|Digital Matter
|InGeo
Chitosan as the future of water filtration system
|Team
Jitendra Farkade, Juhi Bafna, JingWen Chiou
|Faculty
Areti Markopoulou, David Andres Leon, Raimund Krenmueller, Nikol Kirova
|Project year
2018-19
The Tense-ables research aims to create a deployable self-supporting membrane by integrating rigid elements interrupted by inflatable actuators. Prioritizing lightweight construction and seamless integration, the goal is to form a structure initially reliant on inflation, eventually supporting its own load through tensegrity principles. Exploring diverse actuation possibilities, the system combines a soft membrane with rigid elements and inflatable patterns for cohesive functionality\.
The research aims To design a performative material system that can continuously absorb CO2 from our surrounding environment.
Inspired by tensegrity structures’ principle of “islands of compression in an ocean of tension,” this research sets the foundation for understanding and developing the deployable self-supporting membrane. Leveraging tensegrity concepts, the aim is to create a resilient structure that combines flexibility, strength, and adaptability for innovative applications in deployable architectural systems.
To create a structure through firstly, inflation, and later bears its own load on the account of tensegrity. A range of possibilities in terms of actuation have been explored in order to fulfil the objective of the research. The system consists of soft membrane with rigid elements and inflatable patterns that are seamlessly integrated with it.
The self-supporting assembly replaces the cables in a conventional tensegrity structure with a membrane, causing the membrane to participate in the structural stability. Furthermore, origami patterns have been investigated to tackle the enhancement in the formal aspects of a conventional tensegrity structure. The
geometric formations of the rigid elements have derived from pairing the principles of both tensegrity structures and origami patterns. The empirical results are achieved by quick prototyping the aimed geometry and activation on a smaller scale.
Parallelly, the research also presents the inter-relation between the physical and the digital models.
The outcome of the research is the development of a lightweight, self-supporting and deployable structure that reduces human labour for erecting the structure and also consumes lesser energy when tensegrity plays its role.
