Apr 6, 2020 07:20 AM
(This post was last modified: Apr 6, 2020 07:46 AM by C C.)
https://cosmosmagazine.com/technology/no...-structure
INTRO: US engineers are taking a novel approach to storm surge readiness, attempting to incorporate both aesthetics and adaptability. A team from Princeton University has created the preliminary design for what it calls dual-purpose kinetic umbrellas.
Made from concrete and certainly a little oversized, they’d provide shelter from the sun on a nice day but could be tilted in advance of a storm to form a flood barrier. They’d be more attractive and less restrictive than permanent seawalls.
"It's the first time that anyone has really tried to integrate architecture as an inherent component to a coastal countermeasure,” says Shengzhe Wang, lead author of a paper in the Journal of Structural Engineering.
Nevertheless, engineering is at the heart of the project. The proposed umbrellas are shells of reinforced concrete about 10 centimetres thick, built in the shape of a hyperbolic paraboloid (hypar) – a saddle-like structure that curves inward along one axis and outward along the other.
According to co-author Maria Garlock, the structure takes inspiration from the work of the Spanish-born architect Félix Candela, who designed hundreds of buildings with thin-shelled hypar roofs in Mexico in the 1950s and 1960s... (MORE)
VIDEO: https://garlock.princeton.edu/wp-content...ed-540.mp4
INTRO: US engineers are taking a novel approach to storm surge readiness, attempting to incorporate both aesthetics and adaptability. A team from Princeton University has created the preliminary design for what it calls dual-purpose kinetic umbrellas.
Made from concrete and certainly a little oversized, they’d provide shelter from the sun on a nice day but could be tilted in advance of a storm to form a flood barrier. They’d be more attractive and less restrictive than permanent seawalls.
"It's the first time that anyone has really tried to integrate architecture as an inherent component to a coastal countermeasure,” says Shengzhe Wang, lead author of a paper in the Journal of Structural Engineering.
Nevertheless, engineering is at the heart of the project. The proposed umbrellas are shells of reinforced concrete about 10 centimetres thick, built in the shape of a hyperbolic paraboloid (hypar) – a saddle-like structure that curves inward along one axis and outward along the other.
According to co-author Maria Garlock, the structure takes inspiration from the work of the Spanish-born architect Félix Candela, who designed hundreds of buildings with thin-shelled hypar roofs in Mexico in the 1950s and 1960s... (MORE)
VIDEO: https://garlock.princeton.edu/wp-content...ed-540.mp4