Category: Unit Trip

Copenhagen Unit Trip 2015

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Video- Filmed & Edited by Joshua Potter, including footage from Toby Burgess, Lianne Clark, and Vlad Ignatescu.

As part of our research for Brief 03; ‘Future Cities’, DS10 travelled to the wonderful city of Copenhagen, Denmark. The video above was made to provide a glimpse into the incredible time the unit had whilst visiting the city and all of the amazing Architecture it had to offer during our visit. Below is a schedule and some pictures that provide further details of our trip which took place from the 29th January  until the 2nd February 2015. We would like to thank all involved for their generosity and time.

  • Monday 2nd: Snow day in the city. Several snow fights occurred as students strolled through the city, enjoying the sights of ‘Tivoli’, ‘Christiansborg Palace’, ‘Børsen’, the ‘Danish Jewish Museum’ by Daniel Libeskind, ‘Det Kongelige Bibliotek (The Royal Library)’ which includes ‘The Black Diamond’ by Danish architects Schmidt Hammer Lassen, ‘Dome of Visions’ by Kristoffer Tejlgaard, ‘Frederik’s Church’ – which boasts the largest dome in Scandinavia, and also ‘The Little Mermaid’ by Edvard Eriksen. 
Pictures – Aslan Adnan, Toby Burgess, Esha Hashim, Vlad Ignatescu, Arthur Mamou-Mani and Joshua Potter.

2012-2013 DS10 Unit trip to Zurich and Lausanne

Below is our schedule and some pictures from DS10′s Unit Trip to Switzerland which took place from the 15th until the 18th November 2012. We would like to thank all the following people for their generosity.

-Thursday 15th: Visit of the ETH University’s CAAD groups. Presentations by Michael Hansmeyer and Benjamin Dillenberger, Ammar Mirjan of DFAB (Gramazio and Kolher) and Philippe Block of the Block Research Group. Party at Gonzo Club in Langstrasse.

– Friday 16th: Walk through the city and SPA day at the Thermalbald & Spa Zurich in the former Hürlimann Brewery designed by Althammer Hochuli.

-Saturday 17th:  Early train to Lausanne. Visit of the EPFL university Laboratory for Timber Constructions – IBOIS.  Presentations by Markus Hudert and Christopher Robeller.  Visit of the EPFL campus and workshops with Mitch Heynick.  Visit to the Rolex Learning Centre by SANAA.

Pictures by Dan Dodds, Luka Kreze, Phil Hurrel, Jake Alsop and Arthur Mamou-Mani.

Above: Presentation by Philippe Block of the Block Research Group

Above: MLK Jr. Park Stone Vault, Austin, TX, USA Project by the Block Research Group

Above: Ammar Mirjan of DFAB (Gramazio and Kolher) showing us the robotic facility

Above: Ammar Mirjan of DFAB (Gramazio and Kolher) showing us a brickwall assembled by a robotic arm.

Above: Presentation by Michael Hansmeyer and Benjamin Dillenberger

Above: Waterjet cut, Folded aluminium structure made by EPFL students.

Above: One of the IBOIS research structures with Markus Hudert

Above: Mitch Heynick showing us the Rolex Learning Centre by SANAA.

Above: Moustaches floating at the Thermalbald & Spa Zurich

Above: Emma Whitehead learning that the ETH campus is larger than expected.

Above: Freitag Recycled Shipping Container Store in Zurich

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Click on an image from Gallery below to view full size.

Unit Trip to Stuttgart, Germany

Below is our schedule and some pictures from DS10’s Unit Trip to Stuttgart which took place from the 4th until the 7th November 2011:

-Thursday 3rd: Visit of the Institute for Computational Design (ICD) by Prof. Achim Menges and lecture on the institute by the latter and Sean Alhquist.

– Friday 4th: Visit to the Baubotanik Structures with Daniel Schonle. Visit to the Mercedes Benz Museum by UN Studio. Visit to the Institute for Lightweight Structure (ILEK) with Christian Bergman. Party at the School of Architecture at the University of Stuttgart.

-Saturday 5th: Sleep. Visit to the Porsche Museum by Delugan Meissl. Relax at the Shwaben Quellen Spa. More Party.

-Sunday 6th: Visit to the Platanenkubus by and with Ferdinand Ludwig.

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Olympiapark München

These are photos from my trip to Munich Olympic Stadium, designed by Günter Behnisch and Frei Otto for the 1972 Olympic Games.

The trip included a walk up over the top of the lightweight cable-net roof structure of the main stadium.

The main drivers for the design of the event spaces were the desire to have a ‘green’ games, a compact games, and use the notion of transparency and light. The green element of the games is manifested in the fact that the stadium and other events spaces were set in a large expanse of newly created parkland [the site was previously an airfield related to the adjacent BMW factory]. The compact element came through in that the athletes were able to walk from their accommodation to all events except sailing.

The idea of transparency and light was born primarily out of two factors:

– A desire to have a set of venues that contrasted absolutely with the heavy monumental Nazi architecture of the 1936 Olympics

-The fact that the 1972 Olympics were the first to be broadcast using colour TV cameras, which took 8 seconds to adjust from shooting in sunlight to shooting in shade. The transparent roof of the stadium minimised the contrast between shaded and non-shaded areas, allowing continuous filming as the cameras panned around.

The structure itself is based on a cable net pulled into shape by cables attached to large hollow steel columns. These columns take so much compressive force that they have to rest on 35m deep concrete foundations. Protection from rain is the primary function of the roof over the stadium, and for this purpose it is covered in 4mm plexi-glass sheets.

As shown in the photos below, these are attached directly to the cable net grid by flexible neoprene connectors about 100mm long. The sheets are clamped along their edges to neoprene strips which create 100mm wide flexible movement joints connecting them to each other. The  plexi-glass sheets currently in use were put in during a refurbishment in 1994-99, and were taken up to the roof as 3m x 3m sheets which were then cut to size in-situ.

The thinness of the plexi-glass combined with the flexible movement joints allow the cladding to move as the structure moves with wind, snow and thermal expansion loading. The steel columns rest on rubber lined ball and socket joints, allowing them to move freely in every direction. The tops of the columns can move by up to around 1m with large snow loading. A demonstration of the flexible tensile nature of the roof came when we were told to jump up and down on the walkway running over it – the whole roof behaved like a trampoline, deflecting about 200-300mm vertically as we jumped.

The swimming pool is the only enclosed building that I photographed the interior of. Also on the site is the indoor arena. The interior space is defined by a tensile membrane that hangs about 1m below the cable net. The walls are made from curtain walling supported by exterior space-frames. The connection between the membrane roof and the curtain walling needs to be flexible enough to take up the movement of the cable net, and is provided by an ETFE cushion.

 

Unit Trip

Here are some links to look at before our Unit Trip to Germany:

STUTTGART

ILEK – Institue for Lightweight Structures 

http://www.uni-stuttgart.de/ilek/

ICD – Institute for Computational Design

http://icd.uni-stuttgart.de/?cat=6

BOTANICAL STRUCTURES (Ferdinand Ludwig):

A video on Botanic Structures: http://mediacenter.dw-world.de/english/video/#!/251283/Plant_Pavilion

 The Mercedes Benz Museum by UN STUDIO:


MUNICH
Frei Otto’s Olympic Stadium