else. Of

©Frei Otto & The Institute For Lightweight Structures

SIMPLE MEMBRANE STRUCTURE

STRUCTURE FOR COLOGNE GARDEN EXHIBITION,

We got to a range of other structures. We combined them the membrane is a very

CANVAS COVER FOR STEEL FRAME STRUCTURE AT

TENT OVER MINING TOWN, ALASKA

TREE STRUCTURE, MODEL

TREE STRUCTURE FOR SAUDI ARABIA

TREE STRUCTURE FOR THE MIDDLE EAST

MULTI-PURPOSE HALL , MANNHEIM. EXTERIOR

MULTI-PURPOSE HALL , MANNHEIM. INTERIOR

developed, what is possible, and it gives an incredible freedom to the architects.

GERMAN PAVILION AT EXPO 67. WITH ARCHITECT

GERMAN PAVILION AT EXPO 67. WITH ARCHITECT

OLYMPIC BUILDINGS, MUNICH. WITH ARCHITECT

SPORTS HALL , KING ABDULLAH UNIVERSITY,

MUNICH AVIARY. WITH ARCHITECT GRIBL . WIRE

©Frei Otto & The Institute For Lightweight Structures

MUNICH AVIARY. WITH ARCHITECT GRIBL . WIRE

DOME TO COVER ARCTIC CITY. WITH ARCHITECT

FREI OTTO'S OWN HOUSE, WARMBRONN

To have an indoor climate, an outdoor climate, a combination of outdoor and indoor,

MULTI-STOREY ECOLOGICAL HOUSING FOR

MULTI-STOREY ECOLOGICAL HOUSING FOR

A statement by Frei Otto in his native German.

Kenneth Frampton Roberto Burle Marx Paul Oliver

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